The same day I had gone to Bubba Gump to meet Nick Dorian and Min Li, was also the day I had gone to see Sybil at The Actors Studio. Synopsis of Sybil is like so:

“Set in Perak, Malaya in December 1941, Sybil Kathigasu, her husband
Dr. A.C. Kathigasu, and the Captain (her Resistance contact) listen one
evening to devastating news of the British defeat throughout the
peninsula.

Suspicion is rife, Japanese collaborators are present in every town,
and the feared Kempetai – the Japanese Military Police that is
answerable only to itself – is beginning to take an interest in the
small town.

Sybil, however, refuses the Captain’s advice to flee to the jungle,
and instead redoubles her efforts to thwart the Japanese. Before long,
Dr Kathigasu is arrested on suspicion of aiding the resistance, and
Sybil’s arrest follows soon after.

She is subjected to torture and interrogation at the hands of Sgt.
Yoshimura, the head of the district Kempetai, who is convinced Sybil is
a Resistance spy.

Starring Sukania Venugopal, Doppo Narita, Darius Taraporvala, Ashraf
Zain and Wong Wai Hoong

Directed by Dato’ Faridah Merican.

Written by U-En Ng, based on the book “No Dram of Mercy” by Sybil Kathigasu.”

Heading into the Actors Studio, we are all greeted with familiar faces in the art scene. That day we saw a number of our Ismailies buddies, Gavin Yap, Joe Hasham and of course Dato Faridah who obviously had to be there.

The set was very economically well done. It looked as rusted and worn out as it should’ve been in the days.

With just a grill door in located towards center left of the stage and a bench, we have the cell that Sybil was once trapped in to serious torture by the Japanese soldiers. If you look on towards Stage right you will see a table and a chair where Sergeant Yoshimura would interrogate and torture his captives. Sorry I don’t have a clearer pic but you can check out more at kakiseni.

I did enjoy the show a lot, and I think our Japanese guest brought down by Faridah was fascinating, although his accent was a bit heavy on some areas. The story began, with Sybil (Sukania Vongopal) talking with her husband, Dr Kathigasu (Darius Taraporvala) and Another Soldier (Wong Wai Hoong). She is then arrested and taken to a torturous series of events by Sergeant Ekio Yoshimura (Doppo Narita) and his subordinate constable (Ashraf
Zain).

On one hand, I was watching it as an actor myself, which to be very honest kills the joy of watching a performance at times. Because you are constantly either thinking “oh hey, she’s acting- you can tell” or “hmm can thay be done differently” or “I see that person act in the same manner somewhere before, is that a habit?”. Yeah thoughts like that float in my head.

It was only after the intermission that I started to enjoy the show for what it was and I found that it got more interesting. As the complexity of the characters grew. Especially for the constable – the guard outside Sybil’s cell – who questions why is she fighting so much, to not even save her own skin let alone her family. He also starts to question his own reasons for siding with the Japanese – just in order for him to cari makan.

In the process, while the play was suppose to focus more on Sybil, but
surprisingly I found myself more drawn towards the Sergeant Yoshimura
who has conflicting thoughts of his own. All this while, we’ve always
seen the Japanese sergeant as a monster for putting one through
torturous moments, such as seeing the scene where Sybil watches her
daughter dawn lowered into a bonfire or watching her husbands finger
being snipped off with pliers.

Yes I now know about Sybil Kathigasu, but I also felt more sympathetic towards the sergeant. It just goes to show how well Doppo Narita acted as his character. He was able to bring forth the slight human turmoil that his character felt in doing the terrible things he had to in order to be loyal to his country. Small things such as the constant wiping of his hands with the towel, was just enough to show how he wanted to wash the blood of his hands but couldn’t or. You could also see how broken he felt when the war was over, and he knew that he would be subjected to a number accusations for the way he had handles his captives. But he was doing ti for his country.. could you blame him to.

Very well done, but just a slight disappointment on the shift away from the original title which is suppose to be about Sybil. The play strikes us with how little we know about the unsung heroes in our country and allows us to see it from a different perspective. None the less, the play was still strong and worthy of applause

Oh yeah moving on, we took shots after the show and guess who came to watch. Dr Tunku Ismail’s son and grandson ^_^

And how could we not get a cast picture too