剧评：Brown Boys Don’t Tell Jokes
为了不用继续说笑—— 观“Brown Boys Don’t Tell Jokes”
文/梁海彬
有这么一件小事。我们几位朋友们一起吃饭，去的餐馆没有清真认证（halal certification）。朋友群里唯一的马来裔朋友跟我们说，没关系，他只想喝饮料。对于其他朋友们点猪肉吃，他也一副无所谓的样子。同行的朋友们对那位马来朋友开玩笑：要不要也给你来一份猪肉啊？然后大家大笑。大家都是朋友，玩笑是开惯了的。
我却在好一阵子以后，才问我的马来朋友，你还好吗？他笑说，好啊，很好。
对于大家对他开的玩笑，以及我那一份看似好意却实则根本毫无帮助的慰问，我实在不晓得他到底有多好，是不是真的很好。在那样的情况下，“你还好吗”有什么帮助？说不定我毫无意义的慰问造成的伤害比朋友们对他开的“无伤大雅”的玩笑伤人更深。
凯门剧场（Checkpoint Theatre）的“Brown Boys Don’t Tell Jokes”（以下简称“Brown”），让五位多年不见的brown boys好友们再次重逢，却在聚会上相互揭开彼此隐藏的不堪的秘密。舞台布景是精致的华族家庭陈设，墙上极富中国风的图画，客厅里中式的大橱柜，让这群brown boys 的处境显得荒谬—— 在这么一个中式摆设的客厅里，除了他们的肤色，场景几乎没有任何关于他们族群文化的痕迹。他们彼此也以英语交谈，除了偶尔冒出的马来语，他们似乎也在某种程度上抹掉自己本族文化的身份。
例如剧中Adam（Shahid Nasheer饰）既是马来族，又是同性恋者，处于双重边缘的族群，在大体制的压迫下，渐渐只能放弃自己的理想，选择默默地接受体制的不公。而Scott（Ebi Shankara饰）即使面对不稳定的伴侣，也毅然选择与她结婚，移居国外。剧中角色都有提及自己身为弱势族群所面对的各种歧视，却都在不同程度上接受了这种压迫。Fizzy（Adib Kosnan饰）作为积极份子，发现自己似乎无法改变大体制，决定一改自己过去较为积极的姿态。政治人物Tesh（Gosteloa Spancer饰）是混血儿，有马来和华人血统，他很有意识地选择了自身的华裔文化作为自己的身份，以便在社会上获得更高的地位，得到更大的利益。Dev（饰Krish Natarajan）另辟蹊径，成为网络歌手明星，似乎找到了出路—— 然而，网络世界的爆红，网红的短暂寿命，作为少数能够获得成功的brown boy，反而让他更加不由自主。
编剧为这些角色设置了那么尖锐，无法化解的难题，剧中的角色也似乎只能以被动的方式去面对困境。或许弱势群体就总是只能凭靠自己的力量去和大体制妥协？恰如我那位马来族朋友在面对的最无心最无意识的微歧视时，如何显得若无其事，如何默默调理自己的情绪。也一如编剧安排的几个情节：被打破鼻子的角色躺一下竟然就好了；喝醉了的角色竟然睡一下就可以酒醒了；焦虑症发作的角色好好休息一下竟然就复原了……
剧中角色似乎只要默默治愈，就会好起来？但我相信这并非编剧的意图。也许他更想表达的是弱势族群在强势族群的漠视下，缚手缚脚的荒谬处境。编剧Myle Yan Tay为剧情层层铺排，引人入局，让观众陷于困境，让观众看到了五位brown boys 的困难，却也难以提出什么有效的解决方案。作为他第一次的编剧尝试，“Brown”非常有启发性，也在在展现了编剧的创作才能。编剧显然不愿意仅仅探讨种族歧视的课题，他很有意识地提到各种社会课题（男性、种族、性向、友谊、政治），以带出这五位brown boys生命个体的复杂性，让观众认识到，所谓种族歧视的课题，也牵扯着其他的社会议题，环环相扣。仿佛一场show and tell，编剧向观众展示这庞大体制下弱势群体的处境，不留悬念，平铺直叙，娓娓道来，于是愈发让人觉得这是难以结解决的困境。
这真的是难以解决的困境吗？我们真的无能为力去改变什么吗？但编剧写出这么一部作品邀人自省，已是相当有力的反击了。而我觉得最重要的，莫过于Tesh 最后如何对公众说“brown boys don’t tell jokes”。他已准备了牺牲自己的政治生涯，直指人心去揭露弱势族群每天面对的歧视与压迫。也许这是brown boys 的宣言—— 到了这一刻，我竟然才觉得，戏真正开始了。
也许通过这个宣言，编剧希望有那么一天，“brown boys don’t （need to）tell jokes”，brown boys 们都再也无需用笑话来隐藏真相。
我们都期待收起笑容后的brown boys。但也许我们更期待的是不再嬉皮笑脸的我们，是所有不再对brown boys和弱势群体开玩笑的我们。
关于演出：2023年3月23日，8PM，戏剧中心黑箱剧场，凯门剧场呈现
Creative Team
Playwright:
Myle Yan Tay
Director-Dramaturge:
Huzir Sulaiman
Cast:
Gosteloa Spancer
Krish Natarajan
Ebi Shankara
Adib Kosnan
Shahid Nasheer
So That We Stop Joking — Review of "Brown Boys Don't Tell Jokes"
Review by Neo Hai Bin
There was such an incident. Our group of friends had dinner together, and the restaurant we went to did not have halal certification. The only Malay friend in our group told us that it was okay, that he only wanted a drink. Even when the rest of us ordered pork, he seemed to be quite nonchalant too. One of our friends joked: Would you like to have one too? Everyone laughed, even the Malay friend. We are friends after all, and we have always been teasing and joking with each another.
