“indelibly evocative and brimming with sensoriality” – Critics Republic

BOH Cameronian Arts Awards 2026 – Best Original Script; Best Director; Best Set and/or Visual Media; Best Music & Sound Design, overall Best of 2025

What does loyalty mean today? What gaps have shaped our understanding of the past? And who decides which myths are worth remembering?

Fragments of Tuah is a documentary theatre work set to original music that revisits, dissects, and reimagines the enduring mythical figure of Hang Tuah—a purported 15th-century warrior often deployed as an emblem of unquestioning allegiance to the state and her ruler. His legend and memory continue to echo across time, shaping the narratives of loyalty, identity, and power in Malaysia even to this day.

Over three years, Five Arts Centre members Mark Teh, Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri, Syamsul Azhar together with close collaborator Wong Tay Sy researched the different faces, facets and phases of this fabled figure, and in the process confronted what all these incarnations of Hang Tuah might mean for the historical and contemporary landscapes within and beyond Malaysia.

The audience is invited into a space of reflection where the fragments of Tuah are pieced together not to restore a whole, but to explore the gaps, contradictions, and questions that linger. Rather than offering a single truth or linear biography, Fragments of Tuah is a layered collage of perspectives and materials-drawn from archival texts, schoolbooks, songs, state slogans, invented memories, and historical erasures.

Join the team from Five Arts Centre for In Conversation: Performing Contemporary Notions of Nusantara (25 Jul) and reflect on how the mythical figure of Hang Tuah is perceived and received in the Malay Archipelago.

Want to get behind the scenes? Learn how the team from Five Arts Centrenavigates the personal and political while working with archival materials in a masterclass on Unpacking Fragments of Tuah (26 Jul).

Performers / Musicians: Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri, OJ Law, Shariman Shuhaime

Director: Mark Teh

Production Designer: Wong Tay Sy

Lighting Designer: Syamsul Azhar

Multimedia Designers: Syamsul Azhar, Bryan Chang

Stage Manager: Armanzaki Amirolzakri

Producer: June Tan

Assistant Producer / Production Manager: Hoe Hui Ting

Executive Producer: Five Arts Centre