Teater Ekamatra’s A Clockwork Orange: In Conversation
Teater Ekamatra’s A Clockwork Orange is a Malay adaptation that draws from Anthony Burgess’ original 1962 novel and Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film, both of the same name. The play tells the story of Al, a young male living in a dystopian society where violence is rampant, as he commits crimes under the influence of drug-laced milk and adrenaline and is eventually sent to prison. There he undergoes a new kind of treatment meant to saturate criminals’ minds with images of gore and violence, instilling in them a deep fear of themselves and their actions. Al eventually returns to his old ways, and the play leaves open the conclusion on whether it is better to create a peaceful society of tame, lifeless and oppressed individuals, or allow it to run wild by allowing humans to be who they are in their nature. The following is a review of the 26th September show.
Ariane: I went into this show having read only the plot summary of Burgess’ novel and about three pages. I was aware of the Kubrick film but had not watched it as some friends described it as being very graphically violent and disturbing, and I have a very low gore tolerance. So it’s safe to say that I was rather apprehensive going into this show, wondering how violent and gory it would be (also given the content warnings posted in the middle of the show’s run). There was also a warning that audience members sitting right in front of the stage might be subject to strobe lights, water and partially-nude actors. Upon entering the space, we found that the stage branched off from the middle section into four sections on each side, with a catwalk connecting the four sections. In other words, almost anywhere you sat was right in front of or next to the stage. The actors did present the violence effectively, with animal-head masks, loud howling and yelling and very explicit gestures of sexual and physical violence, which treaded the thin boundary between disturbing and traumatic without crossing too far. What made me avert my eyes was the infamous scene of Al, the central character, being brainwashed by scenes of violence and gore. Let me reiterate, I have a very, very low gore tolerance, and so I quickly ducked my head and chose not to look. However, Al’s thoughts continued to play in a voiceover and, not being able to understand Malay, I was forced to look back up at the screen to read the surtitles. This was perhaps done on purpose, to force the non-Malay speaking audience to confront the horrifying images, while Malay-speaking audience members could choose to close their eyes completely and ignore the violence. I wonder if this was done to subvert the general power dynamics in Singapore, to put the minority race in a position of power that the majority races do not get to experience, simply for not being able to understand Malay (which is, ironically, our national language and so technically everyone should be able to understand it). Those are my thoughts for now.
Rose: I agree with those power dynamics. Often, I found myself having to choose between reading the English surtitles on screen or watch the action that was happening on stage which definitely impeded my enjoyment of the play. At times, the actors on stage would block my view of the screen and I would be left feeling helpless as to what was going on. It was an interesting dynamic as I observed many audience members facing the same problem as me while the people who understood Malay in the audience were enjoying the play effortlessly. Speaking of observing the audience, Clockwork Orange had an intriguing stage design which had the audience seated at the corners of the room and around the stage (almost like an arena stage). I found myself frequently looking over at members seated across from me to measure their reactions to scenes. I felt like watching various reactions across from me was part of the spectacle of the play and it was interesting to observe the different responses. One thing I noticed was that those who understood Malay would sometimes laugh at dialogue that did not seem funny to others, it occurred to me that there could be nuances in language that are untranslatable. Nonetheless, the struggle to understand dialogue and keep up with the spectacle on stage left me feeling uncomfortable and helpless as an audience member.
Xin Ying: I definitely also caught myself studying the other audience members, trying to gauge what an ‘appropriate’ reaction would be. I mean, this is Clockwork Orange — gore, violence and all — but everything about this production seemed so… well-made? Everything from the set design, to the acting, to the multimedia, etc. I found myself so repulsed yet so enthralled at the same time, I really didn’t know how to react. It makes me think about violence — or more generally, morals — as a social construct that evolves with the community we are immersed in. And also of the idea of wanting to fit in or follow the crowd. I remember at one point feeling chills down my spine — when the audience lights came on and the doctor was presenting Al’s transformation as the result of her successful experiment, I heard enthusiastic clapping from all around me in the audience seats. Because of where I was sitting, my view was slightly obstructed and it took me a while to realise that the other actors have entered and are clapping amongst the audience. The discomfort came not just from the gore that we are forced to see on the screen as we read the surtitles, but also from how the set design deliberately pulls the audience members into the story world such that the violence happens right before our eyes and almost close enough to touch.
