This was meant to be published yesterday, but after gallivanting around with le Paul, I was rather tired, and almost immediately fell sleep until the next day.

I managed to score myself two free tickets to go watch Tunku the Musical, courtesy of YTL. I invited FA for the Saturday matinée, and we managed to reach KLPac ‘on time’. Phew, would hate to see the tickets go to waste.

At the start of the show, Joe Hasham, Malaysian performing arts extraordinaire stood up to apologise for Tony Eusoff not being able to perform in this second staging of the musical. The latter had been hospitalised for acute appendicitis, and was in no way near fit to sing for us. Nevertheless the show must go on, and thus the musical was amended and improvised to mask the lack of another leading role. I was happy that they did not choose to shut down production immediately, but after the show I couldn’t help but to wonder what it would be like if Tony Eusoff was there. For someone who has never seen the show before, Eusoff’s appearance was missed.

But it was a rather spectacular performance, in the sense that I was truly awed by the songs, the singing, the backdrop, the lighting and the costumes. The only part that I wasn’t impressed with, and unfortunately it was a pivotal part was the storyline. When you watch Cats, you’d expect to see performers dressed as furballs running around the stage mimicking the meowing of cats, and rightly so. When it comes to The Lion King, I guess you’d been influenced by the cartoon of the same title to anticipate a lion’s coming of age. In the same way, you wouldn’t be misled by The Phantom Of The Opera, or even Puteri Gunung Ledang: The Musical. So it was rather baffling for someone like me, who cannot in anyway be misconstrued as a musical aficionado nor be lacking in appreciation for them, to sit through two acts spanning nearly 2 hours of wondering, “What has this really got to do with our first Prime Minister?” Maybe ‘Merdeka: The Stories After’ would have served their purpose better.

Tunku the Musical opened with Douglas Lim as a reporter going around asking various people dressed in local garbs what they felt about Merdeka, and if they would rather be back under the British. There was a moment that I really liked — the part where a sole man sang ‘God Save The Queen’ only to be drowned out by a melodious, chorus of ‘Negarakuku‘. Then it was 1965 with the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. In between, we learnt that Tunku’s favourite laksa was Chinese laksa rather than Malay laksa, and that a fictitious political aide to Tunku called Tuan Syed forbade his son, Malik’s romance with a young Chinese-born lady bred in a Malay household. And that the fictitious Tuan Syed had a non-Malay mistress and subsequently broke her heart by denying any kinship when asked by the press.

(But did you know that Tunku’s wives were (in order of marriage): Chinese/Thai, English, Malay, Chinese? Erm, does it matter? Lolz.)

Then it was 1969, dubbed the blackest year of Malaysian history. You all know what I mean. Scenes of political voting, Malik’s lover being raped, Malik being killed (very Romeo and Juliet-esque), then the final chorus performance of hoping that Malaysians will be truly colour-blind in the next 50 years to come. The end. Abrupt? I thought so too. Good intentions, people but I wasn’t sold. Too many potholes in the ‘jalan cerita’, too many questions that need to be answered (heck, I didn’t know Tuan Syed was a figment of their imaginations until I googled for it later), and in short, too idealistic like building castles in the sky without Jack’s beanstalk. Not to take anything away from the cast and crew, because like I said earlier, I enjoyed the songs, singing and such, but somehow one couldn’t help but to feel let down by the promise of a musical with said title. Abstractly I suppose it refers to Tunku’s vision of a united Malaysia, but perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if there were less hazy references to Tunku.

Maybe it’s just me lah :)

But one thing that was on my mind throughout the musical was, “erm, where are the bits that referred to, or even acknowledges Sabah and Sarawak joining Malaya in 1963 to become Malaysia?” Sorry Borneo folks, you don’t even count in a musical, lolz.

Talking about racial harmony, I guess you would have to live in Sabah and Sarawak to find out and appreciate the whole colour-blind communities they have going on there. It is only when they arrive in Peninsular Malaysia when they learn that the South China Sea is not the only thing that separates East and West Malaysia. Especially if you look like Erna, who doesn’t ethnically look like anything in the ‘tiga bangsa’, who frequently gets stopped by the police because they thought she was ‘pendatang haram’. It makes for funny stories and laughter over teh tarik, but in reality it’s rather sad lah. All the more Sabahans and Sarawakians feel less welcome than Indonesian migrants.

So, colour-blind in 50 years to come? Good luck lah.

Happy 44th birthday, Malaysia. I (still) love you.