PATTERNS OF VISUALISATION IN CONTEMPORARY MALAYSIAN DRAMA

摘要

Nowadays, Malaysian drama displays a range of different approaches, chosen by the playwrights in their effort to visualise their message on stage. To reach this goal, they have to create a balance between the written text and visually perceived elements. In this respect, the work of two national laureates, A. Samad Said and Noordin Hassan, appears to be rather illustrative. Making successful contributions to virtually all literary genres, A. Samad Said is particularly known as a novelist who takes great care to depict a certain epoch as realistically and precisely as possible. This realism is achieved through elaborate descriptions and carefully chosen details aimed at typification, combined in his dramatic writings with lengthy author's remarks and stage directions. For Samad, it is the text that functions as the main means of making his plot and images literally be seen by readers, producers and spectators. Noordin Hassan's main creative realm is drama, and he adheres to the concept of the 'theatre of faith', interpreting the process of creation, staging and performance of a play as a religious act. Due to the intuitive nature of religious experience, Noordin's oeuvre lays considerable stress upon abstract, symbolic, and inexplicit components of presentation, incorporating a great deal of extra-textual devices that are perceived mostly or solely visually. Here he fruitfully exploits the treasury of traditional theatrical forms, especially bangsawan. It appears that both literati pursue one and the same goal of visualisation, doing it in accordance with the artistic methods they adhere to: profoundly realistic in the case of A. Samad Said and highly symbolic in the case of Noordin Hassan.