Ending on a High

[Medical Marijuana]

A woman, dying of bone cancer, is in unbearable pain. Only marijuana alleviates her suffering but in smoking an illegal substance, she's running foul of the law. She could be given the death sentence if caught. But she's already under one and besides, no amount of medication eases the terrible, wrenching pain. Doesn't she have the right to die with dignity? Well, yes. Nevertheless, pot is illegal. Illegal maybe, but not wrong, surely?

The dilemma of right and wrong, legal and illegal, throwing open our moral sensibilities and questioning our humanity are what Good People explores.

Just 80 minutes long with no intermission, Haresh Sharma's play, staged over five days last week at the KL Performing Arts Centre, is dark yet funny, gripping yet uncomfortable, as it forces us to question what have been very largely black and white issues.

Radha (Sukania Venugopal) arrives at a hospice where Yati (Siti Khalijah) is a nurse and Miguel (Rody Vera), the medical director. Radha falls back on her religious faith to deal with her pain and dying. "Do you know cancer is a karmic disease?" she asks.

As much as she understands it burns away one's karma, she cannot bear the pain of the burning and so she turns to pot. She justifies taking marijuana -- "It's a herb" -- and besides, it has an accepted tradition in Hinduism. Therefore, marijuana is really part of her religious faith, so there.

Yati, overworked and close to burning out is a tough, seemingly unsentimental cookie who moonlights as a singer in a rock band. She thinks she has seen enough of death and dying to be quite unmoved by it all, but then, she unwittingly develops a bond with Radha and so does an unwilling Miguel.

Miguel, a strait-laced, law-biding bureaucrat is not merely an ultra conservative but seriously anal retentive. In the face of Radha's defiant smoking of an illegal substance, in the face of her terrible pain and its subsequent alleviation by the said illegal substance, both Miguel and Yati are forced to confront their deeply held moral values of right and wrong.

With her back to the wall, Radha gives them no quarter. Yati wails that taking marijuana is wrong in her religion. Radha sets her right about the well-documented tradition of hashish.

Miguel isn't spared either. For that matter, neither does Yati spare him. Resentful and angry, she reports to the authorities about drug-taking in the hospice -- to get Miguel into trouble. "You don't believe in God," she yells at him. "You believe you ARE God."

None of the characters is sweet to each other. They snap, they bite, they snarl at each other. Yet, there are moments of kindness, of grace, of compassion and right-out goofing around. The karaoke scene where all sing "Can't take my eyes off you" is touchingly funny -- culture, faith and yes, pain divide us but song and laughter bridge the breach, at least for a while.

As much as the script of Good People confronts urgent contemporary issues, it is the actors who breathe life and meaning into the play. Good People works extremely well, thanks to the chemistry and talent of the actors, Sukania, Rody and Siti.

Siti packs her performance with punchy one-liners but it is not these comic lines that endear her to us. We see her change from moral righteousness to a humane person, who, unable to bear Radha wracked in pain, desperately calls a pusher for a couple of sticks. She prays five times a day for God to be kind to the dead when they reach Him, regardless of their faiths for they have suffered enough.

Rody's stuffed shirt character is perhaps the most limited but hey, we are talking anal retention here.

Sucking up to the bosses, single-minded in his actions to keep the hospice running, Rody rationalises everything. Yet even to himself, he refuses to acknowledge that Radha has gotten under his skin.

All three actors are excellent but it is Sukania who mesmerises and whose Radha lingers longest in our minds.

Sukania does not become Radha, she is Radha; she maintains character in every single breath, glance and movement. Radha is fully fleshed out; a multi-dimensional character who unflinchingly faces her fears, her deliberate withdrawal from family, her frustrations at not having achieved anything and in the end, her bargaining in the face of death.

First, as she says, is anger. "Bargaining is that which comes after anger, before acceptance."

The final scene where Radha is in bed, gasping and in terrible pain as she waits for the authorities to arrest her is perhaps the most moving in the play. There are no comfortable, clear-cut answers. There never is in life, is there?

Good People, directed by Alvin Tan of The Necessary Stage, Singapore, haunts us long after the final curtain.

It is honest and real, well crafted and performed by excellent actors. If for nothing else, our local theatre people should watch the play to listen to good diction (sorely needed in the local fraternity), good acting, good script. Good People is worth watching a second time.

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