On a rainy Sunday night, Panggung Sasaran USM slowly filled with a sizable audience. Simple lights bathed the stage in a warm glow. The show began: a man enters, then another man enters, and for the next hour, they talk.
Peristiwa Di Zoo, adapted from Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story (1958), is not a play built on spectacle. There are no elaborate costumes, no musical numbers, no comedic relief. Instead, it is a one-act exploration of isolation and social disparity. I went in wondering how a student production could sustain attention with such minimal theatrical tools.
I need not have worried, because while the text is minimal, the visual world is not.
The first thing that struck me was the set design. Though only one setting is required, it is one of the best sets I’ve seen in Penang theatre. Hand-painted backdrops, towering trees casting realistic shadows, and actors kicking actual dirt on the floor as they moved around.
With no scene changes, no costume changes, and minimal music, the production relies entirely on performance. I was surprised that they were able to keep a room full of audience members firmly engaged for the full hour. You could feel the energy of the room rise and fall, almost physically shared between stage and audience.
The Story
The play tells the story of Jo (played by Amieen), a lonely man with a peculiar personality who arrives at Zoo Negara and ends up on a park bench. Pian (played by Vasan) is a corporate executive seeking solitude, reading on the same bench. When Jo forces conversation upon Pian, revealing his upbringing as an impoverished child, what begins as an inconvenience slowly becomes confrontation.
Amieen delivers a performance that is both volatile and controlled. He shifts between anger, sadness, stillness, humour, and emotional fragmentation with ease — at one point, he even becomes a dog in one of his monologues. It is a performance that feels fully inhabited rather than performed. He describes Jo as challenging to prepare for, but he had strong direction and rehearsal support to confidently embody the role.
Vasan, who also directs the play, grounds the piece with a clear interpretive vision. Reframed through a Malaysian lens, the story becomes less about two strangers on a bench and more about structural distance — how privilege creates invisible barriers between people from different social worlds. Through Peristiwa Di Zoo, he hopes audiences reflect on the quiet but real gaps that shape how we see each other.
In order to bring such a text-heavy, static play to life, building chemistry between the actors was the key focus. It is clear that extensive rehearsal work has gone into building trust and timing between the performers.
Student Theatre, Reconsidered
Student productions are often framed as experiments — and rightly so. The tickets are usually cheaper — around RM20 per pax — so audiences are essentially investing in the development of emerging theatre-makers.
Student productions carry the energy of ambition, creativity, and long rehearsal hours — the kind that comes from talented twenty-somethings building something from scratch.
Students are still learning, and their work is frequently more daring, less polished, but full of intent.
This production, however, exceeds expectation. It is much more polished and higher in quality compared to many student shows I’ve seen, and even comparable to some professional or semi-professional stagings with much higher ticket prices.
The Climax
Jo and Pian eventually clash over who gets to stay on the bench. During the climax, the energy in the room shifts completely — the audience is no longer observing, but reacting. Honestly, this is why I love theatre: not as narrative alone, but as a shared emotional experience that moves people together, in real time, in the same space. Peristiwa Di Zoo achieves exactly that.
Peristiwa Di Zoo ends not with spectacle, but with consequence. What remains is not just the story told on stage, but the uneasy reflection it leaves behind — long after the audience has stopped watching.
About the Writer:
Felina is new to the arts scene, young, curious, and hungry. She wants to sink her paws into as many facets of the performing arts as she can, as she believes practical experience is more nutritious than theory. Find her on, behind, or seated in front of the stage, as she is ready to pounce at any given moment.
Seni:Kita (pentaspena.pg@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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