Inkpot Picks 2011

Kenneth Kwok's Picks

1. Turn by Turn We Turn by The Finger Players

It is truly remarkable how such an epic tale - spanning decades in the life of a Chinese puppet troupe - can be made to feel so intimate, so personal. There has been a lot of talk about the importance of preserving Traditional Arts; Turn by Turn We Turn makes a most compelling case.

2. The Good, The Bad and The Sholay by NUS Stage and Checkpoint Theatre

Playwright (and NUS undergrad) Shiv Tanden's zany The Good, The Bad and The Sholay is about growing up in India before moving to Singapore, and is the most fun I've had in a theatre all year. Hook the play up to a generator and this Energizer Bunny could power an MRT line for weeks.

3. Political Mother by Hofesh Shechter Company

The nuclear bomb-blast that is Political Mother lays waste to easy description. Suffice to say, UK choreographer Hofesh Shechter's artistic vision - including his phenomenal sound design and also Lee Curran's lighting work - left me breathless.

4. Cooling Off Day by W!LD RICE

Playwright Alfian Sa'at's Cooling Off Day will likely benefit from more rehearsals leading into its second run in 2012 but even in its original form, it is fiery, audacious work. Based on interviews with everyday Singaporeans, this is theatre of the people and, thanks to its timely staging after the General Elections, also for the people. Cooling Off Day made me feel extremely, uniquely Singaporean - and compelled me to reflect on all the complexities that come with that identity.

5. Dust by Vertical Submarine and TheatreWorks

A tremendously divisive work but I found the play's stubborn, idiosyncratic nature to be hypnotic. This is a play (award-winning visual art collective Vertical Submarine's first) which somehow managed to aggressively push some audience members away while simultaneously pulling others into a soft embrace. Not an easy feat.

Special Mention

Sure, here at the Inkpot we love navel-gazing, existentialist doom and gloom as much as the next pretentious arts critic. But let's also hear it for the unabashedly entertaining big-budget spectacles of 2011 like The Lion King, Wicked, 881, Beauty Kings, and Aladdin!

Matthew Lyon's Picks

1. Snails & Ketchup by Ramesh Meyyappan

If I ran the SAF, my first priority would be a black ops extraction mission to bring Ramesh Meyyappan back from Scotland. Not only is he supremely gifted at his chosen discipline of mime, but he constantly works to expand the boundaries of the form, with Snails & Ketchup adding aerial rope work to his already formidable arsenal of skills.

I saw this show twice, and on both nights left the theatre breathless and grinning - along with everyone else in the audience.

2. When a Gray Taiwanese Cow Stretched by Ishinha

It's beautiful and it's bigger than you. This applies both to the show itself and to, respectively, its movement and music, and the giant puppet that occasionally strolled across the stage.

Japanese company Ishinha created a gently relentless, constantly evolving tableau vivant that washed against us like waves, eroding our emotional defenses and leaving us small and tender and floating.

3. Turn by Turn We Turn by The Finger Players

Writer / director Chong Tze Chien crafts a tiny epic, and wraps it in unique and memorable staging.

Full disclosure: I edited the English surtitles for this production.

4. Richard III by Old Vic/BAM via Singapore Repertory Theatre

Altogether more entertaining than this slightly dodgy play ought to be. Director Sam Mendes and star Kevin Spacey bring an almost vaudevillian energy to the play's dour proceedings, keeping their audience on the edge of their seats. I'm not utterly convinced that brio, charisma and comedy are enough to plumb the murkier depths of this play, but there's no denying it makes for riveting viewing.

5. Cooling Off Day by W!LD RICE

So we saw the general election in real life, and then we saw it on stage.

It was better the second time.

Eugene Tan's Picks

1. A Game of You by Ontroerend Goed

A few years ago, Time magazine declared that the person of the year was you. This year, at A Game of You, I got to feel for just a hot moment what it might be like for Sarah Palin to watch Julianne Moore play her. A whole company of actors put me through situations that ultimately allowed one actor to perform as me. Sometimes the line between being a guinea pig and a star is improvised.