Ariane: Oh yeah, and another thing about the surtitles and power dynamics: there were times when the surtitles didn’t catch up with the speech, and I’m not sure if some lines were deliberately left untranslated, or if they were simply skipped over because the stage action had gone too far. E.g. in the scene where the other three droogs were telling Al about a house they had scoped out, they talked about the silver and valuables in the house, which implied that they had the intention of burglarizing the house. However they also mentioned that the house had a “perempuan-perempuan” and “kucing”, which were left out of the surtitles (from my limited understanding of Malay, I picked this out to mean that the house was mostly empty except for the women in the house and the pet cat). Was this omission deliberate? Knowing their propensity for sexual violence, knowing that there were unarmed women in the house would suggest that they had much more sinister intentions, which Al eventually carries out by raping and killing the woman. @Rose That’s definitely another level of text that we’re missing out on, the nuances of the language used that cannot be directly translated. Or that the translations would be in formal language, while the spoken Malay used might have been informal and hence have different connotations. @Xin Ying Right! There’s a lot more to focus on other than the language being unfamiliar to us, but it plays such a huge part in meaning-making that it significantly alters what we focus on when watching the play. Creates this feeling of insecurity that because we don’t understand the spoken language, we have to model our reactions off the audience members who do. During that part I also found myself wondering if audience members were the ones clapping, and should I be clapping too? It doesn’t seem like a moment for cheering though? What’s going on??
Xin Ying: Yes!! It scares me to think that, at that moment, I had an impulse to clap along even though I felt it was clearly unethical. I also noticed a few heads turning in the audience in search of the source of the clapping.
Rose: You’ve brought up a good point Xin Ying! Clockwork Orange highlighted so many problematic issues with each character that I found myself ultimately not rooting for anybody. Should I clap here? Which character should I be supporting? Sure, there were times where I’d root for Al since we got to see his inner thoughts and his willingness to change. Yet, I found myself questioning whether I would still root for him if the story was told from another perspective, or as his victims as the main protagonists. Probably not. These thoughts made me feel disturbed as I watched Al being forced to transform into a ‘morally good person’ through torturous experiments. Forcing Al through traumatising experiments was definitely unethical but leaving him to wreak havoc in society would also have not been morally okay either! I felt compassion for Al as he served his 14-year sentence and desired freedom so much. It was interesting to watch his costume change when entering prison; Al was stripped of his clothing and made to wear a transparent raincoat. It was as if Al had been stripped of everything, even his dignity. In these moments, I wanted Al to be released and have his freedom. Then my questions returned; should I really be feeling sympathy for Al? Yes, serving a 14-year sentence seemed torturous for Al, but he did kill and cause major trauma to his victims. I could not think of a solution to help any of the characters’ cases. It made me frustrated and disturbed with these questions swirling in my mind as I watched on.
Xin Ying: I guess in this sense, this production really made use of the liveness of theatre to elicit unease, uncertainty, and discomfort. ‘What to make of anything?’ — this is a question I find myself asking when thinking about Clockwork Orange. It’s so bleak, so existential. What is right or wrong? What is real or not? What do we really know? Some parts of the performance really struck me:
1. The power dynamics of each actor and character is ever-changing. Each actor plays at least one character in power over Al and one character bullied by Al. Al bullies the people around him, and then after his ‘treatment’ and release, the people around him bullied him back. The bullied become the bullies, the bullies become the bullied, and the power dynamics keep flipping back and forth.
2. What about ‘God’, or a higher being of unequivocal authority? The irreverence of the performance is discomforting — when singing praise for ‘God’, the lyrics appear on the screen in a cheesy video, much like those we see in KTVs. Al sings with his arms waving in the air, while the ‘pastor’ studies him with lustful eyes.
At the end of it all, Al overcomes the trauma from the treatment and goes back to who he used to be. What is the point of anything? And I wonder — why Clockwork Orange, adapted onto stage, translated into Melayu, performed in Singapore in 2019? I’m thinking of a quote that is repeated both in the programme booklet and the performance: ‘When a man ceases to have free will, they are no longer a man.’ And I remember Al being told that ‘the decision has been made for you (Al)’. Perhaps this production comes in the age of the new POFMA laws in Singapore?
Rose: What an apt quote, it is exactly free will that makes us human. Can we really take that away from someone? To forcefully change their ways? I doubt it. If Al wanted to turn over a new leaf, it would have to have been entirely his own choice — not by something that forcefully suppressed his immoral urges.
Ariane: I guess that’s the constant issue we face as human communities and societies, right? Is it better to have free will and chaos (or the potential for it), or control the individual in exchange for peace and safety? Will we even feel fully safe when people are being so highly controlled and almost engineered by the powers that be? I think what Teater Ekamatra did well was to heighten the sense of unease we get when we see how Al has become so submissive after his treatment, and that he has lost his past jauntiness and just everything that was inherently “Al” about him. To highlight to us that as much as we want safety and “justice” for crimes committed, we also don’t want the human race to be dumbed down and turned into lifeless drones. And especially not if a governing body is allowed to remain “normal” and in control of our lives, our actions and our will to live.
Exploring Theatre Criticism 