But of course Sharma's writing is often a joy, in both the witty, wry one-liner jokes and poignant references to the poetry of Yeats and Lawrence. As Vinod and Saloma, Tushar Ismail and Nessa Anwar are both fairly likeable, though while Tushar starts the show on a stronger note, it is Nessa who leaves us deeply unsettled. The real star, though, is Zara Sophia whose pin-point portrayal of an emotionally-besieged mother brought tears to my eyes.
3 out of 5, Tan Sock Keng, 11 Oct 2012
]]>Still, I'm surprised that he didn't mention how entertaining it is – whenever Sean Tobin intrudes into the play as a director, the audience cracks up, and you can't tell me that Nora Samosir's campy homophobic school principal act wasn't bloody hilarious. I personally felt it was the more serious, angsty scenes that fit in awkwardly, including the framing narrative of the four corpses trapped in a morgue.
As a whole, the work reminds me of The Necessary Stage's plays of the early 2000s, such as godeatgod and BOTE: playfully iconoclastic, combining experimental theatre with social issues. Methinks the more of Tobin's plays we watch, the more we'll get used to his style, and the more we'll grow to accept it.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 19 Feb 2012
What is your faith? Do you believe in God? How do you express yourself? What do you love?
Theatre educator Sean Tobin and visual artist Jason Wee's collaborative work does not shy away from asking some very uncomfortable questions. What it seems less able to do is to articulate a clear response to any of them. As its title suggests, the play (if it can even be termed that) is a swirl of disparate voices, words and vignettes with four nameless characters in a morgue taking on a plethora of roles. Coupled with disconcerting ambient sounds and rather indulgent metatheatrical leanings, the overall effect is a bewildering one that can be quite a jolt for one expecting a more conventional performance: two people walked out halfway.
Yet, perhaps this is precisely the aim of Tongues: to break down the wall between actor and performer and develop a sense of joint participation in the universal human struggle to reconcile faith and sexuality, a struggle that is every bit as inscrutable, uneasy and incoherent as the play makes it out to be. The Gallery Theatre is however not the best place to achieve this intimate effect. There are some especially resonant stories and ideas buried here. It's a pity that one has to peel through so many layers just to get something out of the play.
2.5 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 17 Feb 2012
]]>Adapting the original The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun from page to stage would have been challenging enough in itself, but the team has boldly gone a step further to instead devise a piece that hinges upon the very absence of Lu Xun's classic main character. The resulting madcap adventure is well worth the effort.
After Ah Q might not deliver any new epiphanies regarding the 1911 revolution or the larger state of society today, but it does present its message in the most refreshing of ways.
All in all, despite my initial reservations about the two-and-a-half hour runtime, I have no regrets spending those hours in the village of Weizhuang.
4 out of 5, Michelle Tan, 17 Sep 2011
]]>This current adaptation by Young & W!ld is quite different. All the problems of the earlier edition have, remarkably, been fixed. Though it still clocks nearly three hours in length, the show never feels tedious, thanks to the intimacy of the space, the ruthless editing and rearrangement of scenes, and the spectacular movement work and energy of the young ensemble.
The play-within-a-play format works extremely well: not only does it inject a sense of casual rambunctiousness into the production, but it also allows the actors to deliver their own commentaries on the script, reinvigorating it with contemporary relevance and humour. Conversely, the tragic elements of the play have also gained depth, with clear communication of the anguish of the characters, from the Sultan to the Treasury Keeper's wife.
I've also heaps to say about the new implications of this adaptation in terms of satire. But for that, you'll have to wait for the full review. Akan datang...
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 22 Jan 2011
]]>3.5 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 16 Feb 2011
]]>But the rest of the show refused to tell me.
Instead it plied me with scene after scene of dumbshow (I hesitate to call it mime), in which white-faced performers strove to make me laugh, to make me think, to make me feel - but lost it all in the striving. Perhaps they were overcompensating for the questionable directorial decision to keep live dialogue to a skeletal minimum.
Still, suitCASES is worth catching for the falling empire captured in Darren Ng's score/soundscape, for Lim Woan Wen's twilight lighting palette, for its choreographic composure and, of course, for that beautiful, over-promising first scene.
3 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 28 Oct 2010
]]>Boeing Boeing is farce at its most preposterous and devilishly good. This is my second time watching the play (it's been staged in Singapore in 2002 and 2005) but director Glen Goei and the shamelessly funny ensemble cast led by an irresistible Adrian Pang make it all feel fresh and fun for 2010 (volcanic ash, floods in Orchard Road ...).
Fasten your seatbelts - it's one hell of a ride!
4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Aug 2010
]]>But do come for the singing which is really very good. I was drawn in by the expressive solos of prince Tamino (Kota Murakami), sustained by the harmonics of the three spear-wielding ladies, and quite enthralled by the gorgeous expansiveness of the voice of Pamina (Nancy Yuen). I can also promise some pretty good comic acting in the figures of Papageno (Song Kee Chang) and Monostatos (Lemuel dela Cruz). The pacing's rather odd, though: the first half speeds by in a flash, while the second half drags.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 Jul 2010
]]>3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 30 Jul 2010
]]>It was a joy to behold. The production may have been 8 hours long; but whilst I was tired, I was never once bored. As a production, Gatz is as big, as ambitious, as mind-blowing and as "Great" as the subjects it tackles - Gatsby and the American Dream itself. You'd be crazy not to see it for yourself.
5 out of 5, Karin Lai, 22 May 2010
]]>Director Kok Heng Luen does a magnificent job of creating the play's world, especially with help from lighting designer Lim Woan Wen, costume designer Anthony Tan and music composers Vivian Wang and Leslie Low. This is a work of great majesty and infinite heartache - but Kok handles the comedic moments deftly as well. In the last third of the play, Spirits begins to spin its wheels but Kuo's and Kok's evocative theatrical vision remains an irresistible force to the end.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 16 Aug 2009
]]>Nevertheless, there are obvious problems: some slip-ups, and an inexplicable lack of energy in the opening piece when Mohana's supposed to be frenziedly dancing to the point that her feet begin to bleed. Theatrical elements of the show are particularly iffy: Felin Jayatissa and Kamini Ramachandran give the tale context as they narrate Mohana's biography, but their dialogue is cringe-worthily didactic – "These mandalas are beautiful", "Very perceptive, young scholar", etc. The direction's also very static, with Priya limited to the same tiny dancing space over two hours (save for a very cool moment when she's flirting in a train cabin). A little exhausting for non-veteran audiences of traditional dance.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Jul 2009
]]>To be fair, Noor Effendy Ibrahim's menacing and physically aggressive take on Ovidia's Yu's light and witty comedy is not entirely irrelevant: Yu's script does have dark undercurrents of frustration, claustrophobia and hopelessness and it can be said that Effendy's version is simply bringing these to the fore. However, it makes for an uncomfortable theatrical experience for the audience because the director is not even re-imagining the work as a black comedy. Instead, he makes it earnestly and insistently intense, somber, and painful - all ominous lighting and actors violently attacking one another.
Effendy's expertise in installation art and physical theatre helps to create some evocative visual poetry. For example, each actress begins the play by slowly using bandaging to secure a plastic stiletto at the base of her feet which she then has to walk on throughout the rest of the show.
Ultimately, however, some things are just not meant to be. I definitely applaud the director's moxie but this felt like a goth rock remix of a bubblegum pop song gone wrong.
Also, I'm not sure if this is the best choice for an acting showcase because, aside from Sara Caputo's lead performance (particularly impressive for its physical work), the artful poses struck by the rest of the ensemble cast show only commitment and passion but not breadth and depth.
2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 10 Apr 2009
]]>I think it's wonderful that canonical Singapore plays like Invisibility and The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate S Machine are being revisited this year (especially by student groups). It is an opportunity for newer audiences to experience them as intended - performed on a stage and not just read off the page. I look forward to LASALLE's staging of Three Fat Virgins Unassembled next week, this time by another guest director (and another inspired choice), Noor Effendy Ibrahim.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 4 Apr 2009
]]>In between, there are excursions into melodrama, psycho-horror and absurdism set in euthanasia clinics, Sichuanese restaurants and political press conferences. One actor who deserves a shout out is the totally adorable China-born newcomer Fish Shi Linping – he's refreshingly natural, warm and funny in both his roles. Be forewarned, though, that the second half of this decuplebill is a little bit slower than the first.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Jul 2009
]]>Seriously, this is the first play I've seen about maids in Singapore in which the maid isn't portrayed as a victim, and I think that's bloody amazing. Sure, Wati has problems: her father in Indonesia is sick, the man who employs her verbally abuses her and her Bangladeshi boyfriend has a slightly dodgy character. But she's strong and makes (mostly) intelligent decisions in each case. Counter to stereotype, her relationships with the women of the household are cooperative rather than competitive - in fact, the mother of the household, Linda, envies the independent culture that Wati embodies as a member of the matrilineal Minang tribe.
I'm quite a fan of the set-cum-multimedia design: though keeping to the Projek Suitcase premise that all props must be able to fit into one bag, Shida nonetheless manages to fill the space, using clothes that she hangs on hooks suspended from the ceiling. Lights and video projections also help to enrich what might otherwise be a pretty bare stage. Costume doesn't work so well, though: her shifts between characters are impressively performed but look sloppy when kebayas and scarves are left half-hanging from her clothing. Also, the ending is sudden and unresolved – though at least this means that the writer isn't forced to close the play in tragedy, as happens in far too many plays about strong women.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Mar 2009
]]>My complaints? Well, the play sags a little in the middle of the second half, Veronica's catchphrase of "Oh lordy" is annoyingly repetitive, the language feels a little too hip for the elderly, Lee Weng Kee's a little wooden, a few issues with volume… But you see, these are mere details. Compared to the glaring problems in many of the company's previous plays, this is gold.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng
]]>Acting-wise, Rebecca Lee and Benjamin Wong have good chemistry in their roles as Max and Max, usually succeeding in their dramatic/comedic routines about what it's like being gay in university. However, Wong trips up a little on the high-paced, London rhythms of his lines, and can't quite command the stage when he's going solo. Lee, on the other hand, is in her element: strong, crisp and charismatic, she asserts a physical and emotional presence that's often very impressive. I'm ambivalent about the set: it's functional but a wee bit messy. Ultimately, though, I approve thoroughly of the decision to set this show in a bar rather than in a conventional theatre space.
Note: Yi-Sheng recently worked with director Claire Devine in W!ld Rice's The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng
]]>4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng
]]>What I didn't count on, first of all, was that this would be a forum theatre piece - and this worked well with the mixed audience of regular joes, activists and migrant workers, who ended up being pretty gung-ho about their interventions into the anti-play about a maid who struggles with an unreasonable agent and employer, a boyfriend and an unwanted pregnancy. The talkbacks allowed for genuine insights into the laws and perspectives of maids in Singapore - with even a little disagreement thrown in. Plus, it didn't hurt that the piece incorporated humour, cruelty and bhangra dancing - plenty to watch and to feel.
Second of all, I didn't expect there to be so much talent involved in this piece. While most of the migrant worker cast spoke too softly and had trouble improvising, actresses Unmairoh and Sulastri were outstanding, and there was a whole load of professional local artists backing them up: emcees Sha Najak and Kok Heng Leun, playwright Haresh Sharma, director Rei Poh and actors Joanne Ng and Joey Chin. Not without its slip-ups, but definitely a fun show.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Dec 2008
]]>Shanghainese choreographer/performer nunu banishes the notion of stage presence from her initial movements - she and twin performer Liu Ya Nan walk across the space with their bodies casually slack, their faces assuming the dullness of stupid children (quite unlike their everyday expressions, as seen in the talkback). And once the more dynamic movements begin - wiggling in red cloth skirt-like objects, showering in rice, masochistically slapping their hands on their thighs, their insteps and ankles against the floor - they are deliberately non-representational, unemotional, unaesthetic, almost ugly. All this against a heavy sonic backdrop of spiky piano and peristalsis.
Definitely the least accessible of the works in the Fringe Festival this year - which, one supposes, should be the very point of a Fringe Festival: to allow such weird acts to flourish.
No rating given, Ng Yi-Sheng, 18 Jan 2008
]]>The most fully realized of the three main story arcs is that of a couple who marry young and stay alive for centuries through artificial means ("all our friends have already died," says the wife, spiritlessly) because the husband does not ever want to be separated from her and does not know what would happen after death. His is a natural fear (though taken to the extreme) that is only too easy to empathise with and it evokes powerful questions about the nature of loneliness and human companionship, what it means to really love someone and whether love should be measured by time. Unfortunately, the other two threads, though striking similar emotional beats, prove less effective. I could not give myself completely to the stories and the characters because I was distracted by a lack of clarity sometimes in what exactly was going on and why.
I have no complaints about actors Siti Khalijah and Muhd Najib Soiman though, the former again proving why she was my Special Mention for 2008. Loo Zhihan's multimedia also deserves much praise, especially in how it intersected with the action onstage in often surprising ways. The technology has always been there but I have not ever seen the possibilities of it being optimized as they are here and in a way that feels so organic to the work as part of a whole.
Frozen Angels is not the best Necessary Stage work of late - but even TNS' second best is well above average for other companies.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Jan 2009
]]>The first play in this double-bill, Akan Datang (2.5 out of 5) is charming but ultimately forgettable. The two young lovers played by confident newcomers Glory Ngim and Conan Choong are endearing but while the actors do little that is actually wrong, they are also clearly acting rather than inhabiting their parts. It doesn't help that the story, set in a 1970s cinema, is overly simplistic and some of the dialogue is clunky - this is the sort of play that has, as its denouement, a line that goes something like, "my eardrums were damaged in an industrial accident".
Wife #11 (4 out of 5), however, is a compelling work which showcases veteran actress Tan Kheng Hua at the height of her powers - it is remarkable how she subtly transforms over the course of the play from a young woman married off as a businessman's tenth wife in 1946 to a weathered heroine in 1962 who, emboldened by changes in the social landscape (e.g. the Women's Charter), nonetheless sacrifices everything for the man (and extended family) she has grown to love. Desmond Sim's script, like Tan's performance, is insistent, fiery and complex beneath the sepia tones of its nostalgia. This bittersweet romance challenges assumptions about the true nature of love in the fiercely patriarchal and / or polygamous marriages of the past, and, in so doing, daringly veers into political incorrectness. This carefully constructed work is sometimes limited by its form - all the dialogue in the play consists of Tan and actor Casey Lim reading aloud letters they have written to each other over the years - but it is nonetheless amongst the best of Sim's writing, getting, as it does, to the beating, bleeding heart of its characters.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 14 Feb 2009
The first piece in this doublebill just doesn't work for me. Akan Datang (2.5 out of 5), set in the 70s, tells the story of a young man and woman passing love notes to each other written on movie tickets. The two actors simply don't have the stage presence and physical training to play their roles well - though to be fair, the huge chunks of third-person narration in their lines are hard on such young actors (they're both still in junior college!) and they do manage some rather cute physical comedy. The video sequences from classic movies end up eclipsing the action as much as enhancing it, and the massive white space of the set makes it impossible to capture the intimacy of a battered cinema. Plus, the story is really pretty sappy.
Thankfully, the second piece, Wife #11 (4 out of 5), is wonderfully solid. Theatre veterans Casey Lim and Tan Kheng Hua play a rich Chinese tycoon and his English-educated bride, who discovers to her chagrin that she's actually to be his tenth wife - though over the course of 16 years from 1946 to 1962, their relationship blossoms, matures and splendidly develops. The two handle the bare space beautifully, negotiating their changing relationship through the letters they exchange and the distances they maintain between each other (a friend was counting the number of subtly different ways in which Tan falls down from her chair). True, there's a little too much blabber about the Women's Charter at times, but the sense of character and emotional trajectory of this story will definitely win you over.
