<![CDATA[What lockdown life is like for Singapore poet Alfian Sa'at and Malaysia performer Sean Ghazi]>

Sean Ghazi is an actor, dancer and singer. Following a successful stint on London's West End, Ghazi returned to his native Malaysia and has appeared in musicals in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore including P Ramlee The Musical (Enfiniti Vision Media), La Cage Aux Follies (Wild Rice) and Urinetown: The Musical (Pangdemonium). He runs Baby Grand Productions, a small production company, and is also the artistic director of the live entertainment venue Bobo KL.

Alfian Sa'at is a poet, essayist and resident playwright of theatre company Wild Rice. One of Singapore's most acclaimed and prolific artists, his works include the poetry collection One Fierce Hour and the plays Cooling Off Day, Hotel and Tiger of Malaya. Interview by Ken Kwek.

How have you spent your days in lockdown? Has it been a difficult or frustrating experience?

Sean Ghazi: The days seem to be blending into one another. My days seem to consist of pet care and the planning of future shows " all of which are accompanied by question marks. Then there are meals and a bit of exercise, or rather the idea of exercise followed by 'tomorrow lah'. I have been experimenting with cooking and baking. For my birthday two weeks ago, I had a Zoom celebration with my brothers' families in KL and Singapore. We all baked separate cakes and I watched my five nieces blow out candles for me on a screen. It was bittersweet, but that's how things are at the moment. I'm thankful for today's technology.

Security and police officers are seen outside a virus-hit workers' dormitory in Singapore earlier this month. Photo: Reuters

Alfian Sa'at: As a writer, I'm quite used to working from home. The difference now is that staying at home is mandated, so what used to be a matter of choice now feels coercive. With the lockdown, the police state is made manifest, with enforcers patrolling public spaces and issuing S$300 (US$210) fines for violations. I've been doing a lot of reading and actually watching a lot of plays which have been released online. I'm very thankful that some theatres in Germany have released recordings of their plays, many of them with English subtitles. These are plays that I would not have otherwise been able to watch because it's much more difficult for plays to tour, compared to films. There's an interesting tension as the world goes into lockdown " in our respective isolation some of us find ourselves making connections with distant cultures. Remote intimacies are possible. As for my own writing, there's an uncertainty that hovers over the page. I find that deadlines become this fluid thing. The word 'indefinite' haunts our days. I write not knowing whether we'll return to normalcy by the end of the year, and the writing becomes this act of hope.

Sean, assuming theatres are closed for the rest of the year, how difficult will it be to keep Bobo KL running without financial help from private or public funds?

SG: Bobo KL employs a total of about twelve staff, including artist management personnel, ticketing and wait staff. We're fighting to keep all our employees but it's not looking great, to be honest. We're already running on a tight budget and are dependent on at least 70 per cent turnout for our live shows to stay afloat. Since the movement control order, we've already had to reduce some of the staff's pay by about 30 per cent. The longer the MCO is enforced, the more likely we're going to have to face even harder decisions. For now, I'm at least grateful that Bobo's partners have agreed to pay performers a flat rate in the event of cancelled performances. That means something in this climate.

An soldier wearing a face mask holds a machine gun as he guards a building under lockdown in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday. Photo: AP

What is the worst thing to happen to theatre practitioners in the Covid crisis? I hesitate to ask, but is there any silver lining? 

AS: The worst thing is of course the loss of jobs by so many freelancers " not just actors but also crew.

SG: Definitely lost income, but also the magic of live events, and the joy of communing with others. There have been days when I've wondered if we're ever going to have concerts or sports events again, to see full houses in theatres again.

AS: As for silver linings, I have to be very circumspect about it, as I'm in a position of privilege. I'm not a freelancer, but am working full time with a company committed to taking care of its staff. So I can only talk about silver linings in relation to myself. And I think for me this enforced pause is a time to reflect on our practice and catch up on what our peers are doing.

Alfian Sa'at. Photo: Handout

Sometimes I feel we're on a production treadmill " for many major companies it means putting up around four plays each season. And that means we don't get to spend much time watching others' plays. Another silver lining is that arts groups are rallying together in response to the crisis, whereas in the past I'd describe relations between groups as friendly rivalries.

