The life of an artist is about scraping by

HARIRY Jalil is a theatre man. A writer, director and actor, his interests lie in creating political and contemporary works in the Malaysian context.

Of course, none of his productions have ever made money. Most often, money is lost.

He graduated from Malaysia’s foremost performing arts school – Akademi Seni Kebangsaan (ASK), now known as Aswara, in 2003.

It is the only institute of higher learning geared towards developing the talents of Malaysian performing artists that is fully funded by the Government.

Out of a batch of nine creative writing students, Hariry thinks he may be the only one still heavily involved in the independent theatre scene.

Most who graduate in this field try for a while, and then give up, he says; in fact there was a time he almost did that, too.

It was his very first independent project. He had spent three months writing Saksi, a Malay-language play which is an alternative take on the story of Hang Tuah.

His team put their own money into it, and even managed to get the venue – a hall within Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka – rent-free. But still, it was staged at a loss.

After all that hard work, losing money proved more than a little demotivating for Hariry: “I just thought, what’s the point?”

He didn’t give up, however. After an eight-year hiatus from writing and directing plays, a period he filled with acting, prop design and copywriting jobs, Hariry has had a recent burst of creativity. He staged and directed four of his own scripts within the last year or so.

With his wife Siti Nurbaya, who is also a thespian, he co-founded a theatre production company called Negeri Samudra Theatre Co, which they use to produce shows – not that doing so has made things any easier.

At least having a steady income helps provide some security for the family. Siti Nurbaya juggles motherhood and a full-time job as publicist at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, alongside all their theatrical extracurricular work.

“Sometimes people ask me: if theatre is so tough, why don’t you just quit?” she says.

After all, with a Masters in engineering, she could easily go back to having a lucrative career in the corporate sector. Her need to find a creative outlet was, however, partly why she opted out of such a career in the first place.

Her answer to any question about quitting the theatre is simply: “If people like me didn’t do theatre, then we wouldn’t have any theatre!”