2. Political Mother by Hofesh Shechther Company

The buzz about Political Mother was so strong that I heard no less than nine people rave about it after its first performance. I was, at the time, quite broke, so I could only afford nosebleed seats the next night. And all the way up in that balcony, I sat transfixed by the pure energy and sheer power of the dancers and the awesome power of that live music. No, I didn't need the earplugs that the Esplanade had so helpfully provided, but, yes, I was a little breathless when the lights came up at the end.

3. Internal by Ontroerend Goed

Internal marked my first speed date. It was also my first date with a woman. And then she turned around and told everyone else what we talked about. Internal played with intimacy and trust in a performance that lasted only 25 minutes. Do I want to speed date again? No. Do I want to date a woman again? No. Was I intrigued enough to Google-stalk my date? http://nl-nl.facebook.com/mieke.versyp

4. Fear of Writing by TheatreWorks

Tan Tarn How's hotly awaited first play in ten years, Fear of Writing, was really heavy. It asked some really tough questions about why we make political theatre and by extension, why we make theatre at all. If theatre is about the suspension of disbelief, then for some, they really believed. And to watch people really believe, to see them tweet what was happening in the theatre because they believed it to be real, to watch foreign students call their embassies during a performance because they were panicking and believing that what they were seeing was real, that was a special privilege.

(Full disclosure: I saw the show four times because I was a volunteer ticket taker and bartender but I was wholly removed from the creation of the performance.)

5. The Public Shaming of Loo Zihan by Loo Zihan

This was billed as an artist talk as part of the Singapore International Film Festival. In the hands and on the body of Loo Zihan though, it became so much more, partly a performance, partly a slideshow, partly a film screening, Loo brought us through his work and connected it all to notions of shame. Shame never looked so good.

Naeem Kapadia's Picks

(Note: Naeem was mostly based overseas until Sep 2011)

1. Gemuk Girls by The Necessary Stage

Haresh Sharma's award-winning play about political detention resonates even more strongly today than it did three years ago. It's amazing how much it packs into a compact 90 minutes - comedy, tragedy, politics and family relations - all distilled into three raw, arresting performances. One of the finest works to emerge from the TNS repertoire and the perfect way to head into their 25th anniversary celebrations next year. Hats off.

2. Richard III by Old Vic/BAM via Singapore Repertory Theatre

If there is one Shakespeare play that Singaporeans have seen this year, there's a good chance it's Richard III, a fitting culmination of the three-year, transatlantic theatre extravaganza that is The Bridge Project. Sam Mendes has crafted a compelling political thriller out of this lengthy historical play that is both cinematic and hugely entertaining to the exhilarating finish. And if nothing else, watching Kevin Spacey, this "poisonous bunch-backed toad", totter around in one of his best performances ever is a treat in its own right.

3. The Weight of Silk on Skin by W!LD RICE

Yes, Ivan Heng did come under fire for his somewhat unconvincing portrayal of an upper-class lothario but let's not discount the fact that this is a witty and nuanced piece of writing by the talented Huzir Sulaiman, offering a glimpse into a privileged side of Singapore that is rarely seen. A powerful monodrama about the emptiness that lurks behind glittering life in the city, this is a play that definitely deserves to be staged again.

Special Mention: Teater Ekamatra

Teater Ekamatra really impressed this year. Charged (restaged as part of the Man Singapore Theatre Festival 2011) had a Chinese playwright (Chong Tze Chien) helping to create a gripping play about racial politics in the army - in three languages. The Gunpowder Trail presented us with a powerful, post-modern Malay woman, someone rarely seen on stage. Artistic Director Zizi Azah and her team must be commended for their conscious effort to bring Malay theatre to a wider Singaporean audience through a mix of language and interesting themes. With seasoned actors like Oniatta Effendi and talented young writers like Irfan Kasban (check out his trilogy Hantaran Buat Mangsa Lupa at the M1 Fringe Festival 2012), this is one theatre company to watch.

