Theatre Review: Jiwo Jiro (Reviewed by Zafar Anjum)

Jiwo Jiro, which means zero soul in Malay, was staged on January 15-16, 2010 at the Esplanade Recital Studio as part of the Singapore Fringe Festival ’10. The play was directed by Najib Soiman who teaches arts in one of the polytechnics of Singapore.

The director later admitted that he wanted to introduce his poly students (in fact, students from two polys) to the real thrill of working on a real stage in front of a live audience. In hindsight, I think that was the best decision the director took about this play. The students and their zany energy, of course their moves choreographed by Najib, saved the show from teetering into complete wackiness.

The play intended to look at the frustrations and aspirations of a midget on a wheelchair—a young man who suffers from a debilitating disease. Trapped in a wheel-chair, the foul-mouthed midget feeds animals in the forest and sings. As expected, the villagers make fun of him.

In course of time, the midget invents an electronic bonsai tree. Through his invention, he wants to remedy the incapacity that nature has riddled him with. He wants his world to be merged with the power of the machines. The natural dream of a man who is physically challenged!

The play starts off well with the story of the midget and his lamentations against his maker and the world that he dwells in. However, after the introduction of the invention, the story moves into vertiginous territories. Coherence of storytelling gives way to incoherent chanting.  There comes a sex doll and she steals the show. There is office gossip and an episode of lighting a bulb. Then the sex doll conducts a cooking session. The play becomes more and more bizarre. However, the villagers, played by dozens of polytechnic students, keep the spirits of the play high.

That is basically what happens in Jiwo Jiro. I tried to follow the play by reading the sub-titles on a small screen on the wall. But the fog (smoke) effect on the stage was so thick and so frequent that I was not able to follow the dialogues all the time. Either the screen should be big enough or it should be placed out of the area of fog on the stage.

I think apart from questioning the laws of nature, the play also had an important message to convey: that even if you are handicapped in some ways, you can change your situation by working on it. For that, the first thing to change is one’s mindset. Learn from those who have achieved success and you too can become successful—perhaps that is one of the messages that Najib wanted to convey to his audience.

The audience mainly comprised of Malay families and they seemed to enjoy all the jokes. They seemed to enjoy the ride on this merry-go-round of a play. I wish I knew Malay to fully relish the bizarre intricacies of Najib’s dialogues.

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