Theatre outfit Anomalist Production (Anomalist) has kickstarted a new online script writing project called Baton Writing, ending its one-year hiatus.
The project, which started on Feb 1, includes 20 writers (18 Malaysians, one Singaporean and one Indonesian) who will take turns to write a page each before passing it to the next writer the next day.
“Anomalist has always been a writer-based company. So at this time when Malaysians are not allowed to go to the theatres, we have time.
“And time is always an issue for a lot of writers. This is where the idea of having people come and join a writing gig with us came from, ” explains Khairi Anwar, Anomalist’s co-founder.
Baton Writing will run for 21 days, culminating in a virtual public reading session on Feb 28. Two more cycles of Baton Writing are slated to take place in March and April with new batches of writers.
Despite the extended movement control order (MCO) till Feb 18, Khairi feels this is the best time to create new work.
The enforcement of the MCO since Jan 13 has further crippled the performing arts community since recording activities and live streaming are also not allowed in areas under the MCO.
“When plays can't be staged, then plays need to be created. So that when the theatre can resume its ordinary business, we have new material in our hand, ready to be worked on and pushed forward.
“It's a hard time to be creative, the situation demotivates a lot of theatre makers, but we have to persevere. So we at Anomalist are trying to contribute our small part to keep the spark of the theatre scene alive, ” offers Khairi, 28.
Anomalist itself entered stop theatre work after four of its five offerings had to be shelved last year when the country went under lockdown.
“We are still sad that we had to cancel our biggest gig ever planned yet. We still want to push the four remaining main productions we had planned in 2020 to be staged this year, if the situation allows.
“But looking at the current trend of the pandemic in Malaysia, we are not putting high hopes in doing so, ” he says.
However, after being idle for nearly a year, Khairi says the Shah Alam-based Anomalist “didn’t want the creative process to stop, so we had to come out with something people can do from their own house. We wanted something that's more engaging.”
Each Baton Writing session will include one writer and one invigilator from Anomalist. Each writer is given five minutes to read each page that had been written by the previous writer. They are then given 30 minutes to continue the story before passing it on to another writer the next day.
Khairi says the end goal of the project is to “encourage more people to kickstart writing. A lot of writers that we know face problems to even start the first page. So the end goal is not to have a perfect script but to enjoy the process of writing a script.”
Anomalist currently has no plans to stage the new scripts. Under Baton Writing, Khairi says the contributors are “free to do whatever they want with the script.”
Currently, the Anomalist team is researching material for its IQ.Rock Trilogy. The critically acclaimed IQ.Rock, which was first staged in April 2018 at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre, shined the light on poor students in a Felda settlement.
Under the new project, Anomalist will be writing a prequel and sequel to the original play, hoping to stage the trilogy next year if funds are forthcoming.
“IQ.Rock Trilogy will be a story that studies and reveals Malaysia's education system, its goodness and flaws, and how we can create a better environment for our future leaders, ” concludes Khairi.
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