Negotiating Difference in Krishen Jit s Theatre: Staging Identities and Contesting Boundaries in Multicultural Malaysia

The politics of difference in a multicultural society such as Malaysia is an area of increasinginterest in an environment of global anxieties about the clash of civilisations (Huntington)and the flows of culture (Appadurai). As the lines of race, religion, language and genderbecome more prescribed by the authorities of state and media, they are also diverselycontested by those who do not fit or who choose to resist these narrow defines and limitingdictates. Krishen Jit, doyen of Malaysian theatre, dealt with issues of difference and samenessin his multiple staging of Malaysian identities. His theatre process and practice were inseveral ways critical interventions into the Malaysian cultural landscape. This article willexamine some of the strategies used in Krishen Jit s theatre that dealt with cultural differenceand emerged as a valuable response to the tensions of identity in Malaysia. It interrogateshis choices for theatre and how they indicate a conscious engagement with issues of pluralidentities within a multicultural mosaic. It seeks to offer a perspective on how the theatre provides an apt site for questions of agency and belonging that arise in negotiating issues ofexclusion and inclusion within a plural socio-cultural space.