Ng Yi-Sheng's Picks

1. When a Gray Taiwanese Cow Stretched by Ishinha

My list this year tends toward the epic, and Yukichi Matsumoto's Jan Jan Opera exemplifies this perfectly. A massive choral production, featuring music, dance and oversized puppetry on an outdoor stage overlooking the CBD, telling the story of Japanese emigration in the early 20th century: drawing together the histories of Singapore, Saipan, Davao and New Caledonia in a heartbreaking elegy to a lost age. Kudos also to the Singapore Arts Festival for scoring this as their kickoff production.

2. Political Mother by Hofesh Shechter Company

I only regret that Schechter's first full-length dance production was not performed at full eardrum-busting volume as it was in London, where it caused audience members to pass out from sensory overload. Spectacular, stunningly executed and poignantly philosophical in its savagery.

3. Cooling Off Day by W!LD RICE

When I wrote about Caryl Churchill's Mad Forest, I proposed that Singaporean playwrights should write about current political events as they unfolded. Alfian Sa'at's documentary drama does this with aplomb, revealing that the reality of our country is often more interesting and nuanced than our fictional conception of it. Devastatingly relevant, surprisingly moving and of course beautifully performed.

4. Inhabitants by Teatro de Los Sentidos

One of the less publicised offerings of the Singapore Arts Festival, but breathtaking nonetheless: an encounter with apparitions, disembodied voices and evocative landscapes within the confines of the National Library's fifth floor.

5. Crack by Arco Renz / Kobalt Works and Amrita Performing Arts

I've loved the Khmer court dancers of Amrita Performing Arts ever since I glimpsed them in Pichet Klunchun's Revitalising Monkeys and Giants (2006). Each time they perform here, they amaze me a little more - they combine tradition and contemporaneity in forms that boggle the mind.

Special Mention: Huzir Sulaiman

I've mixed feelings about Huzir's Singapore scripts, e.g. The Weight of Silk on Skin and Cogito. However, his work as a playwriting teacher in NUS is vital: he's cultivated young dramatists like Shiv Tandan, Joel Tan, Faith Ng, Lucas Ho and Laremy Lee, and given them a chance to see their work staged professionally. Keep your eye out for the next NUS Arts Festival: I hear Checkpoint Theatre's staging yet another new voice from its writing program.

Stephanie Burridge's Picks

1. Mémoires d'Oubliettes / Sehnsucht by Nederlands Dans Theater

Paul Lightfoot and Sol León's Sehnsucht, incorporating an innovative visual effect of a rotating room made the work extraordinary; offered a highly creative take on the complexities of a relationship. A 5 out of 5 for me...

2. Out of Context – For Pina by les ballets C de la B

Highly individual yet systematically constructed by Belgian-born choreographer-director Alain Platel, Out of Context is funny, whimsical, farcical and silly – underpinned by a deeper thread of compassion.

3. When God Is a Customer by World-in-Theatre

A high-quality production presented by a talented cast of international performers that transcended the specifics of language in all its forms. Priyalatha Arun gave a virtuosic performance in a radical scenario that came to life in an intriguing, imagined world where devotion and eroticism collided.

4. Masterpiece in Motion by Singapore Dance Theatre

Nils Christie's Fearful Symmetries was a brilliant work full of energy and the witty combinations the which the company excels. This evening of dance was worth seeing for that piece alone.

5. The Last Lumière by The Arts Fission Company

The company seems to have reinvented itself over its past few shows. The dancers are technically strong and work well as an ensemble, while their individuality comes across. The stacking together of images created many moods, from an ominous feeling that we are moving rapidly towards some sort of apocalyptic demise, to living in the moment where there is joy, magic and optimism.