God’s Waiting Room is a play written and directed by Joe Hasham OAM. It centres around the lives of the three characters – Miss Effie, Mrs. Pansy and Mr. Chong, who all live in a retirement home.
From the get-go, God’s Waiting Room pulls you in. How can it not when you have Faridah singing Tepuk Amai Amai, at the start of the play? The audience even joined in! Then the other characters come on stage and as the play progresses, you find yourself filled with questions, wanting to know more about their lives, and how they got to be in the retirement home.
Essentially a drama, the play pulls at your heartstrings with regular intervals of laughter thrown in, making it easier to sit through. This helps with your heart not being weighed down too much as I did find myself tearing up at certain scenes. The way Joe has balanced the emotional scenes with sprinkles of light heartedness is truly a gem. It’s also rather like life – you take the good along with the bad, hopefully all in good humour and with a fighting spirit.
God’s Waiting Room starts off with all three characters rather at odds with each other, sometimes ganging up two to one, on the other. Bickering siblings is how I would describe them. As the play moves ahead, each character learning about the others and their backstories, friendships bloom. And this is the true essence of the play – love, understanding, and acceptance in all its glory through friendship. For friends are family you choose for yourself, isn’t it?
It was beautiful to see each of the character blossom on stage, and how they kept themselves entertained in the retirement home. Their yearnings during their individual monologues, let you see into their bouts of loneliness too, while living in a retirement home.
The cast of God’s Waiting Room
With three theatre legends on stage, it was no wonder that the show sold out its entire run even before opening night. At a capacity of 170 seats per show, the total number of seats sold was a whopping 1,700 tickets, which is a truly magnificent number for a local production. There is hope for the performing arts after all!
Patrick Teoh, who plays Mr. Chong, has always been the voice to me during my secondary and college years. I would tune in to Radio 4 regularly to listen to him (when I was supposed to be burning the midnight oil studying!). His spoken English, enunciated clearly is second to none. So, to be able to catch him back in action, live on stage, was such a thrill.
As Mr. Chong, he was the thorn amongst the roses. This role suited Patrick to a tee. So much so that he reminded me of my late dad – in mannerism, the way he would get into arguments, and the naughty banter. And then there was the pining for his beloved Gracie. You could feel his loss along with him.
Dato’ Dr. Faridah Merican, who plays Miss Effie, needs no introduction. She’s known as the “First Lady of Malaysian Theatre”. She’s been in performing arts since forever. Her work is mostly behind the scenes for some time now, so to catch her acting on stage was a delight. In her role as Ms. Effie, she was the cheeky one, if I may. The one who would start fights, and also the one who needed cajoling. She truly brought Effie to life with her sauciness.
Anne James, who has been in the performing arts for over 40 years, and has won multiple awards, was a joy to watch. When she recited Shakespeare and in her monologues, I was held in rapt attention. In her role as Mrs. Pansy, her role was the atas one (snob) and akin to the big sister of the group which she played to great effect.
Waiting and more waiting
Whilst God’s Waiting Room dealt with a heavy theme of waiting in old age – waiting for test results, waiting for death, waiting for visitors, simply just waiting, Joe has also excellently captured not only the spirit of friendship but also a kinship, all in our own Malaysian ways and language (which came with an advisory of foul language and mature content!). For me, a sign that a play is a great one, is when you find yourself rooting for the characters and these three had many (if not all) in the audience that night.
According to Joe, he had originally written the role which Anne stepped in for, for the late Mano Maniam. If it had been Mano up there on stage, I would imagine the play would have probably come out quite differently, with two male leads and one female lead. That’s not to say that the one that was staged wasn’t good – it was great and Anne did such justice to Pansy.
To me, this play was a great throwback to the plays that were put on when The Actors Studio Foundation (TAS) was still in BSC, which I still remember fondly. God’s Waiting Room was simultaneously poignant and uproariously funny and I’m so glad I managed to catch it!
We were invited by The Actors Studio Foundation. As always, our opinions are honest and our own.
