Theatre
Bukan Lalang Ditiup Angin
Not translated into English
Noordin Hassan · 1970
Synopsis
It is not the grass that bends in the wind: in a poor village, workers of the land try to stand up against the exploitation they suffer, but their struggle, divided, advances without direction; where rain was expected, only the wind in the grasses can be heard. The episodes follow one another like tableaux, in a poetic language mixed with pantun, songs and proverbs.
Context
The play was first staged in 1970 at Sultan Idris College in Tanjung Malim, the first performance given there after the violence of May 1969, then revived at the Balai Budaya of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, in Kuala Lumpur, in a production by the author. It abandons the rules of realist drama for a surrealist atmosphere into which boria, music and proverbs enter, and evokes the crisis of 1969 only through symbols, so much so that many spectators did not see the allusion. The text appeared in 1979 from the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, with two other plays by the author.
Who it is for
A play in Malay, made of images and songs more than of plot, which asks the reader to decipher its symbols; it exists neither in French nor in English.
Prizes and reception
Prize for literary works of 1972; regarded as the play that opens contemporary theatre in Malaysia.
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