SG: I think that there is a slight shift in the perceived value of art and music. In Malaysia we've always taken a view that art is a 'non-essential' thing, but I think that is very slowly changing. If nothing else, this crisis has shown me the value of what we as artists do. I know that businesses and entrepreneurs are looking to 'pivot' at this time. But what does a pivot look like to a singer, a musician, a dancer or an actor? The live exchange between artist and audience is the very core of what we do. Perhaps this temporary loss of art has demonstrated just how much we need it in our lives. Perhaps we'll learn to better appreciate the value of art and artists in this time of lack, that music and theatre will have a place alongside all the other things we hold dear in our lives.

Sean Ghazi performing live. Photo: Handout

Has there been enough public sector support for your industry and individual artists during this difficult time?

AS: The National Arts Council [of Singapore] has some funds available for artists who want to upgrade by taking courses. The issue I have with this is that many potential applicants won't conform to certain 'credentialist' tracks. Many good artists didn't study in art school, and many who studied in art school didn't necessarily become good artists. I know many self-taught artists for whom taking those courses would merely mean going through the motions to get a certificate. The NAC is also providing funds for artists to digitalise their work, and again I'm a bit sceptical about moving our works online. My sense is that this rush to put works online is a stopgap measure and a reflection of the anxiety of some artists to establish a presence even as the theatres go dark. But I don't see virtual environments as being a satisfactory replacement for live environments where actual bodies gather and interact. So I don't see digitalisation as nudging theatre towards its future, I see it as responding to urgencies of the present.

SG: We have the Cultural Economy Development Agency (Cendana) and they are trying to do the right thing. In the past they've organised events like Riuh In the City, a monthly community event in Bangsar. But Cendana's initiatives tend to be small and have a "campus vibe" " they need to scale up and provide greater resources for more impactful and meaningful support. In the current crisis, they've launched a Create Now Funding Programme. This provides immediate response grants of 1,500 ringgit (US$343) per artist or 3,500 ringgit per company. It's a small amount but, like I said, it's well-meaning. It's income relief.

In your view, has the Covid-19 situation produced any new problems or revealed latent problems in your industry?

SG: I think it's just revealed more cracks in the same old, never-changing structure in Malaysia. Now, more than ever, is when we might have benefited from having our own National Arts Council. Without greater support and efforts to change the mindset of the population, we will always occupy a low place in the national hierarchy of needs.

AS: One problem the crisis has definitely exposed in Singapore is how the current system is unable to capture proper data on arts freelancers, as they don't necessarily fit existing categories such as 'full time' or 'part time' employees. You can work on a project 'full time', for example, or juggle a few 'part time' projects. That's something for the Ministry of Manpower to look into, because obviously it hasn't caught up with the shifting forms of labour in what is increasingly becoming a gig economy. I also think that many arts freelancers are now caught in a bind. Some of them have been living 'off the grid', in the sense that they have not made contributions into the national forced savings scheme, because they have been living from pay cheque to pay cheque. But they are now realising that to qualify for the government's relief packages, they have to register themselves and therefore become incorporated into certain state systems such as the Central Provident Fund and tax schemes.

Alfian Sa'at thinks the coronavirus has exposed how Singapore society fails its migrant workers. Photo: Reuters

As a playwright, Alfian, are there any specific issues that you feel need to be looked at more urgently now, stories that need to be told in the wake of the pandemic?

AS: I think what's happening now is that all the cracks that we suspected existed in Singapore society are [being] pried wide open. And one of them is how we have been treating our migrant workers " providing them with substandard food and housing, for example, and with very little public pressure for this to be remedied. Migrant workers have always been a statistic in Singapore " abstract, anonymous, remote " but now with the number who are getting infected they have suddenly become statistics that matter. Singapore society really needs to reckon with how we have failed our migrant workers, and our complicity in their exploitation. And I hope that we seize this opportunity to take a long hard look at how we can do right by them.

As a performer, Sean, how do you think the arts and entertainment industry in Malaysia will change post-pandemic? Do you hope to see any changes in policy or practice?

SG: Any change in arts policy is going to depend on a younger new generation of government leaders, who can recognise the breadth and depth of talent among Malaysian artists. Only when this new generation takes over might we see policies like those adopted by our South Korean neighbours, whose leaders decided over a decade ago that it was worth investing in Korean pop music and film. I believe there are future Oscar winners and world-class performers among us, but it takes a village, it takes a country. I do believe in the resilience and perseverance of Malaysian artists and if there's anything that Covid-19 will leave us with, it's a reminder of the value of our contribution to the richness of Malaysian culture and society.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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