Oddly enough, both pieces are directed and written by the same people - Samantha Scott-Blackhall and Desmond Sim. So much for consistency.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-sheng, 5 Feb 2009
]]>2.5 out of 5, Amos Toh, 20 Feb 2009
The Chestnuts series has never quite achieved the mainstream name recognition of The Dim Sum Dollies but it is nonetheless reliable for more than a few laughs if you are looking for a comedy sketch show that is distinctly not for a family audience. Chestnuts skews younger - at one point, Joanthan Lim quips that the audience won't get one of the jokes because it relies on an 80s reference - so expect laughter built around contemporary pop culture ("Lea Salonga" singing Rihana's Umbrella, for example) and for things to get more than a little cheeky: there's an incredible amount of sex and swearing, for one thing - you'll never look at Wall.E and Eva the same again, believe me. As always, the show could do with some tightening, Dark Knuts being very hit and miss but, to be fair, when it hits, you'll laugh till you cry. I especially enjoyed the parodies of Mamma Mia! and The Little Nyonya and the newsroom segments. The Bats and The City and Twi Knight mash-ups, not so much. The addition of puppetry (inspired by the Avenue Q set-pieces) to the team's colourful repertoire of irreverent spoofs and songs works extremely well, with the team's deft handling of the puppets particularly impressive.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Feb 2009
]]>The play tells the story of three people living in a Garden, all fanatically eager for the approval of their Master (visible only in the form of political quotations projected on the back wall), all striving to outdo each other in tasks to please him. Actors Anwar Hadi Ramli, Rizman Putra and Nur Suhaili Safari Wijaya work dynamically as an ensemble as they scramble, romp and fight their way across a blood-red set, their battles punctuated by a painfully ringing bell suspended above the performance space. It's a hell of a ride - in fact, my main complaint is that the intensity level is so high that it begins to exhaust you after a while. Frighteningly apt ending too, by the way.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 21 Feb 2009
Suap was starkly different from the childlike narrative of playwright Zizi Azah's earlier work Why Did The Cat Get So Fat, although it incorporated elements of a children's tale in its dark allegorical structure. An elaborate set resembling a playground was painted entirely scarlet, which set the tone for the blazes of brutality that punctured the production with unfailing regularity. Suap, which had three people living in a Garden and competing with one another to win daily competitions, was a passionate indictment of our modern day society. Suap's deliberate allegorical overtones focused on the competitive ethos we live in today, as expressed through a wildly physical style of performance, with vicious acts of violence symbolising the bloodthirsty nature of our daily striving. The three actors delivered breathtaking, intense performances: at times with stylised movement for a Kafkaesque sense of alienation, at other times raw with emotion. Tight direction and an aesthetic coherence across script, set, sound and acting distinguished Suap. At the end of the day, however, the Garden, devoid of all hope, was very much a two-dimensional social critique, albeit one with much power and intelligence.
4 out of 5, Deanne Tan, 20 Feb 2009
]]>But the odd thing is that it doesn't feel new - it's just a nice evening out with an interesting, eccentric foreigner (perhaps the fact that he's from abroad diffuses his transgressiveness). The autobiographical sketches ought to be sordid stuff, involving clinical depression, schoolboy molestation and transvestitism- but in this era of televised confession and sexual acceptance, it doesn't feel like we're breaking any taboos. Remarkable dramatic form, but the power just isn't there.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 20 Feb 2009
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 28 Feb 2009
]]>4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 1 Mar 2009
]]>4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 2 May 2009
]]>2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 May 2009
]]>3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 28 May 2009
]]>2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 27 May 2009
]]>Noor Effendy Ibrahim's direction possessed a kinetic energy that kept the wordy play on its feet and he was aided by spirited performances from Rizman Putra and Shahril Wahid - they literally took to the air with their martial arts sequences. Tay was more successful as a writer than an actor, though - her performance was unpolished and while this was sometimes charming, at other points, she somehow came across as both guileless and self-conscious at the same time which made it difficult for us to empathize with her.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 14 May 2009
]]>Director Danny Yeo makes the most of his actors. Most impressive is Mindee Ong in her role as a ghost - she places subtle expressiveness in every lines she speaks, gradually revealing the layers of her identity through the course of the play. Doreen Toh, meanwhile, manages to inspire both derisive laughter and pathos in her role as a grieving mother, while young actors Toh Wee Peng and Neo Haibin are fearless and physical in their parts as gay ah bengs.
It's tougher to appraise Loo Zihan, who plays the lead role of Qiang. He's more than competent, with a great physical presence (his virtuoso dance sequence might take out your eyeballs). Still, he doesn't really milk the nuances of his twisted character: a policeman who moonlights as a Taoist medium, talks to the dead and abusively seduces schoolboys into dominating him in hotel rooms. Despite the big obligatory confessional scene, we feel as if we don't truly understand him by the play's end. Also unfortunate is that this conclusion involves an oh-so-cliched plea for understanding for gay people, complete with a maudlin series of echoed lines from earlier scenes.
One final shout-out to the play's set designer, Nicholas Li. It was a remarkable set to begin with, but when it tipped over and became an S&M rack in the end? Magic.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Aug 2009
]]>Paddy Chew's Completely With/Out Character finally finds a successor ten years on with Leona Lo's Ah Kua Show. The former was a 1999 performance by Chew, the first person in Singapore to come out openly as HIV positive, of his own life story while the latter sees Lo, a transsexual, recounting her personal journey transitioning from Leonard to Leona. Both tell compelling stories about the strength of the human spirit and its ability to come to terms with the past and look ahead to the future, whatever the odds - and with good humour. They also remind us that in a nation where every Singaporean is supposed to matter, some, it seems, still matter less than others.
Ah Kua Show, a modestly budgeted production at the Substation Theatre written by Lo herself and directed by relative newcomer Emeric Lau, lacks the more professional polish of Completely With/Out Character which was created and staged by The Necessary Stage. However, Lo's amiable script never loses its audience - in this case, the advertising says it best: at turns, the inspirational and life-affirming Ah Kua Show is "tender, raw, amusing, naughty and nostalgic".
True, the momentum is disrupted by too many unnecessary costumes changes and I feel that the show could have reached for greater poignancy with more thought and time. Lo is also not a professional actress and, if I were to put on my serious critic's hat, I must admit the show suffers in places as a result. However, in the (many) moments where she connects intimately with the story, delivers a throwaway line, or deadpans, the natural warmth of her personality shines through and this genuineness and lack of guardedness endear her to the audience.
It is rare for me to actually wish a show were longer but this 60-minute production is one such example. Especially funny are her witty sideway digs at everything from self-proclaimed Feminist Mentors to lothario DJs. These are countered, however, by sobering accounts of real-life persecution, discrimination and struggle - even when she tries to dismiss them with a "So Mediacorp, right?".
When her parents rise to wild applause from the audience at the end of the show and present her with a bouquet of flowers, it is a reminder that, thankfully, at least Mediacorp dramas usually have a happy ending - as does Lo's empowering story.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Aug 2009
]]>3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 12 Aug 2009
]]>First, the shortcomings. Large ensemble movement was often pretty underwhelming, lacking real grace and cohesion even in celebratory dances and battle scenes. The sets occasionally verged on being tacky (and what the hell are American cacti doing in a Chinese desert?). The prologue and opening act, The Departure of Xishi, were also pretty slow and predictable.
After that, however, the quality just builds and builds: Jiang reveals impressive theatrical movement in The Love and Betrayal of Diao Chan, in which she locks horns with a smashingly swaggering Guan Yu, played by Peng Chiquan. Then, with Concubine Yang's Drunken Stupor, she manages to combine delirious physical comedy with truly heartbreaking poignancy.
Zhaojun Crossing the Border features probably her best singing, as well as a refreshingly revisionist take on the story: perhaps the heroine might actually have learnt to be happy when married off to the barbarians. Truly a tour de force performance.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Oct 2009
]]>Playwright Kaylene Tan does an intriguing job of recreating what it must have been like to be a creative person in a vanished age, living through the trauma of war. Still, her text isn't very focused – the constant shuttling back and forth between art criticism, art history and personal anecdote dilutes the true emotional impact of the piece, and Samosir's casual style of presentation just makes the problem worse.
Nonethless, the play boasts some powerful moments, both moving and disconcerting – none more so than the conclusion, which manages to be both a catharsis and a mindfuck.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 1 Oct 2009
]]>Some interesting decisions: actors are allowed to keep their native accents, a decision which is surprisingly unjarring: American, Australian, Singapore/Malaysian, Filipino, Finnish. Jaclyn Tan's evocative set rises almost out of nowhere: sacks of sand become the square borders of the stage, a colossal crucifix covered in flowers is wheeled in, boys in lumberjack shirts sharpen axes, generating real sparks of fire in the background as Death pulls the black cloth curtain towards the very front of the stage. Live music works beautifully: the use of trained singers results in unexpectedly thrilling renditions of Lorca's song segments.
Acting-wise, Simon Thompson stands out as a taut, tortured Leonardo, chilling the performance space with his very presence. Frustratingly, the Bride, Rummana Yamanie, does not quite bring out the vocal subtleties of her crucial role. Other small complaints: recorded music doesn't work in Scene One, over-long epilogue of mourning, and of course, the constantly falling flower petals. Still a truly breathtaking production.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 26 Sep 2009
]]>Granted, the show isn't as sharp and aesthetically gripping as the New York / Chicago group Neo-Futurists' Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which inspired much of the format. Nevertheless, it's fun: the genre ensures high-energy and instant-gratification, and the writers have decided to go heavy on the comedy and (slightly out-of-date) current affairs commentary.
Very few pieces fall flat: Very Anal Cheerleader doesn't register many laughs, nor oddly enough, did the rather cute Ode to Youtube (basically a live performance of Daft Bodies). Much more giggleworthy are the extended Korean, Beijing Olympics – Budget and Ah Beng and the Bee (in which spelling bee contestants are challenged to spell things like "kao peh kao bu"). A few rather anarchically eccentric pieces such as Dead People Don't Hoola find their way in too, along with more serious turns like Do You Like Your Work.
Perhaps most importantly, every member of the cast pulls her/his weight – this is probably the most polished piece of youth theatre I've seen, barring the semi-professional Young & W!LD team (which didn't create or direct their own pieces, after all). Hopefully How Drama can become a sustained presence on the performance calendar, bringing in some newer voices into the scene.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 29 Aug 2009
]]>Still I have to complain - and somehow, this feels like a minor quibble - that the epic monologue about a mad scientist proposing an alternative theory to global warming makes very little metaphorical sense, has a tenuous relationhip with current events, and follows a sequence so unbroken, prolonged and unclear that it does make me drowsy. Please tighten, separate, clarify and vary the voice.
Why am I being so lenient on the substance of this show? Because I really love the style. Mux breathes new creative energy into the world of performance here - and we need that, badly.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 11 Aug 2009
]]>Broadway 4 Suakus is well-named. It is a dummy's guide to the most popular songs from some of the biggest Broadway musical hits. You get to tick off the songs and musicals that you recognize as the cast sing their way through Broadway history.
But it is really the comedy and not the songs that drives the show. The best part of Broadway for Suakus is how the characters earnestly try to clean up the raunchiness of some of the Broadway songs. The most memorable performance is the simultaneous singing of My Heart Belongs to Daddy and When You're Good to Mama by Lim and Lau, and de Rozario and Tan respectively - especially because of the way the show played with the cheeky innuendo of Lau singing the song to Lim as his "Daddy".
Drinks are available while the 5-people comedy sketch show provides the music and laughs so the show is very much like a dinner theatre performance. All in all, Broadway 4 Suakus proved to be a delightful night, perfectly timed to last no longer than it needs to entertain you.
4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 16 Oct 2009
]]>3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 16 Oct 2009
]]>Several works stood out. I thought Adeline Ee's Echo had a high level of complexity in the movement vocabulary, concept and production – it was also well danced by a group of articulate young performers. Another well-performed and -structured work was Loss by dancer-choreographer Seow Yi Qing, while Chiew Pei Shan's dancers also revelled in the complex rhythms and movements of her Gasp. B by Kiran Kumar incorporated highly original theatricality and explored entertainment and performance in terms of exchanges between audience and performer. Mohd Rizwan Bin Kamis's Malay-influenced Jalinan Darah Putih included some original moves danced with a lot of energy. A pleasing aspect of all choreography was a lack of pretension. The pieces were honest and well rehearsed, and the ideas were clearly portrayed.
Inevitably there was a high level of predictability, with most of the choreography derived from the young artists' training or the companies that they have performed with. In response to this, I feel many of the works would have benefited from some intense mentoring during the creative process rather than the participants having to create a finished product for a competition. Young artists need platforms for taking risks and an environment that fosters process development – perhaps a simple "show and tell" showcase of works-in-progress would promote creativity and throw up some real surprises. Nevertheless, contemporary-dance choreography in Singapore certainly needs a boost and this is a wonderful opportunity for new talents. There should be more of such choreographic platforms in a variety of formats.
Stephanie Burridge, 3 Oct 2009
]]>The bilingualism of the play gives it some wonderfully subversive strength: besides the natural tension that arises from a character speaking in Mandarin and another replying in English, the casting runs counter to our expectations of language: a mother speaks English to her Mandarin-speaking daughter while emphasizing the importance of shark's fin soup to Chinese culture, and the President of Singapore is a Mandarin-speaking woman. It also provides an occasion for us to see the PRC students of NUS at their artistic best: Yang Meilin stood out as a spoiled bride, while Luan Haoran consistently earned laughs as a hyperactive salesman whether advertising products in operatic Mandarin or rock-lyric English.
Tech work is also particularly good - lighting designer Lim Woan Wen and sound designer Darren Ng conspire to create a thoroughly uncanny visual and aural soundscape for the fable, and set designer Wong Chee Wai's gargantuan aluminium snowflake of a tree has to be seen to be believed. My complaints? Actors weren't always as nuanced or lively as they could've been, and the play's ending was an anti-climax. Still, an impressive show – this kind of collaboration should happen more often.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Mar 2009
]]>2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 10 May 2008
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 23 May 2008
Hamletmachine, as staged by the cohort of graduating actor-students from the TTRP, pounced with much ferocity but I found little that really captured my imagination or even attention. The sparse text of the original script was expanded by way of forceful repetition and movement sequences of great kinetic energy but I did not feel that these cohered to create meaning or offer new perspectives. Even when considered as individual vignettes inspired by the text, I felt that the images created, while striking and well-executed, were less than compelling: there wasn't the sense of any new ground being broken, something to be hoped for due to the nature of the work. The international cast proved to be charismatic and fiery performers but I was also disappointed that the production did not really give them the opportunity to showcase much range.
2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 31 May 2008
]]>4.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 4 Jun 2008
]]>Unfortunately, most are simply too pedestrian to affect – the play ends, for example, with the cast holding candles which they then place around a darkened stage to symbolize hope for a better age – and do not really work together to create a strong and clear message either.
The play is also not helped by the repetition and dragged out movements which mar the pacing of the play, and the copious amounts of melodramatic shouting and wailing of lines that, at least in translation from Manipuri to English, are reductive pronouncements and truisms which add little to the content. Nine Hills is interesting as an insight to contemporary theatre in India and as a peek into some ethnic cultural arts but, on the whole, I was left unimpressed and unmoved as the play droned on.
2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Jun 2008
]]>But about halfway through the show, somewhere in the rotating-shadows sequence, I got bored – rather than any sense of intensification or progress in the insanity, I was experiencing simply period after period of chaos, with no truly new elements introduced to make me gasp and wonder - not much of a resolution at the ending, either. Summary: cool concept and tech, and some amazingly talented dancers, but this show needs some structural dramaturgy, quick.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Jul 2008
]]>Here, we've got scenes of an insane Chinese Singaporean stage magician trying to stop his dead mother from doing the "tak boleh tahan" dance, or engaged in a schizophrenic hawker centre conversation with a well-brushed Indian man, with violence and racial tensions bubbling alongside a bizarre sense of tolerance and mutual good humour. Or there's that scene in a school office where a Malay principal confronts a Chinese girl who refuses to sing the National anthem because her mother was robbed by Malay gangsters and she can't bear anything in the language. Aarrrgh, it's not written with polish, but it's all urgently strange and unabashedly discontent with the way Singapore is today. Quality aside , it's impossible to watch this and come away feeling nothing.
