Malaysian playwright-actor, Sabera Shaik talks about Sydney Swettenham, the wife of Sir Frank Swettenham, the first Resident General of the Federated Malay States (part of the then Royal Colonies, now independent Malaysia). Shaik's play, LADY SWETTENHAM will have its India premier at the NCPA Centrestage Festival on Sunday, 27th November 2011.
Charulata
SABERA SHAIK in LADY SWETTENHAM
Sir Frank Swettenham was considered a respected man of society; there's even a page about him on Wikipedia, but there is no mention of his wife. Where did you dig out the information from?
The plight of the woman, be she the wife, lover, sister or mother, has many faces. Throughout history women suffer degradation in many forms...some insidious and some not. The very fact that there has been nothing available, not even a photograph of Sydney Swettenham in any Malayan/Malaysian or British archives speaks volumes about a certain marital discord. I became fascinated with this fact while reading the transcript of my friend Henry S. Barlow's to-be-printed (this was in 1990) book called, simply, Swettenham. It is an extensively researched book on the work and day-to-day life of Frank. However there are only two short chapters about his marriage to and divorce from Sydney Swettenham. So I had to also read the writings of Frank Swettenham, his short essays, to cull from them his ideas about marriage at that time and of the so-called 'natives' of the land. These writings gave a good insight into the man and the workings of his mind.
Frank Swettenham re-married soon after his divorce from Sydney. His new wife Vera was much younger than Frank who was in his eighties but by that time Sydney was already incarcerated into an asylum with no hope of being discharged and with few visitors, as most of her siblings and parents had passed on by then. She died in an asylum in 1947. Of course this is just the gist of the play. Some things are pure conjecture like the conversation/quarrels with Frank, and with Kassim, the house boy but the historical facts remain.
You've picked a hard-hitting subject to portray in the play. What got you interested in Lady Swettenham?
While we like to believe that the British who came to Malaya were free from scandals and lived upright lives, this is far from the truth in more than one case. In my case, I have written about Sydney and what she had to go through just because her husband did not understand her high spirits and her inclination not to behave or live like the other English wives. She was an accomplished pianist and took part in the 'theatricals' both in Selangor and Perak during her days and was also called upon to give speeches in schools and to also christen a ship! But she had her low days where she spent drinking herself silly waiting for Frank to return home from his tours into the other states of Malaya.
What do you hope the audience will take away from the play?
While I hope the audience will be gripped by the story itself, the techniques used in the presentation of this solo piece is also an eye opener. You will see how the 11 characters come alive and the acting techniques used to do this. Also, the use of all props and sets... they are all there for a purpose and not mere decoration to set the ambience or era. In the end, there is just Lady Swettenham and her bits of paraphernalia that remain on stage. It is a piece of physical theatre, which is a lot of fun to perform!
*Charulata enjoys watching theatre, and writing about it.
