Oh Natrah

Natrah is a historical story about a Dutch girl raised in Malaysia which had definitely caused conflict in terms of religion, pride and a sense of justice as her biological parents fight for her custody from her guardian (in Malaysia) after 7 years growing up in Malaysia until she reaches puberty. The theme sounds dramatic and theatrical but the show seemed too overwhelmed with the popularity of the tragedy and I felt that the essence of a good theatre was missing.

Last night was the final night of the performance and I felt lucky to be part of the audience. I was eager to watch the show as I have received positive remarks from people who’ve seen it last week, but sadly it did not fulfill my expectations. As a historical movie, the synopsis of the movie and the praise that were in papers and advertisements were a little bit exaggerated as the performance was not as wit as it sounded at all. Personally, I think the feedback people mentioned about the movie was actually the history of Natrah which they may have read/watched elsewhere as it was not portrayed on stage. Audiences must have background schemata on the life of Natrah before watching it and it influenced one to get carried away with the performance through her biography.

I pitied mothers/aunts that went with the little ones (primary schl age) who were constantly asking what happened and why. This showed that it was choppy and the most parts of the storyline were missing thus it created a blurr story. Most of the major scenes weren’t acted but there were captions informing the audience about certain incidents. For me, theatre is not about reading captions on the screen, it is about feeling the emotions of the characters thru their acting and thru the dialogues. What is the use of going to watch a theatre if I have to read (I could just have read it at home and know the whole story). I also believe that a theatre should have a great script and storyline, Natrah was not able to give it a punch. There was a climax of the story but they were not able to prolong and engage with the emotions of the characters as the change was too abrupt. The transaction from a scene to another also didn’t quite leave the audience in awe.

In terms of direction, although they had to stick with the history, improvements could be made on strengthening the theme that they wanted to highlight whether it is in the eyes of Natrah, her mother, her husband and they should play along with the selected theme. They tried to embody everything but it just did not work out as they had too many things on their plate. If the director wanted to stress on the rights as a mother the bond between a mother n daughter scene should be added so that the separation scene would have a really heartening effect as both mothers can show their effort to winning the custody of their daughter.

Well, I don’t really regret going as I learnt a lot about unity and how things can simple things can be complicated. There are people out there who love to manipulate others and we need to be careful in the action that we take. We can hope for justice but at times we need to remember that it is not in our hands. So as Natrah is concerned, I congratulate the production on their effort. All I can say is that it was worth my RM30, I would not pay more or less for the performance.

I would give it 2.5 / 5