2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Aug 2008
]]>At the core of Tree Duet is a meditative journey narrated by a wistful Paul Rae about the simple pleasures of living - remembering, contemplating, even something as basic as drinking - and what we stand to lose if we don't stop ourselves from being caught up in consumerism and convenience and don't take the time to just breathe and reflect on our time in the world once in a while.
The second half of the double-bill, Ho Tzu Nyen's House of Memory, however, takes a more academic approach to this theme of remembering and forgetting and is essentially a lecture on the craft of memorization. What fascinates is how the text narrated live by the visual artist and film-maker is accompanied by an hour-long film which stitches together scenes from various old movies. Sometimes the images selected are literal, other times they are metaphorical but they are always well-chosen to accompany the different beats of the text, save in the last five minutes when, I felt, the artist was much too heavy-handed.
4.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Aug 2008
]]>2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 22 Aug 2008
]]>(Note: I have not commented in detail about the plays themselves as I am actually one of the judges of the still-ongoing competition.)
No rating given, Kenneth Kwok, 25 Aug 2008
]]>4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 7 Sep 2008
]]>Still, I've got beef with the performance. Conceptually, it's just hammering the same point over and over again - we're modern-day people, cut loose from the moorings of our heritage, blah-di-blah - and while this does come to life well as the nervous energy of the displaced, in the middle I started to get quite bored. Not so crazy about the ripping up of paper scrolls at the end, either - it was neither sufficiently elegant nor chaotic enough to generate a satisfying conclusion. Nonetheless, I've gotta recognise the facts: this is a bloody significant work by a locally based choreographer and homegrown dancers. This could change the dance scene as we know it.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 12 Sep 2008
]]>Dario Fo's The Virtuous Burglar, on the other hand, starts off slow and then gets funnier and funnier as more actors crowd onto the luscious set. It's a very good choice for a performance: absurd, salacious and more or less culturally universal – though some effects were spoiled by actors speaking much too fast and garbling their words.
Both plays also share some basic directorial flaws: scripts aren't mined enough to reveal hidden tensions and character tics and actors aren't given enough confidence in or awareness of their bodies, hampering the physical comedy. As it is the show comes off as a rather good student production, but only that. A drama group representing the whole of NUS should aspire to professional standards.
No rating given, Ng Yi-Sheng, 22 Oct 2008
]]>3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 Nov 2008
]]>4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 9 Apr 2008
]]>The production was meant as a showcase for LASALLE's first cohort of BA (Hons) Acting graduates and, in that regard, however, Clark was a resounding success. Led by a charming performance by Crispian Chan as the bumbling reporter Clark Cant investigating the troubles in Sarajevo, the ensemble cast of actors impressed with their confidence, clarity and commitment to their various roles with Rayann Condy as a prostitute with a heart of gold the obvious standout (special mention also goes to the precision of Emanorwatty Saleh's dramatic soundscape). It is a pity that none of the cast was Singaporean as, judging by the quality of tonight's performances, our local students are missing out on a real opportunity for quality training through LASALLE's BA (Hons) Acting programme under Edith Podesta.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 28 Mar 2008
]]>Note to Hennedige: Madonna would like her fashion designer (circa 1989) and hairstylist (circa 2006) back.
4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Dec 2007
]]>2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 8 Dec 2007
]]>3 out of 5, Malcolm Tay, 27 Feb 2009
]]>Nonetheless, certain scenes stand out for their excellence: you will laugh your ass off in the Oracle sequence, where Mandarin and Korean-speaking actors improvise a discussion over a journey of great danger (in my case, Dr Jeungsook Yoo counseled Patricia Toh on how to climb mountains and defeat villains with kung fu and sub-machine guns). Also terribly funny but also painful is the plastic surgery sequence, where a peppy voiceover administers excruciating treatments on the actors, including skin-bleaching and artificial iris transplants.
Perplexity aside, it's easy to enjoy the infectious energy of these actors, especially Yoo, whom I'll remember for her wild, gimlet eyes as well as her powerful voice and movement work. Once again, yay for intercultural collaborative exercises – they take us to such strange and wonderful places.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 20 Nov 2009
]]>In Meow!, we accompany a mechanic and his salesgirl wife on a car journey. Aside from the young Malay couple's cat (played with winning charm by a charismatic Herman Yadav) which appears in occasional dream sequences, there is no escape for the audience from the endless bickering between the husband and wife as they fight over his impotency, her nouveau riche ambitions, her obsession with her cat and his preoccupation with his past. And yet my attention never wavered over the play's two hours because of the ferocious electricity and surprising humour of Elangovan's script and the engaging, sensitive performances by Dew M. Chaiyanara and Faizal Abdullah who make their crass characters feel like real people and not simply mouthpieces for a treatise on the issue of class in Singapore.
The play's surreal and bloody end leaves an indelible mark and is a potent reminder of everything that is wrong in our beautiful garden city. Meow! is a small, low-budget production that comes across a little raw, a little unpolished but boy, does it scratch your eyes out!
4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 Nov 2009
]]>Act I: Agamemnon is a decidedly dodgy patchwork, involving poor singing, over-the-top histrionics, a way-too-long-and-static intro monologue and clownery which utterly eludes the logic of theatre. Act II: Elektra, on the other hand, is brilliant and powerful, thanks in no small part to the eponymous star of the piece, Cara Whitehouse, who plays the raving, dynamic anti-heroine with aplomb (and she can sing, too!). Her earthy, violent interactions with the other characters rivet you to your seats – but this drama subsides with the stirring, yet disperse Act III: Orestes, a non-narrative piece imagining the hero's struggles with the Fury and Apollo in his mind. This, one of my friends said, more than anything else you get in Singapore theatre, is the manifestation of tragedy and catharsis.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 26 Nov 2009
]]>(What's it about? Er ... loss, I think, and the senselessness thereof.)
4.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 4 Dec 2009
There's a moment in the play when it seems that Cat, Lost and Found is curling up around a statement about choice and destiny but then it continues wandering, focused more on telling its winding tale than in settling in a single spot.
And what a remarkable tale it is: in a crumbling, soon-to-be-demolished cinema, a cat falls in love with a woman and tries to become a man so that they can be together. Along the way, a series of surreal events unfold - reincarnation, demonic possession.
As expected for the company, Cat is full of surprises, as physical movement, puppetry, props, etc. are used in interesting ways to actualize the wacky imagination of the play's creator. Even the way a simple rooftop fight is staged offers a different perspective from what we normally see. These help construct the realm of magical realism that the play is situated in but, to be honest, not all truly excite or fascinate. Some are amusing in their outsized preposterousness but others are simply bizarre. A few of the off the wall aspects of the play actually annoy - I'm not too keen on the actors' strange voice work, for example. I also doubt that this entertaining but slight work will leave a deep impression on audience members.
Still, the overall experience is certainly an improvement from that of watching director / playwright Oliver Chong's last work, the muddled Pinocchio's Complex, due to a stronger sense of narrative and a more relaxed sense of play.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 4 Dec 2009
]]>Production values are high: the set of naked light bulbs, joss stick and bonsai tree is breathtaking in its simplicity. Overall, however, the effect is once of distance - playwright Bryan Tan assigns no names or cultural markers to his characters, filling their mouths instead with overblown eloquence: metaphors of "misty wilderness" and "strange, forbidden fruit". It's a relaxing one-hour evening of music and storytelling, but don't expect anything raw or gripping or heart-stopping. In short, don't expect anything conventionally dramatic.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 2 Dec 2009
]]>The piece isn't perfect, though: there isn't much action on stage in most of the scenes, the resolution is slightly unsatisfying, and the themes really aren't that revolutionary or taboo-smashing. Among the cast members, only Neo Swee Lin stands out with her garrulous warmth, and the singing of the pantun was generally – ahem - bad. I'm also grateful to dramaturg Haresh Sharma for shaving the play down to 90 minutes – the original length of three hours would've been just too long.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 1 Dec 2009
]]>However, one thing stays the same: you will still laugh your ass off. Highlights include some inspired remixes of Christmas Carols by the choir of the Church of Perpetual Succour (Do You See What I See and this year's National Day theme song, God Rest You Merry Gentlemen and Long De Chuan Ren), as well as a Pondan News Asia interview with MDA representative Amy Chua. The biggest act of the night, though, is the appearance of infamous beauty queen Ris Low, portrayed with a spot-on accent by Judee Tan. Though the scene sends her up and skewers her, it also pays an intelligent tribute to the force of her stardom - and amazingly, the oft-spouted "Boomz" punchlines just don't get old.
Oddly enough, the old-time favourites don't work so well - there are odd, draggy moments in the Christmas Carol send-up and the Madonna musical Nativity. It's also an issue of chemistry: younger actors Tan Shou Chen and Dwayne Lau aren't quite able to match the stage presence of Chestnuts founder Jonathan Lim. Rather, I'm intrigued by the emergence of the non-parodic scenes, which work as miniature plays in themselves, highlighting fundamental divides in our society: mainland Chinese pride vs. yuppie Singaporean Anglophilia, heteronormativity vs. camp gay hedonism. Lim's clearly more than just a funnyman, and it's starting to show in his comedy.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 29 Dec 2009
]]>The format of the production is a sketch show, with some scenes only a minute long while others run for around five. The innocent and playful misadventures on display (catching a ball, falling in love, competing to see who is more handsome) are great for children but I am confident even adults will find these modest narratives amusing and giggle-worthy because of the unexpected ways in which they are presented - though one shouldn't expect big howls of laughter.
Indeed, despite the endless charming little surprises on offer, I must say that I eventually felt the law of diminishing returns kick in as the production (which has no verbal text or musical accompaniment) continued along the length of its two hour running time. Because it is so enchantingly bizarre, Mummenschanz is the sort of show you simply must see at least once in your life! - but not necessarily ever again.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 18 Jan 2010
]]>Yet it's also this very sense of unorganized play that makes this mini-musical so enjoyable. The ensemble are utterly irreverent in their retelling of King Solomon/Sulaiman's love for Balqis, the Queen of Sheba: they refer to her as "Miss B", show them sharing a joint of marijuana after a feast, and present the famous scene where she tests the king's wisdom as a TV gameshow. Interestingly, the roles of the two romantic leads are rotated among different members of the cast – there's even a female Sulaiman at one point. And all this anarchy is without agenda: the barrage of cross-dressing and tomfoolery is punctuated with heartfelt exclamations of "Shahada!", with a conclusion simply reiterating the fleeting nature of human love in the face of eternity.
A few more shout-outs. Junainah Yusoff's set design is fabulous: she's turned the Arts House Gallery into the interior of a Middle Eastern bridal tentage, with swathes of cloth hanging from the walls and ceiling, while we sit on cushions, watching the action and eating sultanas and cakes and sipping rose tea. And although all the actors deserve credit for their energy and creativity (they devised the script themselves), Hatta Said and Gloria Tan stand out for their skills in physical acting and comedy.
An enjoyable evening indeed.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Feb 2010
]]>The music is fine, very fine - pieces like Haunted and In My Dreams are wonderfully compelling, and cellist Leslie Tan and singer Gani Abdul Karim create surprisingly chilling sound effects to accompany the narrative. These are songs that can stand the test of time, and that deserve to be heard by new audiences in contemporary arrangements. I'm also a fan of the presentation style, sophisticated yet intimate, accentuated by the fact that we've stripped off our shoes to enter the UCC Dance Studio.
However, the story is monstrously melodramatic - are we really still hung up about World War II tragedies? - tempered only by Chan's voice of subtle irony as he describes his this Gothic/kabuki tale of Singapore. Plus, the decision to set most of the tale in 1988 conjures up very few memories for the university-age crowd, most of whom were barely born in that decade (Note: the musical is being staged as part of NUS Arts Festival 2010). We also want more development of character in this very simple plot - showing, not just telling how these characters are "reckless" and "modern". A couple of clashing notes here and there too. But still, a lovely evening.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 13 Mar 2010
]]>I loved it because it was a picture of ourselves: spirits of late capitalism and technology, yet oddly rooted to tradition nonetheless.
I have to admit, however, that part of the fascination came from the intimacy – the UCC Theatre Green Room had a seating capacity of only about 20 – and I wasn't crazy about the de-sexualised, de-commercialised reprise of the dance in ugly leotards at the close. Still, this is a thrilling work, especially coming from a young choreographer. Hoping for more to come.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 6 Mar 2010
]]>Now for the plays themselves: I was extremely impressed with the beginning of Daniel Koh's Staying Over, and how it communicates the utter ethnological strangeness of the upper-middle class bungalow-dwelling Singaporean nuclear family. The inclusion of actresses from Migrant Voices and The Necessary Stage's Theatre For Seniors programme is an excellent touch, adding Malay and Teochew to the English language discourse. However, once we get to the central plot, the show loses focus – it is never clear why and how the protagonist decides to create a birthday play for the maid, and the actor playing him just doesn't assert enough stage presence. Good movement direction overall, though.
Leonard Choo's Maggie and Milly and Molly and May is lively and well-paced, but unfortunately it's one of those plays about suicidal gay men that rehashes every gay cliché in the book. True, it's extremely self-aware: the protagonist actually mocks the drama-drama nature of the exchanges going on, and there's a big load of comedy in the mix. Still, it gets on an out gay man's nerves. Oh yeah – the two lead actors here need to make their characters more three-dimensional, more human. Too artificial at present.
(I'm not including Nitin Venkateswaran's Rebellion in this review. It's only being staged on Friday and Saturday out of the four nights, but don't feel bad if you miss it, as it's there principally to give Buds acting students some exposure and the quality's still at a school assembly level. Sorry.)
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 Feb 2010
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Mar 2010
]]>The anthology of micro-works – monologues, duologues, a dance item - I saw on opening night was crippled by technical problems and at times awkward to watch: unsurprisingly, the pieces lacked polish and actors came across as over-eager (especially in the limited confines of a Substation classroom). The items were also surprisingly safe; I was expecting riskier, more off-kilter experiments.
But I believe low-key, no-frills spaces like A Seed are extremely important. The very act of being in a public performance can be a great learning experience for these writers and performers, many of whom are students. A Seed deserves our support: the festival which runs for the next three weekends at The Arts House / The Substation with different performances each night, is pay-as-you-want, features a range of different art forms and the evening runs in blocks of 60 - 90 minutes. Take it in the spirit it is intended and have a little fun. There is always a diamond in the rough to be discovered.
(A Seed also reminds me of the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when independent theatre companies were sprouting up all over the place with lots of fresh, young faces. Whatever happened to Thank You Maskman? The small Theatre? Peel Arts?)
Kenneth Kwok, 8 May 2010
]]>And yet there's something hollow about the work. The purported theme is the experience of urban alienation, illustrated by the thread of a narrated tale of a man who transforms into an orchid mantis. And yet the elements of the show don't add up - the images are frequently more seductive than expressive of unease, and the concept of the universal city is jarred every now and then by something oddly specific - a historic photo of Kuala Lumpur, or the singing of Mamula Moon, the Hawaiian love song which controversially shares the same tune as the Malaysian national anthem. Plus, I kept on being rattled by actress Shanthini Venugopal's prim and proper, English teacher-ish style of narration - the occasion demanded something more experiential, more open to the sense of wonder in the performance.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 7 May 2010
]]>Kenneth Kwok, 4 Jul 2010
]]>Singaporeans are attracted to anything that's free. But that's nothing to be embarrassed about. You should feel bad though if you don't take this opportunity to check out the various cultural and arts institutions in the Bras Basah area which are all open till 2am this weekend - and yes, offering free admission.
