A journey into relationships

Eighteen students put on a showcase of three short films and a theatre performance for their final-year university project.

YOUR passport is one of your most valuable possessions.

As a means of identification, it provides vital information about you to others — your name, your birthday, your place of birth.

Without it, travelling would be impossible, since it alone allows you valid entry and exit to places.

More than just a paper document, your passport acts as your metaphorical gateway to explore and discover the new and the foreign.

With this in mind, the senior class of Sunway University’s Diploma in Performing Arts named its final-year project, a showcase of three short films and a theatre performance, just that: Passport.

“We’ve called it Passport with the idea that our showcase brings the audience on a journey through different stories and performing styles,” explains Yesmine Mak, one of the 18 students collectively known as dpa eleven production.

A journey where, if the showcase’s tagline is anything to go by, “there are no limits”.

The students themselves have been on an extensive journey: From January, their almost five months of hard work culminated last weekend with four public performances at the Roof Top Theatre, a black-box studio space on campus.

Keeping to a tight schedule, the films were shot for a month at various locations around Kuala Lumpur from early February, after which the group concentrated entirely on the theatre effort.

The process of shooting and editing the films and then devising and rehearsing the performance saw the students clocking in on average up to 10-hour days.

“It’s true that while working on this showcase, everything else in our lives takes a backseat, because we’re here 100% of the time. And we basically know each other inside-out now,” says Aubrey Carlos.

“That’s probably for the best,” adds Yiky Chew. “We really understand one another as a group and that helps a lot during the working process.”

The showcase begins with the screening of the three short films, each no more than 15 minutes long.

Dual, a Cantonese film, tells the story of two police investigators tracking down a drug lord.

“I drew my ideas from Hong Kong police films, which I like a lot, so while there is action, there is also comedy,” explains Er-vinn Siew, who wrote and directed the film.

Abang follows two friends in the underground drug scene of Kuala Lumpur as they discover the nature of brotherhood.

“I wanted to show a darker side to contemporary KL that exists,” says writer and director Ali Alasri, who draws from the filmmaking style of Quentin Tarantino.

In Diri, written and directed by Sharifah Aleysha Al-Yahya, a young girl seeks closure from her older sister’s suicide.

“I come from a family of four sisters and it was quite interesting to think about what would happen if one of us was missing from the equation,” she says.

At the core of the three short films is the running theme of relationships, between work partners, best friends and sisters, and this continues into the theatre performance as well.

The hour-long self-devised piece is actually a collection of nine shorter pieces, tied together by transitions so that they flow into each other.

“From our early devising stages, we narrowed down five areas that we wanted to explore the most: relationships that don’t matter, old folks home, gender bias, night time dreams and modernising Malaysia,” explains Robin Khor.

The end result is a mélange of different theatre styles, from abstract to real, all creating different moods for the audience to experience, from scary to dark to funny.

For example, whilst one piece, White Tower, is a slightly tense existential exploration between two men, in Blind Date, four sharply dressed dating gurus provide a step-by-step humourous guide for guys who find themselves in that situation.

As with any theatre performance, the actors were supported by the technical elements of lighting (designed by Vibeishwaran Parameswaran), sound (designed by Andrea Chong) and set (designed by Darren Ong, Darren Lou and Jack Liew).

Particularly interesting was the use of a backlit screen to create silhouettes, but for the most part, technicalities were kept to a minimum, and this extended also to the costumes.

“Mostly we are wearing plain white or plain black but we included simple additions to this basic palette where we felt it would bring the story forward,” says Inez Caryan Eng from the costume department.

As a fully self-produced showcase, the group was merely guided by their lecturers Mark Teh and Brenda Danker, making every executive creative decision as well as single-handedly managing the project between them.

This meant that, on the film sets and in the theatre, each student took on multiple production roles.

Lakshana Subramaniam, for example, was the assistant director for Diri and the stage manager for the theatre performance, which she describes as two very different roles.

“As an assistant director, I am responsible for drawing up the shooting schedule and I liaise with the actors and the other departments. As a stage manager, I sort of act as the mother, overseeing that all the departments keep to their deadlines and have everything in order.”

While Mervyn Raj was the production designer for Abang and Yap Ming Long was the editor for Dual, together they made the front-of-house team for the theatre performance.

“We really did get a 360-degree experience,” reflects Andrea. “Personally I still like both disciplines equally. They are both in the business of telling stories, their only difference is in how they tell them.”

With Passport now done and dusted, what is in store next for the group?

“After this we’ll be doing our 12-week internships and I’m hoping to be attached to a film production company,” explains Angeline Ang.

“And then we’re off into the big, bad world,” says Woon Siew Yin.

One thing for sure is that while the students of dpa eleven production near the end of their university journey, with a major production under their belts, they can confidently continue their journey into the world of the arts.