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In an age where some folks need to lie down with a wet towel on their foreheads after composing a postcard, the industry of Huzir Sulaiman should really be marvelled at. Monuments should be chiseled to it. He's written six (count 'em) stage productions over the past three years. And what have YOU done for me lately?

Being prolific ain't the least of it. He also directed most of the plays and found time to act in other stuff as well. This is well and good, this is going as it should. Huzir treats theatre as a genuine vocation rather than a few laughs in between money-making assignments. What's odd is that he belongs in a distinct minority.

You see, English-language theatre in this country is only beginning to recover from its roots as a cosy hobby for colonials bored and stunned by the tropics. Huzir seemed so freakish when he came back to Malaysia - after graduating from Princeton (all together now: "Coooo...") - because he was determined to not just do it but do it damn well.

This desire to not be a dilettante has paid off. Huzir's line-up as playwright now consists of Lazy Hazy Crazy , Atomic Jaya , The Smell of Language (the only one I missed), Hip-Hopera , Notes on Life & Love & Painting and the brand-new Election Day . All of them were staged at KL's Actors Studio Theatre, a venue lucky enough to be periodically patrolled from above by the FRU servicemen of Dataran Merdeka.

It's easy to forget that he first made a mark here by acting in a TV series called Bendul , which had that whole Mr.-Bean-if-Mr.-Bean-were-set-in-Malaysia- and-devoid-of-jokes thing going for it. But that's OK: James Cameron's first movie was called Piranha 2: Flying Killers , and he got over it.

In Election Day , Huzir plays three house-mates over a 24-hour span covering that fateful day. The house-mates are an Indian, a Chinese and a Malay. This of course gives ample space to his talent for racial caricature. (Although it must be said that the Malay, like the Malays in Atomic Jaya , seemed the least convincing). What's even more amazing is that Huzir manages to do all this without once getting up from his armchair. That's right: Go ahead and gasp.

The lines at their best are Wilde-witty, Stoppard-sharp. Real vents weave in and out of the dark-comedy plot, and it's a toss-up as to which is more fantastical. On the protracted ballot recounts in the Lembah Pantai area: "I think they have to keep counting until Shahrizat wins."

There are many jokes. It might seem amazing that a person as serious-looking as Huzir can be so funny on stage. But I think it's like that line from the Hollywood studio era: "Our comedies are not to be laughed at." Despite the jokes there's an underlying coldness to Election Day , manifest most blatantly in the cynical denouement. (One of the house-mates is revealed tobe an undercover policeman; he gets the other two arrested. A few of the reviews printed during the run spoiled everything by revealing the who and why).

Malaysian audiences like to laugh. They seem to demand it as some kind of constitutional right. It's no coincidence that Notes on Life & Love & Painting , his play which depended the least on caricature and comedy, happened to be the only one with poor houses. This is ruthlessly amended with Election Day : the short synopsis posted on the Actors Studio monthly programme makes sure to mention the word "comedy" twice, and audiences have to be beaten away with a stick.

They came to laugh. This is why the ending took a few people by surprise. It's like you want to hug this cute little kitten and it suddenly turns into a midget cheetah. But it took someone as terror-merror as Sherry Siebyll of Day & Night magazine to point out that there are several leitmotiv (of cat shit and stomach aches) to foreshadow that everything-is-rotten conclusion.

My favourite work of his is still Atomic Jaya , but the lean, mean Election Day is certainly the most well-constructed of Huzir's plays. It manages to place an Instant Caf-style satirical sensibility into a genuine dramatic structure.

But (and here I go, getting all mushy again) I'm starting to get skeptical about cynicism. Is there a limit to cold-blooded satire? When a certain warmth (and I don't mean the bimbo "feel-good" type) is missing, what are we left with? For all its technical brilliance, there is a Kubrickian detachment at work in Election Day right from the start. The good news, I suppose, is that this is intentional. After all, Huzir is starting to even bear a physical resemblance to the talented, obsessive but fundamentally mysterious Stanley K.

Election Day , starring Huzir Sulaiman and directed by Krishen Jit, was staged at the Actors Studio Theatre from Dec 9 to 19.

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