Suatukala invites you to wedding banquet - retelling a Langkawi tale

Langkawi is an island full of interesting tales and legends. One of them is the legend of Mat Chinchang and Mat Raya, or how two of the island’s highest peaks got their names.

This story gets a fresh re-telling with “Walimatulurus - The Wedding Banquet”, an immersive dinner theatre production by Suatukala that will debut in Langkawi on Dec 9 and 10, 2022.

The show will be headlined by well-known stars of theatre and comedy Papi Zak, Kuah Jenhan and Razif Hashim. They will be supported by an ensemble cast of Langkawi talent.

Suatukala is a community initiative that began in 2015. It aims to promote storytelling in any form among the Langkawi youth and children.

Suatukala has staged public showcases and conducted workshops by a diverse pool of talents from around Malaysia, ranging from photographers and visual artists to spoken word poets, theatre performers and animators working with children and youth in Langkawi.

To date, their activities have reached over 1,000 workshop participants and audience members.

In an interview with Suatukala’s co-founder and Walimatulurus producer, Lina Tan, she told Malaysiakini: “My co-founder Karina Bahrain, who had moved to Langkawi from Kuala Lumpur, had asked me if I would like to set up an organisation, which is community-led, in Langkawi.

“She wanted to bring art practitioners from KL to work with the youth, especially teenagers, to use storytelling in any form for them to build confidence, open minds and be more inclusive.

“We started it in 2015 with our funds and brought a few art practitioners over, like photographer David, theatre personality Shanthini Venugopal, spoken word artistes Elaine Foster and Sheena Baharuddin, who all volunteered their time to work with local secondary school students, some of them in more rural areas like a Tamil school in Langkawi.

“We saw the change in the students when their final work was displayed or when they went on stage and knew that we were effecting some change in these students and also the teachers, who were extremely supportive."

Suatukala is purely 100 percent non-profit work for Tan, who works with her partners to get funds to run the programme.

Tan is a well-known film and TV content producer and founder of Red Comm and Red Films.

“I have a good, strong management team in Red Comm whom I can rely on and my partners - Karina and Shareen Rahmat - do all the legwork in Langkawi as they live there. I work on the concepts and create a storytelling module for teens, and then I go up to Langkawi when the project is confirmed to see it through. I would not be able to do it without good support from both sides,” she explained.

Interesting legends

Speaking about “Walimatulurus – The Wedding Banquet”, Tan said that Langkawi is full of these interesting legends and Suatukala uses it as a starting point to discuss social issues and as a teaching tool.

“Last year we did ‘Pulau Sri’ which is a feminist staging of Mahsuri, which consists of an all-girls cast. This year we decided to use the legend of how Gunung Raya and Gunung Chinchang got their names in Langkawi and it was a fight between two giants at a wedding banquet.

“We decided, why not make it more interesting by making it an immersive theatre this time round, where the audience gets involved in the storytelling? So we roped in Wayang Kitchen, who are well known for their immersive dinner theatre shows, to create this show.”

One of the lead actors, Razif, is one of the founders of Wayang Kitchen and has experience creating such shows with food.

“I have worked with him previously on TV work, and he is very dedicated to his craft and certainly knows food. So, for the story, the main character of Mat Chinchang and Mat Raya were supposed to be giants. Then, we were discussing how to translate ‘giants’.

“Razif suggested maybe the cast go on stilts, but I was concerned about the safety and how to find someone who can act and be able to wear stilts. So, I thought, why not cast big-sized guys?

“Papi Zak came to mind immediately, and I also knew that he will bring his own brand of humour to the story, Kuah (because I have worked with him), who is pretty tall and very talented.

“Casting the both of them opposite each other with their comedy skills would make the show funny and elevate the story to another level.”

The audience will enjoy the immersive element of Wayang Kitchen as the moment they step into the venue (Laman Padi), they will be given “roles” as wedding guests from different families.

“They will be taken into an experience like a real wedding and served good traditional Malay food. It will be a fun journey that includes a joget lambak (dance party) at the end,” said Tan.

The work on the show started in September when they applied to Arts for All Seasons (ArtsFAS) by Yayasan Hasanah for a grant and the planning started as soon as they got the grant approved.

Tan said writing the story took a while.

“The casting didn’t take us too long, but we knew we wanted to involve the local Langkawi community and so the rest of the cast, besides Papi Zak and Kuah, are all from Langkawi. From teachers to a seamstress to the 18 students from SMK Kedawang who will make up the chorus.

“We also involved Langkawi designers, wardrobe and make-up stylists and a famous wedding cook. With the support of the Langkawi Development Authority (Lada), we managed to get Laman Padi as a venue. It's unique as the venue itself is amazing as the show will take place around the padi fields in Langkawi,” she added.

Though they are currently concentrating their efforts in Langkawi where they have a small group of local volunteers, Tan said the success of programmes such as Rekacerita (a theatre workshop module they created) has made them look beyond this beautiful island.

“We are in discussions to do a ‘train the teachers' workshop’ in Kedah, and we hope we can do more with the support of the KL Arts community and also the Education Ministry. We have had success stories of students who became so confident they have gone on to win the state poetry reading competition and represent the state at the national level.

“The teachers of the schools we work with in Langkawi are all so supportive, so we hope we can do more to use arts to open minds, be more inclusive and allow creative expressions among our non-urban youth,” said Tan

“Walimatulurus - The Wedding Banquet” will be staged on Dec 9 and 10 at Laman Padi, Pantai Cenang, Langkawi.

Tickets are priced at RM120 (inclusive of dinner).

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