Whether it's the existing exhibits (like local artist Ming Wong's internationally acclaimed Life of Imitation at the Singapore Art Museum) or the new local and international festival commissions - indoor and outdoor film screenings, art exhibitions, dance performances, theatre productions, interactive activity areas and erm, Muay Thai bouts - there's something for everyone, especially with the festival's New World 2010 theme celebrating the bygone era of the 1960s (joget kiosks, anyone?) as well as the wackiness of modern life (the cheeky World's Slowest SMS Billboard).
Go now. (I'll be back tomorrow night.)
Participating venues: The National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Management University, The Singapore Art Museum, The Peranakan Museum, Fort Canning Park 60 Waterloo Street and The Substation.
Kenneth Kwok, 16 Jul 2010
]]>Kenneth Kwok, 16 Jul 2010
]]>I was happy to lose myself in this multi-media experience: Philip's mature, confident vocals are rich with the sound of lives lived and the interactive component is just silly, cheesy, crazy fun - it even features a special guest performance by a household appliance. My favourite aspect of Duet though is the intense dance work by Law and her five dancers. Law's choreography constantly surprises as it pushes against the limits of conventional dance vocabulary, finding beauty in what may seem like awkward, broken poses and gestures. I especially liked how the movements, all dark and twisty to Radiohead, suddenly light up with flashes of unadulterated playfulness when you least expect it.
Best of all, the whole experience completely envelops you because the audience sits in a ring in the centre of the stage with the dancers performing around us. It is thrilling to have them whoosh by in front of you, beside you, behind you – you catch fleeting movements out of the corners of your eyes, like you've seen the glimmer of a ghost.
Kenneth's preview of Duet for the Substation website is available here.
Kenneth Kwok, 19 Aug 2010
]]>Yet there's something missing. The script follows Bai Yan's life extremely factually, with the result that it leaves us with no emotional or ideological statement, other than "making theatre is tough". Nor is there much intimacy - Chia also feels strangely stiff, as if he's holding out on genuine emotion, clinging instead to the formal art of performance. Consequently, the closing lines about the importance of "speech" don't really feel convincing.
Intriguingly, the show denies us nostalgia: there's none of the spectacle and bustle and warmth of the cabaret on show, unlike in the much more crowd-pleasing Titoudao. We don't even see the aged Bai Yan we recognise from TV until the last scene when Chia finally speaks to us as an old man. It's a brave decision from playwright Goh Boon Teck and director Jalyn Han – I'm just not sure what they were trying to accomplish with it.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 13 Aug 2010
]]>Here's the puzzle for me, though: I'd heard Shh... advertised as an allegory for state censorship, which is incredibly smart: not only can the company bypass the muzzle-happy MDA, but it diagnoses Singapore's state paternalism as being grounded in a culture of Chinese familial hierarchy in which the less powerful children/ruled are denied agency and respect by elders/rulers in the name of love. Also worth noting is the portrayal of multiple levels of censorship in this culture: each generation struggles with the others to be told the truth while silencing the generations below it.
However, the story of divorce is so touching and multi-layered and the allegory so subtle that the audience doesn't get that it's about state censorship – our interventions show our concerns with convincing the kids that divorce isn't the end of the world, and using emotional tactics to sway parents to our point of view. Does this mean that the piece works too well? Nor is there the same polish we saw with professional actors in other forum theatre works, such as Trick or Threat: the rawness adds a certain vulnerability to the situation, but it's undercut by the fact that half the roles are played in gender drag. Like I said, it's a puzzle.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 11 Sep 2010
]]>The big problem is that the monologue is supremely alienating. Both the cold, sardonic language of the script and actress Sandy Phillips' delivery push the audience away rather than engaging us, especially at the beginning of the show, when we know nothing about her, save that she's hard-assed enough to make wisecracks about bringing swimsuits to pools of blood - we need some more vulnerability here. Also, the props, though pretty infernal-looking at first glance, look kind of tacky as the play wears on
2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Sep 2010
]]>This year's highlights include a fabulously vicious exchange of insults between the leaders of Singapore and Malaysia, Ang's solo about what she would do if elected President, and an eye-popping opening number in honour of the YOG which leaves very little to the imagination. But naturally, some weaker items remain, such as the Peranakan Lady Gaga item and the later Jack Neo filler ... and will someone please fix Fernandez's Polo Boys costume so it doesn't make him look flabby? Erg.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 1 Sep 2010
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 22 Oct 2010
]]>Dogs Go Hump Hump In the Night by Joel Tan, for instance, is a simple ten-minute conversation between a mother and a son, but it's milked for laughs, highlighting the writer's eye for the absurdity of family power play and his ear for vernacular dialogue. Then there's 1 2 3 4 by Kenneth Chong, a series of metatextual monologues that might've been easily dismissed as an unstageable writing exercise. Happily, once the absurdist humour of the piece is played up, the audience is plunged into a string of chuckles.
The last play is also the longest: Joel Tan's Lovers' Pier, a short musical about a pair of serial killers who go about murdering other couples in love. It's far from perfect: the plot barely makes sense, it takes place in a faux-American landscape, the rhymes aren't spot-on, the gender stereotypes are less than PC, and most of the comedy comes from the crassness and profanity of the text. And yet it works – the singing, dancing ensemble members throw themselves into this senseless play, swearing with relish, delivering a real crowd-pleaser at the end. This evening could have gone so wrong, yet with the right production team, it emerged as a clear success.
Ng Yi-Sheng, 20 Oct 2010
]]>Thankfully, Tina Sergeant's direction is confident and clever and is the rising tide that lifts all the boats. This nautical allusion is intentional because one of the strongest impressions I left the show with was the playful and evocative use of water, the wading pool specially constructed within the Substation Theatre for this production being extremely well-used (front row audiences, expect to get a little wet!).
For a play called Metamorphoses which deals with supernatural themes, however, it is most apt that the production (COLLAB's first) undergoes a mystical transformation of its own. The first hour makes for pretty dull if painless viewing but persevere because in the last third of the play, everything suddenly, magically ... clicks. This second wind starts off with a hilarious take on the Narcissus myth and never lets up from there, allowing Metamorphoses to realise its promise and take flight. The stories begin to play more to the cast's strength in comedy and their shared theme of enduring love also gathers steam. In fact, where the first hour left me sporadically checking my watch, by the time the chorus gathers to whisper the closing lines of the play, I was choking back tears!
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 8 Oct 2010
]]>The Outsiders, for instance, includes slapstick comedy, social realism, abstract physical theatre, and Tamil and English, both colloquial and classical. Written by Raj Mohan, it centres on a bunch of twentysomethings sharing their personal stories as they hide out from the police in a liquor store. I found it a little unfocussed: what binds together a woman's tale of a marriage breakup, an over-long comedic anecdote about hiring a hooker on your birthday, and a fatal physics lab accident? Still, one of the themes packs a lasting punch: the question of what it means to be categorized as Indian or Tamil today in Singapore. An especially good performance by Vemalan Elangovan too.
Hanuman: The Awakening is an utterly different animal: an ambitious fusion of film and live theatre. We begin with a short movie segment introducing the young boxer Ravindran through a high-adrenaline series of flashbacks and match scenes, showcasing the high production values of director/writer James Kumar. Then Ravindran is knocked unconscious, and wakes up in the mythical realm of Hanuman and his fellow half-human, half-monkey Varunas, where he must discover his own divine strength. It's a little corny and a little draggy, and the live action fight scenes don't always work well – but towards the end, the pugilistics become quite beautiful, even when suddenly slowed down for dramatic effect. Ruvinathan deserves specific mention for his physical stunts and wonderful character acting as Hanuman himself.
Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Sep 2010
]]>Kevin Lagrange shines in the role of Peer as a hyperactive, physically dynamic young man, while Mina Kaye presents the character of Solveig with subtle strength and complete naturalness. Nor should one forget the ensemble, working hard to create a landscape of manic, comic action and spectacle – though moments of pure pathos break through: Peer comforting his mother as she dies in the glow of candlelight, and his own demise on the lap of Solveig as she sings him to his rest.
Still, I don't think the play's fantasy sections of are well directed. Here, Rassios brings in his usual repertoire of spraying liquids, bizarre costumes and body paint, even casting two women as Peer - but these modifications only intensify the chaos without illuminating its meaning, leaving us emotionally disengaged and more than a little jaded. A difficult text can't always be improved by sending in the circus.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Sep 2010
]]>The acting, however, is a mixed bag. It's hard not to be drawn in initially by veteran actor Laurence Pang's expressions of wide-eyed lunacy as he plays the prisoner, yet his performances of anguish and sorrow are too exaggerated and repetitive to be believable. Adelina Ong never sheds her cool, immaculate mask as the interviewer, even when telling stories of her childhood and quest to find her father. The sparse surrealism of American playwright Sam Shepard's script doesn't help us to particularly care about the characters by the end of the 60-minute play either. It's an interesting start for this new theatre company, but not truly a success.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 22 Sep 2010
]]>Not in the least. Man to Man is in fact a meditation on twisted masculinity, symbolized by a knife used for rape and murder, hidden in the anuses of those who wield it. Yet for all its Sarah Kane-esque descriptions of sexual violence and gore, it doesn't hit you viscerally. Director/playwright Liu Xiaoyi prevents this with his elevated dialogue (unsurtitled and so abstruse that I can't justly give this a star-rating since I couldn't understand everything) and his intermittent projections of metatextual queries (both in English and Mandarin, though the messages conveyed are often deliberately mismatched.)
I'm quietly impressed by Liu's use of multimedia and his set design: a network of raffia threads that extends even across the audience, finally used to elevate even the props. Still, his overall style is a cut-and-paste of Danny Yung, and it's hard to find a coherent centre to the play, or to be intimately engaged. Was this on purpose? Damned if I know.
Ng Yi-Sheng, 6 Nov 2010
]]>The Dhoby Ghaut and Outram Park sequences are very well done: Evan Tan's soundscape goes passionately orchestral in his invocation of the old National Library's glories, intertwining with a genuinely sweet tale of romance; while the journey through Pearl's Hill Park becomes fraught with intrigue as we climb the footpaths through the pavilions and the choruses of crickets. On the other hand, I feel like they've dropped the ball with Little India and Punggol – the former, limited to the confines of Tekka Market, is oddly static compared to the excellent MP3 work Desire Paths, while the latter, with its clash between old Tony's voice and the LRT-mediated technotopia, feels like a less daring version of Sky Duet.
As a whole, it's an intelligent, compelling work, but it doesn't perfectly cohere – it feels unfinished, missing certain scenes, and it's only with reference to the website that I understood certain aspects of the loose plot. Nor does it feel like Spell #7 has introduced any truly new artistic tropes here, with one exception: the lovely stripped-down video vignettes of Sherman Ong, which you can watch on your iPhone between stations. The stories in these films are magnificent, all the more so because of their straightforward delivery by actors who don't behave like actors. But then, they have only a tenuous relationship to the central themes. Still worth the ramble if you've got two or three hours free some afternoon.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 5 Nov 2010
]]>4 out of 5, Deanne Tan, 6 Aug 2010
]]>The part of Monkey is pretty much made for Daniel Crouch, who gets to showcase his gymnastic, physical acting to a degree I've never witnessed from him before. Walter Hanna, meanwhile, is a hoot as a pompous, foppish God (a stand-in for Buddha in the original). Edvin Nordenskiold didn't quite make it as Tripataka, though – his body didn't communicate his vulnerability as much as was ideal.
In the end, the script doesn't quite come together: maybe it's the impossibility of doing justice to the source text in a 90-minute production, or maybe it's the heavy-handed references to Singapore's patriarchal politics at the close that rub me the wrong way. But I will say that I'm impressed by Chong's writing style – previously, I'd only seen him write in tersely Singaporean English/Mandarin/Chinese dialect; now it turns out he can churn out flowery, internationally eloquent Anglo dialogue too. Truly, a rather more adventurous the trip than I'd imagined possible.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 19 Nov 2010
]]>It's a daring, and somewhat exhausting stunt to pull on the audience, and yet I'd argue that it pays off. The all-female Program A gives us a fairly classical view of the work, though set in a contemporary age and mediated through a video feed, as the maids record their role-playing on their camcorder. Then the all-male Program B interrogates the text, questioning its gender-specificity through its various slippages and alterations, the covert subterfuge of the maids' murder contrasting with the violence of their machismo. It doesn't always work, yet it illuminates the work by not working.
Acting-wise, Leah Donovan stands out as a manic, highly physically expressive Claire, while Jean Toh also compels us with her more subdued rendition of Solange. Yang Kai Jie is a surprise: though I wasn't a fan of him in Peer Gynt, he too holds his own as Claire, working his way through the eloquent dialogue with good stage presence. And I love the way Kevin Lagrange moves, the hyperactive energy of his limbs a counterpoint to his more laconic facial and vocal acting.
Sadly, I'm rather disappointed in the role of the Mistress. Though it's a cameo role, it's one which demands that the actor upstage the others – and that didn't happen sufficiently in either version. Nor is it a great idea to have two actresses play the Mistress simultaneously in Program A – it rather wrecks the naturalism of the piece.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Nov 2010
]]>2.5 out of 5, Deanne Tan, 11 Sep 2010
]]>The script by Ahmad Musta'ain Bin Khamis won this year's TheatreWorks 24-Hour Playwriting Competition and it is a commendable effort considering its short completion time, the breezy humour of the play's first half which introduces Aidli Mosbit's big, brassy emak going down very well with the audience. I did wish, however, that the playwright had handled the subsequent shift into more dramatic territory with greater sophistication and finesse. With the unveiling of the, open quotation marks, deep, dark family secret, close quotation marks, Serunding wanders all too easily into soap opera territory – still watchable and involving but ultimately lacking dimension or depth.
I'm not suggesting you simply have to drop everything and hotfoot it down from Tuas to Mountbatten just to catch this 30-minute show. But if you are in the neighbourhood anyway, it's certainly worth your time to pop round and have a taste of TheatreWorks' Serunding as it does free tours round public libraries and community centres in the South East district over December and January.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 4 Dec 2010
]]>Throughout Act II, when the Lilac Fairy conjures a vision of Aurora, I was tense, breathless, and utterly lost in the dream-like sequence of their encounter. It was therefore a pity that the tale's climatic battle between the evil fairy Carbosse and the Prince in Act II was shortened to a wave of the Lilac Fairy's wand and an abrupt stab from the Prince's sword. I guess Artistic Director Janek Schergen was so eager to show off the ensemble cast that he wanted to give everyone a short solo after the group piece.
Or perhaps it was because Carbosse's long costume didn't grant her enough freedom of movement to perform a battle scene? That is the one bone I had to pick with costume designer Tracy Grant Lord: her decision to go with long gowns for Carbosse and the ladies-in-waiting which hid the ballerinas' steps from view. The costumes did clue us into the era while adding a sense of the extravagant but I'm glad this sacrifice was not made by the cast of fairies who thankfully performed in traditional tutus.
Vivienne Tseng, 16 Dec 2010
]]>Nonetheless, it's rather well done. Performer/creator Helmut Van der Meersschaut welcomes us warmly to the stage, chatting with us over Belgian delicacies, before dismissing us to our seats and launching into an orgy of rock music, dynamic movement and self-effacing narrative. Everything's framed around the idea of a funeral wake for himself, punctuated by relevant, if slightly wearisome, video segments. One finds his self-critiques often both funny and poignant - it's easy to see your own personal crises mirrored in his life.
What I can't decide is how I feel about the abrupt ending. Is the piece flawed, or more powerful for being unresolved? Also worth noting is that the show's just 60 minutes long, and feels even shorter.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 8 Jan 2011
]]>This re-staging of the critically acclaimed 2010 work by playwright Haresh Sharma and director Alvin Tan (which made the list of Best Plays at both the Inkpot and Today) showcases even richer, more complex performances from the three actresses – Goh Guat Kian, Siti Khalijah and especially Karen Tan – and the slight shifts in the script give us new things to talk about.
