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It's been about two years since I reviewed a theatre show. Have I watched anything in between? Uh... the Internet tells me that the two shows I remember watching but not reviewing were staged before Yam Seng Lah so no, I have apparently not watched a theatre show in two years!
Anyway, Dua Darah. I caught the 8.30pm show in Penang on Saturday, 11 April 2026 with members of the Ka-Ki Baca group. It has taken me this long to write this review because I have been procrastinating and being generally lazy.
I don't think I have much to say about the acting side of things - all three performers fit their roles really well. At least, there was nothing I felt really nitpicky about, especially since their accents fit the characters so well (this is the thing that usually bugs me a lot). There's something to be said for the fact that, whilst primarily in Malay, this is a multilingual show. I ended up not reading the surtitles as much as I expected to because Hilyati's (playing the protagonist) enunciation is superbly clear and understandable (I have problems processing Malay slang/patois). The funeral medium (played by Teoh Chee Lin) spoke in a hilariously apt bahasa pasar and Chinese (Hokkien? Maybe? idk—I read the surtitles for those), whilst the Mother (played by Ho Sheau Fung) spoke a very Chinese-accented vernacular English/Manglish/rojak. The only thing that jarred me was when Ho started singing and I thought it was a Chinese song until I stared at the surtitles and realised she was... singing in Malay. Oops.
(Note: Even though the character was played by a woman, I'm going to stick with 'he' pronouns in the review per the synopsis since technically the funeral rites are supposed to be carried out by a male relative.)
The staging was minimalist, and it worked to focus the audience on the actors themselves, with the judicious use of lighting. Scene changes (to indicate the start of a new day) were marked by chanting (both Chinese ritual prayers and Arabic verses/prayers) and reflections in a sort of Greek-chorus type thing, punctuated by choreography. There's probably a better or more technical term to describe it, but I don't have the vocabulary for that. At any rate, I liked it because it solved Auditorium A's problem of not really having a proper backstage for actors to go in and out. So all three of them were onstage for the duration of the show.
Overall, the show was fascinating—and thought-provoking—but the more I think about it, the more I feel that the ending was a little emotionally flat. There was a build up of sorts, with the thing about the nails. It rises and then it falls, it's really dramatic, and then I am left a little confused about what I'm supposed to take from that. I chalked this down to not actually understanding the significance of the events at the cremation. As I said after the show, I'm not actually Chinese enough for this.
I connected much more with the Chinese-Malay protagonist, even though I am, as far as I can trace, 100% Chinese. For me, Dua Darah is no so much about racial tension, but about religious conflict or the dilemma of the recently converted—especially when one converts to a monotheistic religion that says performing another religion's rites are a sin in and of itself, no matter how pure your motives are. It can only be framed as a conflict between two bloodlines in Malaysia because of our problem of conflating race and religion here. If you're Malay, you are Muslim. If you're Chinese, you are Buddhist or Taoist. And yet everything the protagonist wrestles with around the funeral rites are things that have come up over and over again in the Chinese Christian community in Malaysia. They even directly mentioned the shared problem of Cheng Beng. I mean, obviously the Christians don't have it as bad—no halal or dressing laws to address—but there's still that tension of what you can and can't do, what you should and shouldn't. Because what's truly cultural and what's religious at this point?
In the end, Dua Darah was, for me, a reflection on the realities of colonialistic religions and how it tears you from your cultural roots in many ways, whether due to mixed blood (there's some unspoken racism to be unpacked there) or just due to conversion. It's recognition of yes, this happens, this happens all the time in various communities. It's an acknowledgement of the dissonance that racial alignment to religion causes in global/multicultural communities. For Christian converts, there's that need to distance yourself from Chinese culture, to become overly Western/White-presenting. For Muslim reverts, there's a need to prove yourself more Malay than the Malays.
But how do you resolve it? It feels like there should be a middle ground somewhere, to be able to follow the tenets of the religion you now adhere to (or have chosen for yourself) while still honouring and respecting where you come from. The show does not offer any solutions. The aunt is cremated, the protagonist returns home, having completed the rituals for his beloved aunt whilst bearing the guilt of having sinned in doing so—and even if God can forgive him, I'm pretty sure society won't.
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DUA DARAH
A Drama in Bahasa Melayu by Johan Othman (with English and Chinese surtitles)
Director: Chee Sek Thim
Playwright: Johan Othman
Music Director and Composer: Kang Su Kheng
Choreographer: Teoh Chee Lin
Performers: Hilyati Ramli, Ho Sheau Fung, Teoh Chee Lin.
Producer: Tan Hock Kheng
👉A ZXC Theatre Troupe production.
👉KL venue supported by Five Arts Centre
If you're in KL this weekend, you can catch Dua Darah at Five Arts Centre, GMBB.
Kuala Lumpur
Date/Time:
17 & 18 April 2026 @ 8:30pm
18 & 19 April 2026 @ 3:00pm
Venue: Five Arts Centre, 9th floor, GMBB, KL
Ticketing
Individual Ticket: RM55
Group of Four: RM180
