“A Story of Ours: Us and Them”, a production by the St Joseph’s Family of Schools in Kuching, Malaysia, was staged at the Archdiocesan Curia and Cathedral Pastoral Centre at St Joseph’s Cathedral on 29 and 30 September, with the support of the Sarawak Arts Council.
Challenging the conceptions and ideals behind the boundaries and divisions in our societies, this year’s production was not just entertaining but also reflective and thought-provoking. Through an adaptation of the play “Us and Them” by David Campton, the audience was led on a journey of discovery into the heart of the human condition. The combination of news reports, current affairs, and real-life struggles intricately woven into the original play kept the audience captivated and at the edge of their seats.
Fr Stanley Goh SJ, Principal of St Joseph’s Private Secondary School and the creative mind behind this adaptation, noted: “The original play focused on how people tend to build walls to deal with differences and how these walls can lead to suspicion and discord. I felt that these are expressed in the reality of our current situation and throughout history, hence the desire to adapt it and to add scenes to flesh out how these stories play out in our lives.”
The audience was taken on a journey, with musical, dance, and choral performances leading to the heart of the show, which was the play, “A Story of Ours: Us and Them”. Among the standout performances was the cultural dance piece entitled “Ekaritma” from the Sanskrit word for “unity”. The portrayal showcased the diversity and harmony of Sarawak’s major ethnicities. The award-winning chamber choir enthralled the audience with their renditions of “Soleram” and “Singkap Siaga”, the latter performed in collaboration with the contemporary dance group, a beautiful paean to the lost art of shadow puppetry.
Furthermore, the evening witnessed the world premiere of “Limitless Seas”, a composition by US-based composer Ben Hylton, who also collaborated in adapting it for the school’s concert band. The story of the sea flowed beautifully with the Chinese orchestra’s rendition of “Fisherman’s Triumph”, a tale of challenge and success told through traditional Chinese musical instruments.
All these culminated in the telling of “A Story of Ours”, which began innocuously enough with the unassuming arrival of two groups in the area. Later, divisions emerged and fences and walls were constructed, bringing about dire consequences that mirror the current state of our world. Interspersed with scenes depicting the refugee crisis, current wars in Europe, and even harking back to historical landmarks, such as the Great Wall in China and the Berlin Wall, the performers led the audience on a reflective journey on what divides us and what it would take to heal these divisions.
This production continues the tradition of theatre in St Joseph’s Private School, which started eight years ago with Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. The huge success of the original musical, “The White Rajah of Sarawak”, written by Fr Alvin Ng SJ, produced in 2017 and 2019 cemented the school as a centre of excellence for the performing arts. The enforced hiatus due to the pandemic was a small setback, but the return to the big stage this year showed that the tradition continues.
In attendance was the Regional Superior of the Jesuits in Malaysia-Singapore, Fr Francis Lim SJ, who noted, “The school production was very well done, with lots of variety, colour and energy. I felt animated by just watching the students perform on stage. They are very talented, and it is good the school is encouraging them to hone their talents. We, the Jesuits, have been very good in forming the young in all aspects of the human person, including the performing arts.”
In the grand finale, the cast sang, “We tell our story, side by side, with no walls, no lines, nothing, between us divide”, a reminder that when we bother to listen to the stories of others, we can move towards peace and hope in our polarised world. It was that message of hope that ended the evening, and it was that same message that the audience carried with them into the world.