Theatre: Load of laughs

2009/11/27

Haris Hussain

Despite a hiatus of two years, comedian extraordinaire Jit Murad has not lost his touch in delivering a hilarious and wacky view of life and more. HARIS HUSSAIN writes. SAYING that Jit Murad’s One Load of BullJit is not funny because “it’s not comedy” is like saying cats don’t cough up hairballs.

The minute the huge white “1” (no, not Jit; a real, Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith kind of “1”, constructed out of plywood and Jit’s homage to the all-encompassing 1Malaysia concept) descended slowly from the ceiling on cables, the audience knew that this was going to be a performance like no other. And they were right.

Despite that his last one-man show was two years ago, Jit seemed to have lost none of the edge, verve and wit he is known for. He delivered a hilarious, throat-grabbing, laugh-a-minute, sometimes scathing, often-times poignant look at his life and us as a society.

In an earlier interview with the New Straits Times, Jit had said that the show was going to be “very anecdotal ... it’s not comedy” and that it’s “really about me telling stories”.

Even at the start of the show last Tuesday, he kept insisting that the performance was not about telling jokes, and that this was a collection of stories, “true or false”, as he put it, culled from his rich, colourful and vibrant past.

But that didn’t stop the crowd at the PJ Live Arts Theatre at Jaya One from howling, snorting and rolling down the aisle with laughter for more than two hours.

Jit played to the crowd like the consummate performer that he is, working the audience slowly with endless quips, jibes, barbs and put downs, and connecting with them on a personal level.

He worked the stories with equal finesse, building them slowly, layer by layer, until you could feel the anticipation building up to a crescendo.

The intimate setting (if you can call a hall packed with close to 300 people intimate) reminded me of a group of friends listening to an old buddy regaling us with his tales of misadventures after dinner.

Jit spoke about his best friend in SRK Sultan Alam Shah in Petaling Jaya — Prem — who stuttered, and the girl they both had a crush on, Debbie Lim; and how quite by chance, the two boys discovered the word for the female genitalia (‘utterus’ — remember, they were seven or eight at the time), thanks to an exhibition on family planning taking place at the school hall, organised — ironically enough — by a baby formula manufacturer.

He also touched on his early fashion sense which included a coral choker, printed shirts, bell-bottoms, and platform shoes; the latter inspired by David Bowie, which elicited a comment from his grandmother to his mother Azizah: “Laa, Jah ... Bila budak ni dapat polio?”

He spoke about growing up with his mum and aunties, whom he called the original Sex And The City girls; long before Sarah Jessica Parker burned Carrie Bradshaw and Co., into our collective consciousness.

Except they were known as the “Ye you ...” girls. As in: “Did you hear about Mrs Lam’s Peugeot? Bukan brand new; second haaaand ...” one aunt would say, followed by an astonished “Ye ke you?” from another.

When the women got together, Jit would grab a book and pretend to read near them, all the while trying to listen in on the conversation. Whenever the subject turned to something “sensitive”, the ladies would resort to spelling out the offending word. It took them a while to figure out that if Jit could read, there was a pretty good chance that he could spell, as well. When they finally figured it out, they started spelling out the words in Jawi to throw him off.

“Kap wau ta ...”

One of the more emotional moments occurred when Jit spoke about his father, former director-general of Education, Tan Sri Murad Mohamed Nor, who died last year. When he finished his story, Jit paused for a moment and wiped a tear from his eye. He was not the only one.

Perhaps pandering to some of those who had seen his previous performances, Jit’s effeminate hairbrush wielding, bandana-wearing and slightly dyslexic “alter ego” Sungai Wang hairdresser Rene Choy made an appearance after the intermission.

It drew laughs, sure, but after a riveting first half that came from the heart, Rene Choy seemed a tad superfluous and was the only blight in an otherwise inspiring performance.

Still, One Load of BullJit delivers on its promise of a no-holds barred view of life and more. In 2½ hours, Jit Murad delivered a tour de force performance that did more to expound the virtues of 1Malaysia than all the ceramahs and patriotic singing competitions could ever hope to.

* Tickets for One Load of BullJit, presented by Dramalab, are priced at RM55 and RM65 daily (8pm), and RM45 and RM55 for the Sunday matinee. It ends on Sunday. For details, call Ticketcharge (03-22419999) or log on to ticketcharge.com.my

Recent works
2003: Jit Hits the Fan
2005: Jit Happens, Jit
Happens ... Again
2007: Full of Jit

Jit Murad also wrote the critically-acclaimed Spilt Gravy on Rice and starred in 1957 Hati Malaya (2007).