Who is Sybil Kathigasu and why should we care? The Actors Studios' production of Sybil, staged to mark the 60th anniversary of the World War II heroine’s death, attempts to answer this question. Distilled from some of the more horrific passages of Sybil Kathigasu’s memoir No Dram of Mercy by U-En Ng, the play focuses on the torture she endured at the hands of the Japanese secret police and her continued defiance.
 
This production, directed by Dato’ Faridah Merican, is part of a revival of interest in Sybil’s story, which seems to have been sparked by the expiration of the copyright of the memoir in 2003. New editions of No Dram of Mercy, long out of print, began appearing in bookstores both in the original English, as well as in a Mandarin translation. There is also the controversial Faces of Courage by Norma Miraflor and Ian Ward, which attempts to go behind the scenes and get the “real story” about who Sybil Kathigasu was, uncovering a few skeletons in the closet along the way.
 
Incidentally, the title, No Dram of Mercy, with its now obscure Shakespearian origins, was not Kathigasu’s first choice of title. She had wanted “Semua Ada Baik” (SAB) the code words in all her messages to the Communist resistance fighters. Her daughter Olga Kathigasu, in Miraflor and Ward's book, has claimed that her mother wrote only about 50 per cent of the book. The rest was written by some English professor, and the British publishers, who threw in a few scenes for colour. The book was only published some five years after she died, potentially leaving a lot of room for maneuvering with the material. As is astutely observed in Faces of Courage, the Emergency was in full force in the pre-war years and the colonial administration's fight against the Communists would not have been well served by a book recounting their bravery and disciplined defending Malaya during the Japanese Occupation.
 
Sybil however is an attempt to strip away all the extraneous details to get to the heart of the story – one woman’s courage and resistance against seemingly cruel and overwhelming odds.
 
The actual drama on stage begins with her arrest. Sukania Venugopal, in a commanding performance as the central character, takes the stage caustically remarking that it shouldn’t take 10 men to arrest one frail woman in reference to the entourage of soldiers sent for her. However, the Japanese are not stupid. They know that the Communists take care of their own and there is a very real possibility that the arresting party may be ambushed.

Then follows the actual interrogation and the physical abuse she endures at the hands of Sergeant Ekio Yoshimura, played by Doppo Narita. These scenes had most of the audience squirming in their seats, which gives you an idea of Narita’s superb acting skills. The character of Yoshimura, takes torture to a fine art. When mere physical torture (beatings, kicks, cigarette burns) fails, he resorts to using mental and emotional torture, forcing her to watch as her seven-year-old daughter, Dawn, is lowered from a tree branch down to a waiting bonfire and ripping off her husband’s fingernail with a pair of pliers.
 
And yet, Sybil doesn’t succumb. Although her body is being progressively broken by Yoshimura’s brutality, her refusal to give in sees Yoshimura start to unravel. He develops some obsessive habits, like washing and drying his hands continuously as if unconsciously trying to distance himself from his own behaviour.
 
 “Am I an animal? Do you think I’m an animal?” he demands with mounting anger and irritation.
 
Although Yoshimura is unquestionably ruthless, this production attempts to get into his head and also see things from his point of view. He gazes at a picture of his wife and child and his voice breaks as he expresses his love and longing for them.
 
He also rages against the Communists and points out that they too are murderers who have killed both Japanese and civilians. How is Sybil superior to him when she has helped these murderers who have killed some of her own people? It is difficult to ignore that here, he has a point.
 
“Why is this woman so important?” asks the Malay constable, played by Ashraf Zain, who acts as Sybil’s jailer, getting to the heart of the matter. It is a valid question. Why is she? The Japanese had enough evidence, extracted under torture to execute her. Why did they keep her alive? Why continue to expend all this effort torturing her?
 
An interesting side note: Sybil and Dr Kathigasu were actually sentenced to death by the Japanese kangaroo court. Their sentences were repealed due to the influence of a few still-powerful friends.
 
This constable embodies the conventional point of view. He keeps his head down and follows orders. His priority is the survival of himself and his family. He doesn’t question what he does. After all, he is a nice guy, simply trying to cari makan.
 
However, when the constable encounters Sybil, his comfortable worldview is shaken by both her strength as well as her evident contempt for him and everything he represents. If she is right, he must be wrong. If she is a good person, then he will have to change his behaviour and viewpoint, in order to be one.
 
The constable starts to question his basic assumptions, resisting Sergeant Yoshimura in small and then larger ways. As he feared, this proves his undoing. In his final confrontation with Yoshimura, he dares to criticize his superior’s methods. He dies for his temerity.
 
By focusing on the interplay between the central characters during the interrogation scenes, the play is clearly concerned with the idea of honour. Dr Kathigasu accuses Yoshimura of being a disgrace to his honourable ancestors and after cataloging his crimes, which include burning a young child alive (this is before he learns that Dawn was saved), says, “I despair for you.”
 
And the word is constantly bandied about by Sybil and Yoshimura. She calls him a coward and a man without honour. He calls her a whore. In the final scene she mocks him for not being able to commit suicide as death is too honourable for the likes of him.
 
The play was well put together although it could have done with more pacing. You are hardly allowed to draw breath between the violent scenes which are like hammers assaulting your senses. The intensity of the scenes, one after the other, made the play at times seem like one long anguished scream.
 
Having said that, there were many things that worked well. I especially enjoyed the attempts to bring in elements from Sybil’s actual story, such as the scene shot from the clinic and the radio broadcast from Emperor Hirohito. The set was sparse with the single naked light bulb and interrogation chair conveying a sense of the dismal dread and hopelessness of the situation. There were no superfluous details – it was economically done and everything seemed to work together to carry the story forward.
 
By the end you know quite clearly who Sybil Kathigasu is. And you will probably care.

~

Jennifer was once a reporter with a leading national newspaper. Determined to earn some gravitas, she left for a more serious profession, Public Relations. She has spent an inordinate amount of time stalking Sybil's ghost, along the way meeting with Olga Kathigasu, Sybil's eldest daughter, on one of her many trips to Papan.