It took me quite a while for me to ask my Malay friend, how are you? He laughed and said, I’m good.
But I was not really sure if he was okay with the “joke”, and okay with my seemingly well-intentioned but practically unhelpful condolences. I was not sure if he was really fine. How was a mere "Are you okay" helpful in that situation? Maybe my pointless concern hurt more than the “innocuous” jokes my friends made about him.
Checkpoint Theater’s "Brown Boys Don't Tell Jokes" (hereinafter referred to as "Brown") told a story of five brown boys who had a reunion after many years, only to uncover each others’ hidden secrets. The stage is an exquisite living room with Chinese-style home furnishings, with Chinese paintings on the wall, large cabinet, etc. These add to the absurdities of the situation that these brown boys found themselves in— the setting contains little or no traces of any brown culture. The characters also speak English to each other (except for some occasional Malay). To some extend, the characters seem to have erased their own cultural identities.
Adam (Shahid Nasheer) is both a Malay and a homosexual, and thus he is doubly marginalised. Under the oppression of the system, he can only give up his fight for change, and silently to accept the discriminations that he faces. Scott (Ebi Shankara) resolutely chose marriage, even though his relationship has always been rocky, so that he could move abroad. The characters in the play all mentioned the various discrimination they faced as a minority, but they all gave up the fight against oppression to varying degrees. As an activist, Fizzy (Adib Kosnan) realises that he cannot change the system, so he decides to switch his demeanour. Tesh (Gosteloa Spancer) is of Malay and Chinese descent, and he deliberately choose his Chinese culture root as his identity, in order to attain higher status and receives greater benefits in society. Dev (Krish Natarajan) seems to have found an alternative route— to achieve fame by becoming a celebrity musician. However, the burgeoning popularity of the online world, the short lifespan of every internet star, and as one of the few brown boys who achieve success, this hard-earned fame seemed more elusive than definite for him.
The writers set up such sharp, insoluble dilemmas for these characters, and the characters, in the face of this systemic problem, seem to have little choice but to deal with it passively. In the face of injustice, does the marginalised always have to rely on their own strength? Just like how my Malay friend, when faced with the most thoughtless and subconscious micro-aggression, appeared to be nonchalant, and had to regulate his emotions silently. This was much like how the playwright wrote his characters: the character who got his nose broken marvellously got better after lying down; the character who got drunk turned sober after taking a nap; the character who had an anxiety attack recovered just by taking a time-out……
The characters in the play seemed to get better, as long as they are left to their own device to heal? But I believe this was not the writer's intention. Perhaps he wanted to express the absurdity of how the minorities, when faced with the indifference of the majority, are subjected to various constraints, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Playwright Myle Yan Tay layered the plot, drew audience into a predicament— the audience are thus able to witness the difficulties of the characters, and also struggle to come up with any effective solutions.
The playwright’s debut with "Brown" is inspiring, and he competently demonstrated his playwriting talent. He is obviously unwilling to only talk about the issue of racial discrimination, and by writing on various social issues (gender, race, sexuality, friendship, politics), he brings out the complexity of the characters, so that we can see how racial discrimination is never a lone issue, but entwined and enmeshed in other social issues, which makes it more complex. Like a show-and-tell, the playwright presented the difficult circumstances of the minority groups in a forthright manner, making it an unsolvable dilemma.
But is this really an insurmountable dilemma? Is there really nothing we can do to change anything? The playwright, by writing such a piece of work, is already performing a powerful countermove. At the end of the show, (spoiler ahead) Tesh recorded a video to tell the general public "brown boys don't tell jokes". He is ready to sacrifice his political career and speak blatantly about the discrimination and oppression that minorities are subjected to every day. Maybe this is a declaration, a manifesto of the brown boys— it was at this moment that I felt the play has really started.
With this manifesto, perhaps it is the playwright’s hope that one day "brown boys don't (need to) tell jokes”— that the minorities will no longer have to resort to jokes to hide the truth.
We are all looking forward to the days when brown boys are able to put away their smiles. Or perhaps, we are looking forward to the days when we as the majority will no longer threw jokes or laughter at the brown boys and the underprivileged.
Performance watched: 23rd March 2023, 8PM, Drama Centre Black Box, presented by Checkpoint Theater
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