In Model Citizens, a man stabs a male Member of Parliament at a Meet the People session but the focus of the play is on three women: Zul's girlfriend (an Indonesian maid), her employer and the MP's wife, all of whom are forced to confront personal demons.
I was proud to bring my US friends to catch the show because, for me, Model Citizens is exemplary of modern Singapore theatre. Model Citizens addresses issues of power through race, language, class, history and politics from a perspective that is uniquely Singaporean. Even as it navigates between English, Mandarin, and Malay, it calls to us in a single voice that is distinctively our own. It also features the director, playwright and cast – all veterans of our local theatre scene (Siti is young but prolific … and shockingly good in any case) - at the height of their powers.
Unmissable.
4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Jan 2011
]]>3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Feb 2011
]]>The game alone is worth the ticket: we're given cards and chairs so we may barter with each other before the show for imaginary status and property. The performance is iffy: it's great to watch Oon Shu An exquisitely writhing and moaning on the floor, and to witness Effendy Ibrahim fumbling in mid-air, suspended from a tightrope. Yet Elizabeth de Roza's narrative leaves me cold – there's not much that's funny or intriguing in her tale of a general and his promotion-obsessed wife, and the lines of her script aren't truly compelling when they're repeated ad infinitum. (In contrast, such textual games actually worked in her last production, The Lower Depths.)
In the penultimate scene, de Roza barters with the audience, giving us toy soldiers in exchange for our belongings. This is entertaining, but it detracts from the previous linguistic and thematic rhythms of the play – and if materialism is being compared to the art of war, this idea isn't developed enough. Thus by the end of the evening, our senses have been very stimulated, but our souls remain untouched.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Feb 2011
]]>First, there's Agnes Christina's Potret, a video-mediated exploration of an Indonesian Chinese family's memories, performed in actual Bahasa Indonesia. Then comes Ruzaini Rashid and Khalid Supandi's Singgah Sana, a quasi-political dance-drama featuring a huge ensemble of thirteen actors, all playing banana-eating birds. My favourite piece comes last: Irfan Kasban's WC combines themes of religion and alternative sexuality via an absurdist dialogue between two men in a toilet cubicle.
It's an odd collection, and hard for me to assess (especially given the frequent surtitle malfunctions). However, I can pick out three unifying elements. First, there's a very imaginative and innovative technical design team at work, as seen in the sets, costumes, props and multimedia. Second, directors have eschewed naturalistic representations in favour of more allegorical, dreamlike sequences. And third, all three playwrights are confronting sociopolitical issues with their works - but never head on, never with an unambiguously activist agenda. Will this style set the tone for the future of Malay drama? Please stay tuned.
(Note: all plays were directed by the playwrights themselves, except for Singgah Sana, which was directed by Habibah Mohckeram.)
No rating given, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Mar 2011
]]>It's always difficult for a reviewer to write about a community theatre production because you don't want to be cruel but you don't want to be patronizing either.
Thankfully, I have no such worries here because I had a genuinely wonderful time at the theatre this afternoon!
In Family Knots, seven stories paint a composite picture of Singapore family life in all its multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural glory. Sure, few of the actors are of professional standard but they are all easy to like, and the narratives, devised by the group members themselves, glow with genial charm, whether they are bringing to life the story of warring mothers-in-law, an old woman who realises that it is cheaper to live onboard a cruise ship than an old folks' home, or a trio of Golden Girls who recapture their youth by taking part in a karaoke competition. In fact, I found myself spontaneously clapping and cheering in my seat at some of the production's more colourful moments. Some of the pieces even have a sharp edge to them: a daughter opposes her 66-year old Chinese father's wedding to a 55-year old Indian nurse, an elderly woman is being pressured by her children to sell the family home because they want the money.
Noteworthy is how Family Knots takes pains to reach out across the generational divide. Even as the production reminds us that things are tough for a greying generation now living in a world that is so different from the one they grew up in, it also shows compassion and empathy for the aspirations of the young adults of today, some of whom choose not to marry, some of whom choose to migrate, some of whom choose to pursue unconventional careers.
The piece that leaves the strongest impression on me is Leaving Home. This story of a mother's struggle to accept her daughter's decision not to return to a stifling Singapore after studying in London is simply told but packs a powerful emotional wallop.
It asks the unanswerable: What do you do if to love yourself means you have to hurt those closest to you?
Whose love wins?
No rating given, Kenneth Kwok, 20 Mar 2011
]]>"It was better than I thought because I couldn't see the actors," said the older boy who's 7. He spent most of the show saying "Wow!" and "But that's impossible" as contortionists, jugglers and acrobats magically (and comically) came to life before us in the hands of the five performers. I had explained the black light theatre concept to him - puppeteers dressed completely in black are invisible under ultraviolet light; only their puppets can seen because of psychedelic glow-in-the-dark paint - but, as a kid, he kept forgetting and being wowed again with each new scene. The younger boy, 3, was less articulate but I think his squeals of joy, clapping and dancing in his seat said it all.
I had been warned by friends that the novelty quickly wears out for the adults but Circo is only an hour long so the show ends before it truly overstays its welcome for us older folks. My mum said she enjoyed herself as well and even a jaded theatre critic like myself must say that quite a few of the segments took me by surprise.
(I could have done without the rather messy and pointless clowning sequence that opens the show before we enter the blacklit world of the circus though.)
Best of all, it's the type of children's show where all the little tykes are laughing, clapping, oohing, asking questions and calling out to the actors (there's very little actual spoken text) so you don't need to worry too much about keeping your little ones under control. Everyone gets to relax and just enjoy themselves!
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 18 Mar 2011
]]>Leonard Augustine Choo succeeds to an extent in The Dance (***), a short piece providing a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of a modern ballet performance. We watch three dancers moving casually from barre practice to rehearsals to tech runs and curtain calls, movements punctuated with voiceovers of great Western dancers describing their practice. The cumulative effect feels both cold and amateurish - one understands the project, but has the feeling that the experiment's been done before by others with more polish and more intimacy. Still, the final sequence is rather poignant: a single dancer returns to warm-ups after bowing to the audience, driving home her dedication to the craft.
Khalid Supandi's Blueprints (**) is more problematic. It's more physical theatre than dance (indeed, he's credited as the director/choreographer), and it tells the story of four "mannequins" oppressed by a "designer". The angst is laid on so thick, you could cut it with a knife: there are recitations and projections of Sylvia Plath's poetry, a leitmotif of enforced paralysis, and a massacre by the end - all this with little modulation of mood or indvidualisation of the characters to better engage the audience. There are in fact some moments of utter grace: Yazid Jalil and Nafisah Anwar perform a brief, gorgeous pas de deux in a savagely warped form of Malay dance. Khalid knows how to create aesthetic forms: he's just chosen to walk away from that practice.
2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 13 Mar 2011
]]>This is important though: if you're coming for the show, SIT ON THE FLOOR. I've heard that the cavernous space of the Gallery Theatre reduces the impact of the puppets for some audience members - certainly, the detached legs of the Hantu Galah are more suited to the lower ceiling of the Alliance Francaise theatre. On the other hand, if you dare to share the floor cushions and benches with the kids, you'll get a closer-up, more intense, more participative experience (hopefully the Hantu Pocong won't fall onto you!), and you'll actually feel a chill as the actors shine their torchlights across the distant brick walls, searching for spirits. Thoroughly recommended for the young, the young at heart, and anyone who just loves honest-to-goodness, unabashedly Singaporean entertainment.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 26 Mar 2011
]]>Shades investigates tough issues but it doesn't get stuck in a quagmire of polemics either. It is constantly pushing forward, never stuck wallowing in navel-gazing. For a play about how everything in life isn't black and white though, the characters are surprisingly formulaic. Still, there is comfort to be taken in the familiar: we can't help but root for the sassy romantic heroine (complete with even sassier gay best friend) and the young man she falls in love with, and it is so easy (and fun) to hiss and boo at the stern-faced Nazia (Reza's sister) and the smarmy Ali (his best friend).
Buds' young cast deserves credit with the MVP award going to recent NAFA and LASALLE graduates Ebi Shankar and Rebecca Spykerman. Ebi did an adequate job in Pangdemonium!'s The Full Monty (2010) but is better cast here as the confident, charming but ultimately conflicted Reza. Even Yazid Jalil's over-the-top performance as the swishy Zain, while trading on stereotype, is not without its appeal. Buds was established as a platform for young actors breaking into the scene and I hope it continues its commitment to emerging artists. In fact, it is adult actor Matt Jasper, trying too hard as Mark, Zain's lover, whom I found least convincing
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 26 Mar 2011
]]>Gareth Mayer and Tara Tan first performed this work as a student project at Bristol University in 2007. Reprised in a cavernous gallery space of Old School @ Mount Sophia, it's striking because of its utter difference from anything else we're currently seeing in Singaporean theatre or dance – indeed, its closest local parallels may be in the performance art scene.
You'll be forgiven for twiddling your thumbs during the lengthy first movement, which consists of the two actors methodically stacking the chairs in twenty tall towers. Fortunately, drama (and comedy) ensue as the two begin to battle violently over the chairs, competing with one another in the creation and destruction of precarious geometric structures.
Though the work's fundamentally an exploration of form, the characters' wordless interactions recall issues of politics, terrorism, human nature… quite a feat considering the simplicity of the elements involved. Here's my congratulations to Tan on a successful local debut, and the best of wishes to expanding performance in the future.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 11 Apr 2011
]]>Almost as good were Leah Donovan, playing the youngest sister, Olympia, and Walter Hannah, playing the most violent brother, Constantine. Donovan possessed immediacy, transparency and sharp timing – but she succumbed a little too often to the temptation to play out front. And Hannah – though he displayed great range and attack throughout – only seemed to fully inhabit his own body and voice after an emotional release midway through his long monologue. After that, though, he was perfect.
Erwin Shah Ismail was sincere and charming as the "good" brother, Nikos – though I'm not utterly convinced he found his way into the play's more abstract moments. Similarly, Jon Cancio was a warm presence as the effeminate Giuliano, but perhaps he wore too lightly a poignant monologue about a lost chance at love.
Rummana Yamanie was perfectly cast as the headstrong, unyielding sister, Thyona, but she really needs to watch her word stress and diction. On the other hand, Edvin Nordenskiold was rather miscast as gregarious Italian host, Piero. (He was much better suited to the Nasty Interesting Man from 2010's Eurydice which used his edgy, uneasy quality to great effect.) Still, he managed to be broadly viable, and he enjoyed several nice moments of interaction with the other actors.
Not everyone was strong, though. Georgia Fun as the matriarch, Bella, was ill-advised to attempt an Italian accent, and was very hard to listen to indeed. And Yang Kai Jie looked like he was auditioning for a Channel 5 sitcom.
Director Adam Marple brought out the play's text and conflicts beautifully, but he allowed too many variations of playing style to coexist simultaneously onstage. Choreographer Daniel Rei Crouch (who also acted reasonably well in a small role) presided over a couple of pulsating physical set pieces – one each for the sisters and the brothers. Meanwhile, production design was eminently sensible across the board.
Overall, the production doesn't quite cohere... but then the play resists coherence quite stubbornly, so LASALLE deserves a lot of credit for what they've managed here: a show that at its best is exciting and affecting, and at its worst is still pretty interesting.
3.5 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 19 Apr 2011
]]>But did it realise all of the potential inherent in the anti-model presented? Sadly, no.
Facilitators (or "jokers", to use the correct term) Rei Poh and Wong Yock Leng were not always able to guide the audience well during the forum theatre phase. They made odd choices about which segments of the anti-model to focus on and then had to rush through the later (and clearly more key) interventions - if we addressed them at all. On more than one occasion, the pair also came across as unsure and a little overwhelmed.
(I should give some allowance for the fact that the show started late because of heavy rain which might have rattled the facilitators.)
To be honest, the anti-model itself was not without problems. The central conflicts were sometimes unclear, resulting in the facilitators having to step in more than should have been necessary. The fragmented nature of How Much? across three periods in May's life also complicated matters unnecessarily.
Still, this is worthy work and there are a few more months to go before How Much? is given a full roll-out to community venues around Singapore later in the year. There is promise here but also work to be done.
No rating given, Kenneth Kwok, 9 Apr 2011
]]>Director Nathalie Ribette once again brought a talented line-up to the Singapore stage and was astute in allocating songs that brought out the best in them. Backed up by superb playing from musical director Elaine Chan's ensemble, Piaf's classics like Milord, La Vie en Rose and Hymn to Love were sung with great sincerity by Denise Tan, Angela Scundi and Hilde Holm, the performers capturing enough of the signature rasp of Piaf's voice to carry off the power and passion of her songs.
Love was the underlying motif for the evening. It coloured every aspect of Piaf's life; she fought for it, wrote about it and demanded it from her audiences through songs that were emotional and romantic, yet had a gutsy, streetwise vibe.
4 out of 5, Stephanie Burridge, 5 May 2011
]]>Seriously, this is one of my best performance experiences of the year - it's lush and sensual and evocative, just as the name of the company would suggest (it's "theatre of the senses" in English). We're stimulated from every direction, with light, live music, the scents of spices, the texture of strings, even the taste of cold tea.
I'm also rather touched by the use of a few token Singaporean images, as well as the use of Singaporean performers Timothy Nga and Scarlett Yu (and others) in the show - though their presence is a little odd, it isn't jarring. Hurry up and buy tickets - the run-goes till 5 June, prices are relatively cheap and the beauty of the piece will floor you.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 May 2011
]]>The show's a real crowd-pleaser. Not only are we dazzled by the technology on display, we also laugh long and hard at the work's sheer campiness and absurdity: Jo Kukathas gesticulates wildly and precisely during a lecture on the "mind-movie divide", while Lim Kay Siu performs a sexually depraved voiceover to a sequence where Karen Tan's character surfs the internet. Regular theatregoers will also enjoy how the actors often break character, grumbling that they don't get treated like this at The Necessary Stage, even haranguing fellow actors they see in the audience.
However, this comedy distracts us from the experimental nature of the play. Indeed, some fellow audience members felt that the subversions of theatre convention were pretty basic: character/actor switches, fake fights on stage and the like - and that few ideas truly developed amidst the slapstick. My view is that the many antics served to illustrate the difference between theatre and film: the divide between stage and film acting, and the ability to interact directly with the audience in theatre, even if only to say hello to a familiar face. Still, I'd agree that the work had room for improvement, both in the realms of story and ideation.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 13 May 2011
]]>What's particularly precious is the sense of intimacy: the Esplanade Recital Studio is transformed into Lee's living room, chock-full of colourful mod furniture and memorabilia, while Lee engages the audience like old friends (and pulls actual old friends out of their seats to honour their presence). His cheeky sense of humour is out in full force as well: we're giggling along to his tales of schoolboy mischief, his subtly dirty jokes and his remix of songs he "loves to hate" – though I can't help but feel that his insertions of political commentary into his Rasa Sayang rap and his rendition of Rihanna's Umbrella are a little out of character; much more characteristic of a Chestnuts revue than of his early CDs.
There is, however, something missing from the piece. Certainly, there's a wide spectrum of emotions evoked, from sorrow when Lee describes his sister's death to awe when he narrates how he was hand-picked to be a Talentime guest performer by Vernon Cornelius of The Quests. But there's no anger, no point in the pleasant evening where the performer stands at a climax and loses control. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Lim and Lee have decided to end their narrative with the star's first Japanese tour, rather than exploring his later, darker days. Will the star tell Part Two of his story next year? One can only hope.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 May 2011
]]>For most of the first act, writer / director Audrey Currie does a fantastic job of keeping the pace up, sketching hilarious cartoons for characters, and slipping in some devious one-liners which her talented cast (herself among them) are confident enough to throw away. For example, a casual remark implying an expat wife couldn't tell the difference between male and female Asians was so lightly delivered that it passed many of the audience by but left some of us in stitches.
