INTRACULTURAL EXPLORATIONS IN PERFORMANCE: LLOYD FERNANDO’S SCORPION ORCHID

Abstract

The focus of this article is on intraculturalism in the adapatation and performance
of Lloyd Fernando’s Scorpion Orchid, looking at the staging of the play (adapted
from Fernando’s 1976novel), by Krishen Jit and the Five Arts Centre. Fernando’s
novel questioned racial positioning and belonging within the nation. I suggest
that the play uses intracultural performance to take this questioning a step further;
the performance represents a means of resisting and questioning the essentialised
and monolithic cultural and racial identities constituted by the state in accordance
with official policies of multiculturalism and multiracialism. Where
multiculturalism posits a policy of harmony through separation, intraculturalism
seeks active engagement with other cultures, leading to the exploration of new,
possibly hybrid, spaces of expression. This move towards hybridity challenges the
state’s insistence on difference. Intracultural exchange is, potentially, a site of
dialogue and interaction which can challenge the rhetoric of harmony and
separation apparent in state discourse.