Jo Kukathas’ YBeeee and Curry Spice return with Instant Café Night Live! Edisi X

TEN minutes into our interview, actor, playwright, and director Jo Kukathas abruptly leaves the room, dashes to the study of her home and comes out with a wig and a songkok in hand.

I had asked her whether it was difficult to slip in and out of the heads of her characters, and what techniques, if any, she uses to do it.

Like a magician performing a sleight of hand, she transforms, switching from her most well-known alter egos – Curry Spice, when she dons the character’s signature curly wig and YBeeee in the songkok.

Then she reveals she does not need these props and proceeds to have a conversation with me in respective characters. All three personalities in the room – Kukathas, Curry Spice and YBeeee – are so distinctly different and separate from one another.

Kukathas, the doyenne of Malaysian theatre (she resists the honour but that is what she is all the same) is mild-mannered while Curry Spice is a force to be reckoned with, a trait Kukathas envies and tries to emulate.

“With Curry Spice, I have learnt that you do need to be disruptive. You don’t always have to play nice. People may not like you as a result, but you play a role. She has taught me to be more open to some of my more privately held beliefs – about my humanist and anarchist point of views,” she says.

Then her back arches, wrinkles, and creases form in parts of her face you never noticed a moment prior, her voice turns hoarse and gruff. YBeeee, spelled with four ‘e’s, a VVVIP if there were any, and whose face emotes a perpetual grimace, greets me.

The character was born as a response to the intense political turmoil of the 90s, and Kukathas has been playing him the longest. On stage, these features are accentuated with make-up and a costume, but even in person and with nothing to aid the performance, the illusion holds.

The switch between all three personalities was instant, and felt equally lived in.

“For characters like YBeeee and Curry Spice, I have been playing them for so long that I can fall into them just like that. It is a bit worrying! I complain that both YBeeee and Curry Spice live rent free in my head! I ought to start charging rent!” she jokes.

Seated just three feet away, I felt like Dorothy getting a peek behind the curtain – except in this case, the grandeur and admiration were only amplified. This is a master craftsman at work, a skill honed through decades of work.

Kukathas reveals to me, “when I first created them the externals were what helped me find the internal. With YBeeee it was his bush jacket, songkok, oversized clown shoes. The massive corsage came later.

He walks in a particular way, talks in a particular way because of what he is wearing. He is weaselly and cunning, so his body is always bent.” In an email, she provides me with a crib sheet of YBeeee, describing him as someone who “has been in power since power began.”

The executive summary is as follows: In the 80s he was the Deputy Minister of Misinformation.

He thrived in the 90s, the era of Malaysia Boleh becoming the Deputy Minister of Breaking Records. He has had many portfolios over the years.

After the Sheraton Move, he was the Deputy Minister of Comebacks and Kickbacks. But he was never as interested in power as much as he was interested in staying in power.

He came for the power. He stayed for the perks. As he says, he has a lot of hungry mouths to feed, a lot of hands that need handouts, a lot of elbows that need greasing. Curry Spice came much later.

“I found her when I tried on a wig in a wig shop. The character just took possession of me. She walks differently from me. She is more confident, her body is open.

"I tend to find characters physically – in movement and in gestures. The voice changes because the body changes. Both the character and I fuse. Sometimes they are puppets, and I am manipulating them. But other times it is the other way round!”

The two characters are returning to the stage for the upcoming production, ‘Instant Café Night Live! Edisi X’ that takes place on March 18 at Plenary Hall, KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre).

They have had some changes to their lives since the public last saw them a year ago for ‘Edisi Banjir’.

The MP of Ulu Katak and the Deputy Minister of Kickbacks and Comebacks is part of the new coalition government while Curry Spice is the star of a Netflix reality TV show ‘Keeping Up with the Coomarasamys’ and an upcoming biopic, Ini Kari Lah.

According to Kukathas, YBeeee is trying to figure out how to survive in an environment that has zero tolerance for corruption.

“He is dodging the purges, the witch-hunts, and several court cases. But he is a survivor, he is in the coalition – in the Cabinet! – so, he will figure it out.” She jokes that “his spirit animal is a cross between a chameleon and a crocodile. He cries easily. But they are mostly crocodile tears.”

The production is modelled after “a late, late, late-night talk show,” Kukathas says.

She adds, “Sean Ghazi plays the host. Kuah Jenhan plays the Special Correspondent. I play YBeeee and Curry Spice.

"Jenhan is brought in to interview YBeeee who is keen to speak to the Youth of Malaysia. And Jenhan, as he puts it, puts the ‘young’ in ‘sayang.’ There is a show band led by Nish Tham. Sean Ghazi sings! Tria Aziz sings!

"So, it is SNL and the Late Late Late Show all rolled into one lively night!”

For more information and to buy tickets, visit: https://bit.ly/ICTNIGHTLIVEEDISIX. – The Vibes, March 1, 2023