Est modus in rebus

 [This is a continuation from Kat Tales - Breakfast & Updates ..]

In Penang, 26-27th July 2009

 

. . .

It was around 11-ish in the morning still,

and the show was still hours away.

Kat said we were going to the theatre anyway

because she would be in another dance

performance soon and wanted to try some

ideas in the space. “Sorry you’ll have to just bear

with me lah,” she said.

I told her, in no uncertain terms, to shut up lah and

stop saying sorry because I was memang there to spend time with her.

We entered the USM compound, all lovely and very residential looking

compared to other university campuses.

Most university campuses I’ve been to mostly look

a little cold and detached as a whole, the buildings all separated from each other,

looking rather unwelcoming.

It’s like the collection of buildings

operate as strangers awkwardly holding hands, rather than

beckoning students with warmth and synergy.

The USM campus’ biggest plus?

It has these lovely giant trees,

with massive surfacing roots outstretched,

trunks thick and knobbly, and with voluminous

crowns of branches and leaves that lace the sun.

The type of trees that beg to be stared at and touched.

But more of that later.

 

 

Kat introduces me to Panggung Sasaran.

She described it earlier to me as historic, the first black box theatre in the country.

I had imagined this old beautiful theatre,

with stained walls, bricks or aged wood,

but this was not the vision that greeted me when we stepped

out of the car.

I saw the words ‘Panggung Sasaran’ spelled out on this curious

white little building trying desperately to look like a

piece of ancient Europe.

Truth be told, I looked at it, with its white Greco Roman columns

and vented front portion, and thought to myself “Err…this is it?”

I was to find out later that many were displeased

by the Panggung’s ‘new’ exterior look.

 

 

We went in and the theatre’s interior

was definitely more pleasing than its outward uniform.

It was all seductively black, brown, soft and dark inside.

As Kat readied herself to practise her dance, I went

adventuring all around the nooks and crannies of

the theatre.

 

 

According to Kat, the crew had done a little

bit of cleaning up, but the theatre was still in rather bad shape.

True enough, certain spaces in the rooms and the back areas

looked like unkempt storage areas. It was rather dusty, and one

could tell that the theatre had seen better days.

However I fell in love with some of its oddities — pieces of

cellotape which stuck haphazardly on the wall,

clumps of staples punched into door arches, the determined

blackness of its walls, wires and switches.

 

 

Sometimes when I travel I urge my travel mates

on with the word “Menghayati”. I think I may be a little

annoying because I repeat “Eh, have to ‘Menghayati’,

okay? Menghayaaatiiii…” And then I sit on a rock slab and

just stare or I touch a wall for ages.

Certain places are wonderful for that.

Like the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey,

or the walls of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

But a place like Panggung can just be as wonderful

to Menghayati. Its walls, its scratched wooden floors, its

messy ensemble of ceiling lights and beams, even its dirty

sinks. I was going to remove bits of rubbish from the sinks

before taking pictures, but then I realised they seem

to look rather pretty there too, somehow.

 

And then, just as I was about to take more pictures,

Kat starts to dance.

I pause. And smile.

And I watch.

 

[ To be continued in Kat Tales ... ]