By Rosheen Fatima

Mark Beau de Silva, recently nominated for two BOH Cameronian awards for Best Original Script, will see two of his plays staged this month, ‘Belacan Geragok and Other Prawns’ and ‘Bottom Top’. Rosheen Fatima briefly catches up with the busy Playwright, actor and KLPac’s Director and Writer in Residence for a quick chat.

Tell us a little bit about the artist residency programme you were selected for at the Hooyong Performing Arts Centre in Korea.
The programme begins in August and is three months long. I was one of eight individuals selected. My proposal was called ‘Yellow Skin’; I was thinking of something that tied all Asians together and the fact that we have all been colonized is something that I want to talk about. We always talk about how Malaysians feel post-colonisation and I was wondering if that was something that is shared by other Asians also. At the end of the residency, I have to present something, so I want to do something which the Koreans are able to identify with. I hope that after I perform there, I will be able to bring back the script that I devised with the actors there and do it with the actors here.

How do you feel about the two BOH Cameronian nominations you received for ‘Bottom Top’ and ‘Oh My God’?
I really didn’t expect a nomination, I know people say that (laughs). It’s funny for me because the longer I stay in the industry, the harder it is for me to write a script. In the past I had always written from experience, ‘Oh My God’ was a different style, where a lot of the stories come from the actors themselves. I’ve always felt in the past that I’ve been selfish in a way, to always write my stories, experiences and how I feel. Now I get the lives of my actors in the script and I like that because I feel like I’m the person to bring it all together. The nomination for ‘Oh My God’, was a validation that, ‘hey, this could work’, which motivates me to continue until I feel like it’s too comfortable and then I change my style again. ‘Bottom Top’ is very personal, it’s always very squeamish to talk about it. You express a lot of pain on stage; ‘Bottom Top’ was not as painful as the other two. But when you get a nomination and are happy, then you think ‘At whose expense?’ Because in the previous two I talked about my grandmother who died and all the abuse that happened in my family, a nomination is a celebration, but should I celebrate? I know I should not think like that, but it’s my story and it’s very hard to detach from it.

What is ‘Belacan Geragok…’ about? And how did the creative process differ from the last two plays under KLPac’s Community Writing Project?
I wanted to talk about the Bumiputera issue, not for the Malays but for the Portuguese. When we did the first reading, the audience felt like the Malay dilemma was underplayed, then at the workshop performance the Malay issues seemed to overshadow the Portuguese ones (laughs). We also added in a love story between two people, so it’s more accessible to the general audience, they will see the love story between two people trying to play house and facing everyday issues couples face when making a life together. That was my first time doing an open workshop performance where anybody can come and critic the play. The audience gave us feedback which helped us evaluate our work, confirming some of the thoughts we had about the play. Then we can went back to the drawing board and started again. I want to improve on this model. It’s not a new model, many companies do this, but it’s something very new for me.