And the five principal expat wives plus Jean Jimenez as Anastasia the maid all have excellent timing and an infectious sense of fun. Jo Tan as a Japanese wife with an addiction to ABC stout was riotously, surreally funny and has finally found a vessel big enough to contain all the energy she pours into a role. Vicki Rummun delivered a pert, assertive take on an Essex girl. And Currie herself was dry and amiable as the bewildered new arrival... but really all the lead women are very strong.
The men aren't as good (with the exception of Trey Hehong), but then they aren't given as good material (ditto). They are, though, given quite a lot of material, and the problem seems to be that Currie has written things she didn't need to write and couldn't write well anyway just to give her cast members things to do. Juan Jackson gamely attempts long speeches composed of Elvis song titles that are silly without being even remotely funny. Claude Girardi can't quite carry a sterile, draggy scene about "music therapy". Which brings me to the root of the problem: Currie has no affinity with music – uniquely among the cast she can't sing or dance, and she doesn't know how to use music in a play, yet she does so frequently. The worst offender was the extended medley that starts the evening and briefly left me wishing I had stayed home.
There's a great show in here but it's only an hour long – and if you turn up ten minutes late and leave at the interval, you'll have a spectacular time. But if you stay to the end you're likely to find the charm wears off.
3 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 18 May 2011
]]>It's a sweet little sketch, punctuated by moments of tenderness and humour. All the same, I'll have to admit that it's not actually very good. Saiful embodies his role as a buffoonish old man well, but Adlina just isn't convincing as a senior.
Also consider that there's barely any sense of drama, minimal spectacle, and zero speculation on how society might change in the future, only subdued comedy, very little grappling with social issues, and an unremarkable set design (though it was apparent the lighting designer was trying his best to express some creativity).
Plus, there are no surtitles. Yes, you can follow the plot using the English dialogue. But why bother?
2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 30 Jun 2011
]]>Ng Yi-Sheng, 11 Jul 2011
]]>Still, as a critic I'm forced to point out that the title's a tad misleading. Despite the fact that "3 Wajah" means "three faces" in English, our diva really doesn't display much versatility in this show. True, the backgrounds of her three characters are terribly different: the first is a cleaning lady, the second is a fashionista in debt, and the third is a prisoner who's murdered her husband. Yet incredibly, she plays them all as garrulous, easygoing middle-agers. There's a tearful melodrama at the conclusion, but that's almost thrown in as an afterthought, to remind audiences that she can actually act. Director/playwright Iryanda Mulia Ramly hasn't invested much plot in these vignettes, either.
(A note to the producers: the surtitles are currently very audience-unfriendly. They come on in huge blocks of text rather than line by line, thus ruining several punchlines. Plus, why weren't the lyrics of songs translated?)
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 10 Jul 2011
]]>There's some exceptionally good writing in Sim's one-act play The Durian Seller's Daughters, which captures the cultural rifts of "cosmopolitans" and "heartlanders" that arise in a family when a daughter returns home from studies abroad. Nick Dorian is particularly convincing here as the old durian seller, passive-aggressively resisting the wave of change that's come into his household. (Otherwise, the acting's still a tad raw.)
Nandang's pieces aren't terribly consistent: Assam Pedas Mama is sweet and poignant, though its dialogue seems occasionally too sophisticated to be genuinely believable. Kermit and Miss Piggy Have Tickle Sex is almost painful: its comedy makes very little sense in the context of the greater production, and the characters exhibit neither the speech patterns nor the easily mimicked voices of their famous Muppets namesaks. (Has the writer never noticed that Miss Piggy calls her boyfriend "Kermie", not "Kermit the Frog"?)
One also gets the sense that director Christopher Ling is trying too hard to be edgy, sandwiching heart-tugging sketches with bursts of discordant noise and flashing lights. Nor does the piece truly engage with the colonial architecture of the performance space they've been given. This production has bugs aplenty - but what makes it ultimately worth watching is that it's also got a lot of heart.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 30 Jul 2011
]]>But if you have seen it before, you might want to check how full your wallet is, as this production is rarely much better than competent. Standouts include Adrian Pang as the baker for his presence and comic timing, and Ria Jones for her attack and conversely her lyrical restraint in Stay with Me. But much of the rest of the show lacks charisma, and some characters (notably Sebastian Tan's Jack and Denise Tan's Little Red Riding Hood) have been interpreted oddly.
Also, while Ian Bailie's set and costume designs are largely effective, this is apparently the first time he's doing make-up, and it shows (though he is working with the more experienced Bobbie Ng and Low Jyue Huey). The arbitrary smearing of white pancake makes some of the actors' faces hard to read, while the panda eyes on Tan are bizarre.
But the show is well paced, well sung and clearly presented. And though it's not as much fun as it should be, it's still fun.
3 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 30 Jul 2011
]]>While I may have felt that the puppetry and attempts at light comedy could have been more ambitiously executed, the younger members of the audience seemed to have no such misgivings. And I did find myself engaged by the play's adult-oriented themes of loneliness, communication and relationships. This was due in large part to a robust performance by the always-dependable Goh Guat Kian playing an elderly lady whose relationship with her daughter had been strained over many years. What the play has to say about the crippling pressure of parental expectations and how just because we love someone doesn't mean we always show it in the best way, is expressed here in the form of an earnest little story but it is resonant nonetheless.
Still, I must say that there is a little too much slack in the script, and the young supporting cast does not always convince. I do believe, however, that there is potential here and I would be interested to see how Goldfish might grow if given the chance to evolve.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 25 Aug 2011
]]>A third type of fear is explored in Fear of Writing: the fear felt by the audience. We are told before the play begins that there is no Media Development Authority-approved license for this production. Later, the play is interrupted as house-lights are abruptly switched on, and an MDA official stands up from among the audience to declare the play illegal and that all audience members must have their names taken down. It is clear from the reaction of many audience members that they believe this to be an actual raid and not simply a part of the show - at least until the house lights are switched off and on again, and the cast takes their bow.
Fear of Writing confronts us with the fear of many Singaporeans not only of being critical of the establishment but even of being associated with such criticism because of the perceived implications and consequences that may engender. It's that little extra beat of the heart when one steps into Speakers' Corner or attends an opposition rally. Whether such paranoia is actually warranted depends on your level of cynicism. What is sad is that it exists at all.
What ghosts of the past haunt us? And what hold will these ghosts continue to have over us? The stern-faced Fear of Writing (and its more fun and fashionable second cousin Cooling Off Day) is perhaps indicative of a new way of thinking in post-GE2011 Singapore.
Tan's script – indeed, the very fact of its existence and production - is often startling. It is also strongly felt - though it is problematic in that, being a play about a writer unable to write, the actual content of the play is not as substantial as the ideas it holds. As such, Fear of Writing falls apart on occasion, despite the best efforts of the ensemble cast, excellent down to the last actor (Ling Poh Foong is particularly noteworthy as the stony-faced MDA officer). Part of the problem is the staging. I understand the feel of a promenade play is necessary because of the nature of the work but it creates too many problems not adequately handled by the blocking, set design and placement of the multimedia. Within the confines of 72-13, the audience has to constantly move here, turn there – and yet, there are blank screens and performance spaces around us that are not always being used optimally.
Still, this is work that is sure to provoke reaction and discussion. And every time we engage in meaningful dialogue, that is precisely when an opportunity opens for a little bit of the fear to die away.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 10 Sep 2011
]]>And boy, what a ride it is: a psychotic medley of madnesses, including re-enactments of animal sacrifice, home improvement and rape - and unapologetically intellectual to boot. Chad O'Brien is the eponymous lead, transforming gradually from child to adult to martyr, but considering the centrality of the ensemble work, it's hard to pick an actor who stands out. Kevin Lagrange is as kinetic as ever, but Georgia Fun and Yang Kaijie surprise me with the freshness and force of their physicality. Sound designer Philip Tan must be especially praised: he's created a binaural effect with speakers that recreates the sense of paranoia in the audience, as at certain junctures we hear the voices circling us, oppressing us, not unlike wraiths possessing our skulls.
Bear in mind, of course, that this production may be divisive – I know one friend who did not find it to his taste at all. But if you've a taste for lunacy, try to score a front-row seat – at some points I almost thought I could smell the actors' manic sweat.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 7 Sep 2011
]]>How Much? forces you to confront your simplifications of complex issues. It's sobering stuff for a Sunday afternoon. We are also constantly reminded that we are dealing with human lives, lives that can be filled too often with fear, desperation, deception, violence and prejudice. The play written by Li Xie and based on interviews with actual sex workers, is staged without any bells and whistles. Director Rei Poh is right: it doesn't need them. The three narratives pack enough of an emotional punch on their own, and the work is further strengthened by an engaging ensemble cast.
This multi-format approach offers us many perspectives on the issue but a key question remains for the creative team: What next? Artistic Director Koh Hui Ling acknowledges this in her post-show dialogue: the difficulty in planning the third phase is addressing what all this exploration and questioning should ultimately lead to. Raising awareness around a silenced issue is definitely an incredibly worthy goal but it also seems inadequate if How Much? simply ends with a lot of navel-gazing. I wonder if the composition of the audience is the key. How much more of the work's potential for social action might be unlocked if How Much? is presented to the sex workers themselves - or even their clients - or perhaps advocacy groups, VWOs or policy-makers?
Kenneth Kwok, 4 Sept 2011
]]>What's truly interesting is how the show's been advertised as a "makcik play", which sells it rather short. Sure, it's a monologue focused on by Safiah, a bubbly Malay housewife, but she's quite different from the mainstream stereotype of the nurturing, tudong-clad kueh-making mother figure, exemplified by Rosnah from Under One Roof. Safiah's driven by a very Singaporean sense of competitiveness, which she exhibits by pressuring her kids to excel as exemplary Muslims and career-making citizens. And it's this hunger for greatness in her which leads to her downfall.
Really, the play's only big problem is its plot. After a meandering exposition, the narrative of Sorayah, Safiah's daughter, unfolds too quickly, with our leading lady driven to desperation at breakneck speed in the play's final minutes. I'm convinced that the show needs two acts: the first introducing the daughter and the second introducing a real-time conflict. The play's well worth seeing as it is, but it could and should be expanded, especially when it's finally performed in the city centre.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Sept 2011
]]>This is not to say that Tan's performance even on this opening night is anything less than remarkable as she takes on the most punishing role I've seen so far this year. You should hear the enthusiastic applause when Tan emerges for the post-shown dialogue. Is Lily a victim of internet fraud - or its attention-seeking perpetrator? The way the play continually destabilizes our notions of reality and illusion is manifested physically onstage, with Chong inverting the traditional conception of a monologue: he has Tan running all over the space, ferociously flipping between multiple characters (the bureaucratic chairman of the Town Council, an internet scammer from Johannesburg, etc) and constantly manipulating little signposts as well as the rows and rows of stark white chairs that comprise the set.
By mid-way through the show, Tan is literally dripping with sweat. And yet, good as her performance is - and it is very good indeed - it is still just not quite good enough to make you give yourself up to the frenzied world of the play. That's how demanding To Whom is for an actor.
Still, if the play goes into another run, there's work for Chong as well. The script is not afraid to pose tough questions ("I love my country but why doesn't my country love me back?") and the imaginative staging leaves an indelible mark. Unfortunately, the whirlwind of characters exhausts not only the actor but eventually the audience as well. The second half of the hour-long production becomes noisier and noisier, and we begin to lose track of Lily, whose very human story we have come to care so much about.
Hers is the story of the eager, unassuming Singaporean that you see beaming on the front page of the Straits Times, standing behind a Minister. But what happens when the camera turns away?
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 1 Sep 2011
]]>As would be expected, the strength of award-winning designer David Lee's unnerving 0.01 was the way it played with different aesthetic vocabularies. Film, dance, light, song, sound, performance art and theatre hurtled full-force into one another, and the effect was often startling and stimulating. I especially enjoyed Koustav Mallick's offbeat choreography which offered movement - sometimes strong, sometimes soft - that played with our expectations. In a tender dance sequence, for example, a kiss never quite seemed able to connect.
While individual scenes spoke with great vigour, however, more could have been done with the shape of the play as a whole. In contrast to, say, Cake's The Comedy of the Tragic Goats, rhythms also sometimes lacked potency.
Still, credit is due: this is elaborate, ambitious work for a first-time director. I also hope to see more of the young ensemble cast. They could have handled the text better but the fact is that most of them are primarily dancers and not actors. And indeed, as the former, they certainly impressed, with the charismatic Krissandi Lee and Fazli Ahmad as the stand-outs in my book.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 5 Nov 2011
]]>In the programme, playwright Holly Ho remarks that she first wrote the individual pieces before putting them together for this New Play Season 2011 showcase. This is unfortunately evident in the final result. Don't get me wrong: newcomer Ho has a very firm grasp of the fundamentals of writing a good ten-minute play. Her cheeky tale of an old lady running around a senior citizens' home trying to lose her virginity is especially delightful, elevated as it is by a puckish performance from Goh Guat Kian. Elsewhere, she is able to wring genuine emotion from simple set-ups like a frustrated school teacher unexpectedly finding love in the arms of her principal or a poor temple assistant who is unable to secure a love-match because of his social status.
However, what holds all the pieces together across the 90 minutes is only a common topic rather than a unifying theme. For a play that is explicit in its sexual references (masturbation, lesbianism, sexual harassment), Old Maid is oddly timid about asking pertinent questions such as why the issue of virginity revolves so specifically around women and not men. I was thus unclear about what the play larger message was. Old Maid's sexual politics are particularly confusing: it both challenges stereotypes and reinforces them. In one story, a woman has to give up love for her career. She becomes queen of her castle - but there is no one for her to share it with.
Still, even if it does little to advance the conversation, the bittersweet Old Maid, taken as a collection of sturdily constructed little stories, is a worthy contribution to new local writing. Ho, weaned on Short and Sweet festivals, shows promise as a playwright but needs to demonstrate more ambition when developing extended work.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Dec 2011
]]>The Jade Bangle is old-school Cantonese melodrama, complete with segments narrated in song by veteran Cantonese Opera artist Lou Mee Wah. This family drama won't be everyone's cup of tea: it moves at an uncommonly slow pace and then comes to an end suddenly in a string of dramatic, exposition-heavy revelations. However, it is clear that playwright Ng Sin Yue and director Danny Yeo have specifically decided on this form as an artistic choice - and they commit to it. I'm confident there will be those who appreciate that.
Unused to the sensibilities of the play, I found my attention wavering at times. Still, I was caught in the narrative drift for the most part, and developed genuine affection and sympathy for the characters as their stories unfolded, particularly when The Jade Bangle focused on the difficult life of early immigrants to Singapore. Character work may rely on familiar archetypes but it is nonetheless sound and proves quite affecting. And the cast shines.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 1 Dec 2011
]]>this collective is one of the more promising of such groups. It helps that their debut production deals with the lives of 20-something Singaporeans so the actors don't have to go too far out of their comfort zone.
Specifically, F'Friends tackles the complexities of being in a sexual relationship. The story of twelve Singaporeans is told in six vaguely connected acts, each featuring a pair of lovers / friends as they grapple with infidelity, open relationships, fear of commitment ... and partners who check their phone messages while having sex.
What makes the play so refreshing is how matter-of-factly it handles the topic of sex in terms of onstage depictions and language used. Yes, undergrads do it. Even in Singapore! And yes, they even have oral sex too: the sight of a young man's head disappearing into his lover's skirt which opens the third act is not something you often see onstage here ...
Writer / director Jocelyn Chua, a professional practitioner working in partnership with this collective, has a good ear for dialogue but the play lacks rhythm or momentum. Particularly taxing is the repetition in ideas and lines that drags each act for longer than it needs to be. Still, Chua has her moments: some of the rascally humour is legitimately snigger-worthy and she ends the play with a poignant thought about the difference in expectations and responsibilities when one is in an emotional relationship compared to when one is only coupling for sex.
