Puteri Saadong goes to Jaipur

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian drama Puteri Saadong heads to Jaipur, Rajasthan, in the New Year to be part of the Rang Rajasthan arts festival from Jan 5 to 11, 2018.
"We were invited to the festival in Jaipur after our performances in Delhi and Pune early this year (2017). This will be our third Indian city performance," said Sabera Shaik, artistic director of Masakini Theatre Company who plays the legendary Kelantanese princess.
Puteri Saadong made its debut in Naga Women – a series of three solos in Penang in 2015 and then Kuala Lumpur. Through the years, Puteri Saadong has been captured theatrically through dance dramas, epic plays and music theatre opera.
The Masakini depiction tells her tragic story through a monodrama that brings out the character of a self-sacrificing princess who saved her people at the expense of her own personal love.
"She is no girly girl," said Shaik. "She is a strong woman, imperious, demanding, courageous ... with a deep and dark side."
That dark side is ingeniously portrayed through the interplay of Shaik's monologue and the haunting orchestration of traditional musical instruments including the ancient rebab performed brilliantly by Kamrul Husin.
Written and performed by Shaik, Masakini's "Puteri Saadong" was directed by Tage Larsen of Teater aboratorium in Denmark with original music by Kamrul Husin and Susan Sarah John, and lighting by Sivarajah Natarajan.
The costumes designed by celebrity designer Datuk Radzuan Radziwill and celebrated dancer Guna, uses songket woven specifically by Yayasan Terengganu.
Puteri Saadong is the tale of the legendary Queen of Kota Jembal who ruled what is now known as Kelantan in the 15th century. Her beauty was known far and wide and many regional sultans and princes vied for her hand including the King of Siam.
Her foster mother, Cik Siti Wan Kembang, the Queen of Kelantan however turned down all proposals and married Puteri Saadong to her cousin Raja Abdullah. This angered the King of Siam who plundered Kelantan, burning parts of the state to cinders.
To prevent further atrocities on her kingdom, Puteri Saadong agreed to go to Siam but before leaving, she asked her husband Raja Abdullah to wait for her, that she will remain chaste. After three years of being incarcerated in the Siamese palace, she negotiated her release and returned to Kota Jembal only to find that her husband had remarried.
An argument ensued and in her anger, she killed her husband with her hairpin. After this incident she was never seen again. Puteri Saadong was said to have learnt and obtained occult powers from her foster mother.