The acting is generally tentative, with a handful of the actors relying too heavily on exaggerated hand gestures and high-pitched voices. Some of the cast show potential though and it is important to remember that for quite a few of them, this is their professional stage debut. Best in show: Willy Beh, Quek Hui Ying, Marcus Yew and especially Ellison Tan.
Kenneth Kwok, 21 Jan 2012
]]>One Hundred Years of Solitude 10.0 - Cultural Revolution by Drama Box and experimental theatre group Zuni Icosahedron from Hong Kong moves at a glacial pace and features minimal verbal text and no interval. It is a real test of endurance (and not all of the audience made it through the full two hours), but I felt that there was sufficient reward built into the work to justify my patience. This came in the form of the epic stage pictures composed so carefully by director Danny Yung, lighting designer Billy Chan and video designer Benny Woo around that most versatile but simple of props, the actor.
(Speaking of the cast, it was also fun playing spot-the-actor. It's a real treat that One Hundred Years brings together so many familiar faces from the contemporary Mandarin theatre scene in Singapore for a single show.)
I am sympathetic to the accusations of self-indulgence, tedium and incomprehensibility that have been hurled at the show. It is definitely not an easy one to watch. But though my own mind wasn't always fixed on what was happening onstage, the fact is that my eyes never actually wandered - and I give the work credit for that: there was always something to see, and often it would be truly magnificent.
Perhaps it comes down to form. I wonder if audiences would have been better able to appreciate the show in a gallery space where they could experience the work on their own terms.
3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 1 Feb 2012
]]>Pedestrian Productions' debut is a devised physical theatre piece about our conflicting desires in contemporary society for companionship and privacy. The 60-minute ensemble show is a sensible choice for a first production, considering that the members of Pedestrian are young enough to still be waiting for their A-level results. Bare set, all actors in white, minimum verbal text ... Sure, it sometimes feels like we are looking in on a drama class - Transience is more a series of exercises from a textbook than an actual living, breathing organism. But it also means that the show's focus remains on where its strength lies: its committed cast. It is clear that the seven young women want to be taken seriously and have worked extremely hard to put Transience together. The movements show discipline and dexterity and, especially in the more vigorous segments, are executed with vitality.
As the group matures though, I hope it not only continues to build on its foundations in dramatic technique but also develops the confidence and ambition to try and establish its own unique creative identity. As I watched Transience, I kept wondering: what else are the girls capable of? That's meant both as praise as well as constructive criticism.
Kenneth Kwok, 11 Feb 2012
]]>In The Classroom, which revolves around a group of university students falling in and out of love, is a charming way to try and make western opera more accessible to modern audiences. This no-frills, one-night-only performance may be comparable to a school play in terms of production values but that actually becomes part of the show's aw-shucks appeal. In The Classroom is after all a production with few pretensions. It is clearly happy to be entertaining in a broad Channel-5-sitcom way - and does indeed have enough farcical set-ups, embarrassing pratfalls and shameless gurning to keep the audience smiling throughout.
But really, the romantic comedy shenanigans are just the sponge of the trifle. The real treat is the vocal performances of the young cast. Actors who appear awkward saying lines suddenly come to life when belting out classics by the likes of Mozart, Donizetti and Bizet. Song after song, their voices fill the space, successfully evoking emotions of desire and longing.
New Opera Singapore's aims are to extend the reach of western opera, and to encourage and showcase new opera talents and enthusiasts in Singapore where the art form has pretty much been singularly defined by the Singapore Lyric Opera. This is a heartening first step.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 17 Feb 2012
]]>Director Sophie Bendel strives for spectacle. Her interpretation of the piece involves 30 actors dressed in 40 period costumes. (How they managed to budget for that many floppy hats and musketeer boots, I do not know.) There are musicians, swordsmen, dancers and urchins, all of whom are kept busy with stage action during the grandest scenes. There are even video projections on the wall to establish setting – though these look rather tawdry, and have an unfortunate tendency to flicker.
Yet in spite of these flourishes, I don't feel that the performance quite hits the mark. Certainly, Quentin Bernard is eloquent as the swashbuckling Cyrano and Marine Noel exudes grace as his love interest Roxane, but there's very little chemistry, no spark, no sense of the spontaneous fun that a commedia dell'arte-inspired piece should possess. Only Vincent Perrier-Truvov as the clownish cook Ragueneau seems to have the requisite joyous charisma you need to keep a three-hour intermissionless period piece going.
That being said, this is a completely competent work of amateur theatre, and should be justly celebrated by the local Francophone community. A word of warning to non-French speakers, though: there are no line-by-line surtitles provided, just scene summaries in English and Mandarin.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 17 Feb 2012
]]>On the upside, the cast excelled at comedy and caricature, particularly Siti Khalijah Zainal whose impeccable Nonya and Filipino accents transformed her into multiple characters. Siti was also the strongest singer of the group and her musical numbers were easy on the ears. However, I am bewildered as to why songs that neither reflected the play's issues nor propelled its narrative were considered necessary, especially when singing is not the cast's forte.
Luckily, Sharma's crowd-pleasing jokes, from the unfortunate mispronunciation of William Farquhar's name to surreptitious racist gibes, met with the actors' spot-on comic delivery and saved the day, which made Singapore entertaining at the very least.
3.5 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 15 Feb 2012
]]>11, though, is about trying to hold on to the past even as we move forward.
What will we do with the legacies we inherit? Who better to ask this than a team of young performers, some of whom are non-actors taking to the professional stage for the first time?
11 is a haunting work devised by the cast under the guidance of up-and-coming director Liu Xiaoyi - and one that constantly surprises. I have attended many promenade pieces but this is one of the few that really maximizes the potential of the form. As you wander through the Stamford Arts Centre studios, stop along corridors and make your way to the rooftop, actors appear and disappear when and where you least expect them, to great dramatic effect. 11 is incredibly visual and physical, and so demands a lot from the actors in terms of timing, focus, agility and strength. But the cast rises confidently to the challenge. Kudos to Liu as well for being able to manage so masterfully the unconventional shape and odd contours of the play. I shan't give too much away - suffice to say, like all the very best examples of theatre, 11 reminds you what is so very special about live performance as an art form.
As a devised piece of meta-theatre, 11 is so rich, dense and thick that it probably requires a thesis to do it complete justice. It doesn't matter though if you don't get all the references to the man and his writings. There is a cheat sheet in the programme. And in any case, most segments succeed on their own terms. The dedication, affection and reverence with which the creative team has approached the re-imagining process are evident. So much so that they even dare to cheekily make fun of Kuo in one short but particularly memorable segment.
11 is an example of what theatre can and should be.
4.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 22 Feb 2012
]]>Imam Hussein is an intense, urgent dialogue by acclaimed Mexican playwright Enrique Olmos de Ita which explores the tensions between Zeinab, sister of the martryed Imam Hussein (grandson of the Prophet Muhammad) and Sekinah, Hussein's teenage daughter. Zeinab wants to keep the spirit of her people alive and for Sekinah to acknowledge her legacy and the sacrifices of her forebears. The sprightly Sekinah, on the other hand, just wants live her life freely without dwelling on the sanguinary past.
Central to Imam Hussein is the idea of cleansing. The headstrong Sekinah is both physically and emotionally laid bare as Zeinab guides her through the ritual of bathing a dead body, insisting that she (Sekinah) put herself in the shoes of the corpse and learn the importance of treating it with dignity. It is this dignity which Sekinah finally gains as she steps up to the challenge of claiming her identity, donning a green ribbon as a symbol of her allegiance.
The play gains a particular resonance in its closing sequence as images of contemporary Mexico are flashed on the screen, showing a country torn apart by violence and bloodshed under the Mexican Drug War. It is here that director Felipe Cervera aims to link the story of ancient Islam to modern society, driving home the theme of inheriting one's past and faith as a salve to violence. As noted by several people in the post-show dialogue, it may not have had quite the same impact on a Singaporean audience as it did in Mexico but one cannot help but admire the sentiment behind the message.
It's very heartending to see plays like Imam Hussein making their way to the mainstream stage and particpating in our theatre festivals. Even for audiences unfamiliar with the topic, it's a joy to witness the world through the lens of a foreign culture and enrich oneself by the transformative power of theatre.
3 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 22 Feb 2012
]]>Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to real life.
What is even more remarkable is that the script was written by Hu Fangda, the 17-year old winner of the Youth category of TheatreWorks' 24-Hour Playwriting Competition. Saying Grace, drawn from the writer's own personal and family experiences, stares down some very intense material indeed. This is bold, unflinching work - though at times the relative inexperience of the writer shows through. For one thing, his Job-like protagonist may have been better served with a narrative that focused more on the man than the seemingly endless litany of woes he has to overcome. The staging and production design could have also tried to open up the world of the play more. Saying Grace sometimes feels trapped within itself. This may well be intentional - Hu says the script was pared down from an original version with more than one actor - but it can wear down the viewer.
Actor Andrew Lua has mostly been doing ensemble work and it's nice to see a different face taking on a lead role. He has the right approach to the character and is fully committed but I think needs more time to relax into the part so he can more fully bring us into his character's story.
All in all, this is worthy work that while not perfect, definitely deserves our support.
Kenneth Kwok, 18 Feb 2012
]]>Still more problematic is Kyra Boyer's portrayal of Charlotte. It's so lacking in vitality that it saps the energy from every scene she's in. There are , however, refreshingly dynamic performances from young actor Joshua Lim and (though featured to a lesser degree) newcomer Grace Roberts. This mixed bag of talents delivers a production that's definitely watchable, but clearly compromised – it's in the nature of this play that every actor matters.
2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Feb 2012
]]>However, by the second movement, the show had gained momentum: we could see the thrust of the characters as they desperately prayed in front of dangling, dimming light bulbs; one of them frantically uttering paternosters in sign language, the other emptying her purse of coins, desperately calling to God to fulfill her wishes. As the two removed their veils, their desires became physicalised in ever more extraordinary ways: in athletic pas de deux, in sudden cascades of garbanzo beans, and eventually in full-on stripping. Deliciously entertaining, marvelously executed, and surprisingly empathetic towards the faithful.
Definitely one of this Fringe Festival's top shows.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 Feb 2012
]]>If we're comparing this with the original performance, however, I'd say the most important difference is the venue: the SOTA Theatre is far smaller than the Drama Centre, where this piece was originally performed. Certain actors seem to revel in this, milking the audience for laughs. However, the effect of the whole is somewhat reduced – the speeches and multimedia often seem deserving of a larger proscenium space, and the faster pacing affects crucial speeches, including Neo Swee Lin's closing monologue as Teo Soh Lung. Basically, this version's far more intimate, but also less powerful.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 10 Mar 2012
]]>In contrast, Odile the Black Swan preferred more brazen moves, such as the chaînés déboulés she performed to impress Prince Siegfried and his court in Act III. Park pulled off the transformation from White to Black Swan well, swapping control for chutzpah, smiling widely and rather slyly as she decieved the Prince into breaking his promise of love for Odette.
One minor point that shattered the spell of the evening was the evil scorcer Rothbart's costume, specifically, the black batwings under his arms that immediately brought to mind Batman and made me snicker uncontrollably. But other than that, costume designer Virginia Chu did a wonderful job balancing beauty with practicality for all the costumes, though the Spanish costumes had a more Indian flavour.
The length of Swan Lake (Four acts in three hours) may seem tedious to some, but after the first act, which was the least engaging, the show picks up the pace and maintains your undivided attention until the very end. SPOILER ALERT: If you were expecting a tragedy, note that SDT has chosen Tchaikovsky's original happy ending for this performance. Personally, the ending was a tad abrupt and anti-climatic, and the dancers could have been positioned in a more expressive final pose that would have shown off their skills - especially leads, Park and Peng - rather than having them stand plainly on a rock.
4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 15 Mar 2012
]]>My first tour was Lim Xue En's From Joss Sticks to Bibles, which I found a tad too simple. It's told through the voice of an elderly Taoist Peranakan widow mourning her dead Christian husband, and certainly, there's emotional heft to the tale of love and ageing and cultural separation and fading traditions. Still, it feels like a mere dramatisation of sociological issues we've heard about a hundred times before.
Rather more interesting was Jenson Chen's Aldersgate, which uses the voice of a young Baba in 1928, newly returned from his law studies in Oxford. The character's played with a deliciously plummy accent by Edward Choy, and we're torn between being annoyed at his world of privilege and realising how similar he is to ourselves: this Western Oriental youngster who doesn't remember his family traditions and is amazed at how fast his homeland is changing.
Your enjoyment of the show will be influenced in part by the luck of the draw - other young playwrights you'll encounter include Faith Ng, Eleanor Neo, Kirenjit Kaur Gill, Tan Li-Jen, Aswani Aswath, Jaryl George Solomon and Hazel Ho. On the other hand, if you've never been to the Baba House before, I'd recommend the show unconditionally - it's a marvelous space, and it would be glorious to encounter it for the first time through fiction.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 16 Mar 2012
]]>This season's Mentah doesn't offer us a clear break-out like How Did The Cat Get So Fat? in 2006. None of the twenty-minute plays this afternoon feels as fully formed as Cat did then. Part of the problem is that all four plays are high-concept constructs inspired by the National Museum's recent Dreams and Realities exhibition: expect parallel universes and spirits caught between the living and the dead. Unfortunately, the young playwrights are not able to properly settle us into these alternate realms in such a short time. We are thus left with only an impression of where the writers are going and what they are capable of.
It is to their credit though that my curiosity is sufficiently piqued for me to want to see how all these plays continue to evolve.
I'm most optimistic about Nabilah Said's multilingual Sesat which is set in a cemetery and brings a colourful cast of characters together - a young couple in love, a makcik summons auntie, and a Bangladeshi cleaner - in a potentially pointed commentary about modern-day, always forward-looking Singapore.
Kenneth Kwok, 17 Mar 2012
]]>Dawn Teo's Daffodil has good dialogue and psychological depth, but of course the writing's somewhat overshadowed by director Serena Ho's decision to portray the eponymous pet rabbit via an actor in a gargantuan bunny suit - an apparition at once delightful and unnerving. Aisha's A Is For Abuse, B is For Blame and Flora Yeo's Forgotten Promise both tackle serious social issues: rape, dementia and familial breakdown. There are intense, effective emotional exchanges in each, but the actors have an unfortunate and frequent habit of shouting their lines to express their anguish or frustration - a tactic far less effective than restraint.
The piece I'm most impressed by is Confessions, written and directed by Al Hafiz Sanusi. It's rather more ambitious than the others: it's a confrontation between a eulogist and a deceased military dictator, leading to a wonderful game of power play as the dictator is forced to strip himself of his pomp and regalia, down to his vulnerable human essence. There's a rather good performance from Shrey Bhargava as the dictator, too - he's admittedly rather shouty, but in this case, it fits his character utterly.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 18 Mar 2012
]]>It's a noteworthy debut from emerging playwright Wang Liangsheng. Still, I'm not completely sure if it works. Right now there's just a tad too much focus on the details of the treatment procedures for eczema, so that the play feels like an MOH-sponsored community performance at times - and the result of this is that the parallel issues of racism and single parents feel like distractions rather than expansions of a central theme. It's also fundamentally a rather simple, domestic piece - musical director Low Xu Hao and multimedia designer Loo Zihan's contributions are lovely, but incorporating them appears to have been a case of gilding the lily.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 17 Mar 2012
]]>Actors Siti Zuraida and Gloria Tan are delightful but perhaps too inexperienced to carry the weight of the roles they were cast in. They served as vessels to deliver director Helmi Zati's ideas about the sacrifice and suffering that Muslim women have been subjected to since Eve's aberration in the Garden of Eden. But for all their efforts, Siti and Tan lacked the stage presence and conviction to pull off the weighty abstractions and text. Their interaction was only believable near the end when the two broke the silence of most of the piece, laughing casually as they detailed the various prohibitions for women ("Not allowed to come home late", "Not allowed to touch myself down there", etc.). At most other times in the show, Tan came across as a sexual predator with her naughty grin and the suggestive poses she struck in her suffocating corset, and Zuraida seemed a meek little mouse in comparison. Neither persona was very engaging or served any discernible purpose.
Luckily, choreographer Sudirman Mohamed and his team of dancers managed to occupy my attention. On the sidelines of the Drama Centre Black Box, the dancers performed simple but elegant movements derived from daily actions such as a handshake or a wave. I was most engaged when the dancers performed a jaunty dance with their feet placed on top of suitcases that they carried throughout the piece, an indelicate metaphor for the burdens we carry through the journey of life.
But while the movement itself was praise-worthy, the fact that the dancers did not compliment the actors, even detracting from them and forcing us to choose between the two sets of performers, manifests the discordance of the various elements of Times 5.
2.5 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 6 Apr 2012
]]>What bothers me, however, is that the piece is severely lacking in content. After the poetic prologue, we move into a less well-written narrative in English about the marginalization of the tiger in Singapore - fairly absorbing at first, but eventually repetitive, overwrought, and underdeveloped. The only historical moment presented is the tiger attack on the colonial surveyor George Coleman – never mind director/co-writer Ho Tzu Nyen's reflections in the program about the tiger's cultural connections with the Malayan Communists. The spectacle, too, wears thin after a while: one can tire of seeing a man dancing angstily in a box, even amidst the flashing lights and savage music.
I had – and still have – high hopes for the new theatre/music collective 3 Tigers, whose members represent some of the coolest forces in local contemporary arts. This, however, is a slightly disappointing beginning, one that doesn't live up to the full potential of its material.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 5 Apr 2012
]]>The performance also happens to be the graduation show for the Final Year Acting students, Chad O'Brien, Leah Donovan, Kevin Lagrange, Yang Kaijie, Georgia Fun and Jean Toh. They're the most close-knit and consistently solid batch of theatre students I've seen at LaSalle so far, and I've praised their work from Peer Gynt to The Maids to Kaspar to Loveplay, commenting briefly on how each of them shines in his or her own way. This time, it's Yang who comes to the fore: not only has his diction improved, but his charisma and physical theatre skills are brilliantly displayed in his portrayal of a Native American drunkard – the scene where he fantasises about being an astronaut is particularly breathtaking. (The Year Two actors, on the other hand, still need some work.)
Perhaps the biggest wow factor of this show, however, lies in the technical design: the work of director Adam Marple, scenic designers Ratna Odata, Allister Towndrow and Cheryl Woo, lighting designer Sim Chen Xing and sound designers Shawn Par and Lee Zi Chang. The stage is covered in sand, marked out into lunar craters, the props stacked like so much post-apocalyptic debris in the background, while black-light stars shine on the walls and golden spotlights illuminate the soulful characters' faces. I should add, however, that while the ambient music added to the sense of transcendence in many scenes, towards the show's end it had just become annoying. Be forewarned: this isn't a perfect production – but more importantly, it's not a conventional one either.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 2 Apr 2012
]]>Along with some joyful, rhythmic unison dancing, Khairul Shahrin Johry's Path incorporated poetic moments where we noticed details such as wavering fingers or a look between the dancers that denoted a developing relationship. A multi-dimensional, fusion work, Path was the most satisfying choreography in the show.
Australian guest artist Abby Johnson brings energetic athleticism to everything she does, but it was great to see her in a contrasting reflective mode for her choreographed solo Frames. However, the relationship between the dancer onstage and the video projection needed further work as it split the focus viewer's focus rather than bringing it together in a coherent whole.
An intense, physical work, Peter Gn's Splinter involved the dancers hurling themselves on and off a table at a bruising pace and pounding the floor to denote a "personal source of emotional disturbance". All of this angst was diminished however, through the lack of light and shade, or of any changes of emotional and physical energy in the choreography.
Sheridan Newman's IN.DA.GO. (INDIGO) and Sufri Juwahir's Returned integrated painting and drawing with movement. The first was a joyous piece about finding pathways and connections: the dancers playfully painted on the walls, each other, and strolling guitarist Rupak George. The complex Returned, though, provided a choreographic highlight that incorporated subtlety, artistry and musicality. Nevertheless I thought the moveable drawing boards a clumsy device and that it would have been interesting for Sufri to dispense with these and explore his choreographic intention through movement alone.
Overall, an absorbing showcase of new works by emerging choreographers and talented dancers.
3.5 out of 5, Stephanie Burridge, 31 Mar 2012
]]>Rajan uses masks and mime to great effect, conjuring up two beautifully realized characters: gregarious, penny-pinching shopkeeper Gobi and his taciturn and cheeky wife Zina as they navigate the tumultuous immigrant world of New Zealand at their corner store. A simple change of mask, voice and gestures allows Rajan to transition from one character to the next. Accompanied by the excellent music and sound effects of musician David Ward, the world of Gobi and Zina is brought to vivid life with minimal props. It is a masterful performance - full of humour, honesty and empathy. One cannot help but smile throughout.
Krishnan's Dairy also weaves in the story of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal as a memorial for his beloved wife Mumtaz and there is a beautiful, bittersweet symmetry in the two tales - the wife is left alone in one, the husband in another but the love they have for each other lives on. My eyes grew very moist towards the end - tragic but heartwarming.
A true testament to the power of live theatre, Krishnan's Dairy reminds us how little it takes to achieve magic on the stage.
4 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 29 Mar 2012
]]>My problem with the show is that it feels unfinished, at times almost like a staged reading. The set seems clunky, the spaces don't seem well-defined and there's a carelessness to detail like where the dining table is, or the wine glasses, or why the jacket that's supposed to be hung up is lying on a table next to a teddy bear. The acting too is uneven. Relationships don't always come across as believable and for the most part the actors seem to torpedo through their lines leaving one little opportunity to relish what is surely a beautiful script. Of the four members of the cast, Rebecca Lee turns in a worthy performance as "the other woman", but it is Walter Hanna that really steals the show. His portrayal of the neurotic and indecisive John is finely nuanced so that we love him and hate him, root for him, get annoyed by him, and want to hug him and bitch-slap him all at the same time. If there's a reason to watch this show, it's him.
2.5 out of 5, Musa Fazal, 10 May 2012
]]>And indeed the performance itself and the post-show discussion provide few clues as well, the artists remaining cryptic to the end: "I don't know why I did that ... the idea just popped into my head."
It is clear from this work-in-progress presentation not only that the artists are (at least in part) still in the divergent phase of the creative process, but that this effort to bring together four practitioners from four different disciplines (dance, theatre, visual art and lighting design) in an exploration of contact improvisation and the concept of space-time theory has already borne some uncommon fruit indeed.
I identified floating / weightlessness as a motif (balloons, clouds, bubbles) but one of my favorite images is the one that opened the show: the Esplanade Theatre Studio cleared of all its seats and plunged into darkness, with the performers dancing vigorously, small lights strapped to their lower legs. Another highlight is the whole performance space being filled with bubbles, especially as this is complemented by a lighting design that maximizes the visual effect. In terms of the movement work, I liked how the choreography would tap on the performers' strength and muscularity in contrast to the show's generally more subdued and dream-like tone.
My companion noted a possible undercurrent through the work involving the loss of playfulness and innocence as we grow older but I preferred to take Li at his word, enjoying the segments in isolation rather than worrying so much about how they all came together.
Kenneth Kwok, 3 May 2012
]]>Men dressing up in tutus and attempting the Little Swans dance from Swan Lake is a feature of office Christmas bashes in Australia, and here at the Esplanade, the gender-bending elicited many laughs as well. However, as everything unfolded, the actual dancing proved riveting as well: the men's technical mastery was underpinned by a real passion and understanding of the ballet excerpts they presented.
Men generally do not have the same ankle flexibility as women for point work and so it was fascinating to watch the different balance points they achieved on their toes. Their musicality was superb and they had to really speed up many of the small jumps normally executed by women because they jump higher.
Act 1 of Swan Lake got off to a shaky start though and, on the whole, the soloists worked better than the groups in this ballet because varying physical proportions made some ensemble work difficult.
One highlight was Senior Troc Paul Ghiselin who encapsulated the company style in one of the best renditions of The Dying Swan (made famous by the legendary Anna Pavlova) I have ever seen – he combined the poignancy of an aging dancer with theatrical comedy and the right touch of absurdity. Another highlight was Pas De Quatre, a work choreographed in 1845 to feature the four greatest ballerinas of that time. A platform for one-upmanship and showcasing the supremacy of age over youth, it caused a sensation when it was premiered and provided a perfect vehicle for the antics of the Trocs. They began in the original pose and then allowed their versatility as dancers and comics free rein - yet they always kept faith with the original intention of the choreography.
The show worked on many levels and was a fun, entertaining night for both balletomanes and comedy theatre lovers.
4 out of 5, Stephanie Burridge, 1 May 2012
]]>This is set out in an opening sequence in which choreographer-dancer Joavien Ng struggles to fit giant cut-outs of objects and animals into a huge silhouette of Singapore. Later, she hobbles herself in an attempt to literally fit into Singapore: she folds her body into itself, nearly managing to get both feet behind her head. But there are of course other ways beyond the physical that one can be diminished as a human being: dressed in a stretchable red-and-white outfit that she loses her entire body within at one point, Ng exclaims, "I am not a plan. I am not a strategy."
Equally memorable is the show's fantastical closing scene where the shadowed form of the performer starts to meld the animal shapes with one another as well as her own body: two overlapping silhouettes of cows form a disturbing yet oddly fascinating image, especially with Ng's head protruding from it.
When we feel pressed in upon by reality, perhaps the best solution is to create an alternative one. Or, to put it another way, just because the spaces around us are shrinking doesn't mean that we - or our dreams - have to.
The show can be challenging to sit through. LIFE doesn't always have a strong performance sensibility, an over-reliance on near-stillness, silence and the dragging out of simple actions trying my patience at times. Ng's ideas (and that of dramaturg Jochen Roller) sometimes just sit there and stare blankly back at you.
But there's no denying that they can also be pointed, playful and persuasive.
3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 12 May 2012
]]>Much of the experience is dependent on the app itself (created by Tinkertanker) and I'm pleased to note that even for this technological rookie, it works beautifully. The design is clean and simple and new clues are presented by scanning QR codes at various checkpoints along the way. These take the form of film clips, simulated text messages and a phone call and various nuggets of information. There is also a very creditable original soundtrack composed by Victoria Ho and sung by Michelle Poon for further authenticity.
Kudos to Tara Tan for creating the overall concept and the great work by Studio Now and Then for making this experiential theatre journey an entertaining one, with a couple of nice surprises along the way - from a limousine sojourn to free ice-cream! While the core idea and premise is a solid one, I only felt that it was a pity the team had not aimed for a stronger resolution to the adventure. There is a lovely attention to detail in all the clues (we even get an electronic press pass to a "media conference") but one rather wishes that we had a chance to see the elusive Songbird in person or at least discover that she was okay by the end. Adding in some live theatre elements would have been exciting too.
I suspect that we're heading to a future of theatre that will be increasingly dictated by modern technology and the Songbird experience is a heartening step in that direction. Plug in your headphones and prepare to be be dazzled.
3 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 26 May 2012
]]>Oliver Chong makes a marvelous Merlion, clad in white boots and cape, spitting mouthfuls of glitter, threatening us with an ominous reverb in his voice. Swaggering before the audience and savagely abusing his opponents, he's a patent symbol for the old PAP style of authoritarian rule. The audience picks his contender via lottery: we can get anyone from Singa the Courtesy Lion to Hungry Ghost Festival Getai to Kumar. I had the fortune to watch the Samsui woman (Zelda Tatiana Ng), shod in red clogs and spouting rhyming Cantonese curses.
The show has its limitations, of course: its references to the nationalistic curry protests are so last year, and the commentators only glide over the problems of anti-foreigner sentiment, neglecting to really mine the significations of each alternative Singaporean icon. What really impresses me is the physical training that must have gone into creating a lengthy yet essentially improvised comedic wrestling match – whatever your political inclinations, you're sure to enjoy watching the characters' crazy body slams and roundhouse kicks.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 May 2012
]]>It's fascinating, and not just because of the spectacle of the factory floor. Despite its thematic similarities to Rimini Protokoll's Cargo, this production gives off an air of artlessness, with director Naumann leaving as few fingerprints as possible on the work.
There's little or no sense of political agenda, despite the fact that we're in the classic Marxist situation of being consumers confronted by the means of production. The performers/workers don't grouse about their hardships, but instead express a mild, could-be-better contentment with their lives. They're almost deliberately untheatrical in their presentations – only one of them, the charmingly charismatic factory hand Tan Swee Boon, displays any sense of being an actual extrovert. The result is that the work feels beguilingly, confoundingly real.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 18 May 2012
]]>Broken into three segments at three different venues, Flux employed a variety of media to show off two "centaurs" – one male, one female – riding, strutting, even delivering an existenialist monologue. But monologue aside, most of the show was executed wordlessly, which was best because the audio did not travel well around the open arena, and the heavy French accents did not help. I appreciated the awed silence that reigned throughout most of the night, especially during the segment where the female rider stood on her horse and circled the arena. Her poise was so steady, her figure so strong, and completely in sync with her four-legged half.
Short film vignettes interspersed the live performance, showing the "centaurs" in iconic parts of Singapore such as Orchard Road, Raffles Place and Keppel Harbour. Each film had its own mood, from absurd (the male centaur shops in a high-end store in Orchard) to artistic (the female centaur races through a maze of shipping containers at the Keppel Harbour).
Aside from the spectacle of seeing a real live centaur/horse strut the streets of Singapore, Flux combines the jaw-dropping awe of watching circus animals perform stunts, with the evocative tension of watching the "Man / Beast" soliloquy from Hamlet ('What a piece of work is man...').
A must-catch.
4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 18 May 2012
]]>Production values as a whole are extremely high. The combination of Chinese and western musical instruments is engaging and uncontrived - there's even a moment when woodwind master Guo Ya Zhi plays the suona like a seductive saxophone. The singers deliver strong operatic performances, and countertenor Phua Ee Kia is particularly striking as the voice of the Jade Bird. And you're sure to be impressed by Lim Woan Wen's lighting design: a breathtaking series of modulated glows and dimnesses, culminating in a triumphant sunrise.
However, if we're talking about entertainment, this work is really rather tedious, clocking in at well over it stated length of two hours. There's also the issue of bathos: Mark Chan's attempt to interweave references to Twitter and Facebook into his fairytale script feels jarring, even when one understands that it's an essential part of his parable of the clash between old and new. Opera in English is often awkward, and the effect is not ameliorated by his rhyming, often cheesy lyrics, needlessly projected on massive screens for our comprehension. Most absurd, perhaps is the dancer Mui Cheuk Yin - a solitary figure, weighed down by the heavy cloths of her Jade Bird costume, making it near impossible for her to look graceful in the first act.
This is a strange work, alternately clumsy and inspired. Looking back on Chan's oeuvre, I'd say I prefer his operetta Opiume, which had greater coherence. Jade Bird, however, is far more ambitious.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 17 May 2012
]]>The show attempts to recount the history of the little-remembered Lan Fang Republic, a Chinese colony in western Borneo, through slantways fragments – a PowerPoint presentation here, a monologue there, an exhibition yon – and leads you around the grounds of the Ying Fo Kuan as it does so.
When it works, it's because it leaves gaps in the narrative that leave you wanting more; because the performers in the alternating cast are strong (on the night I watched it, Serene Chen, Najib Soiman and Loke Meng Chue); and because of the atmospheric surroundings, including a temple and a cemetery. When it doesn't work, it's because the text lays everything out on a platter or the performers are weak (Yak Aik Wee fails on both counts here).
Nor did I get the point of a video documentary called The Man Who Rode on Crocodiles which claimed to be inspired by a poem written by Luo Fang Bo, the founder of Lan Fang Republic, but of which inspiration I could discern no trace. It was also very poorly filmed and seemed to have been edited at the wrong frame rate.
I'm not quite sure whether to recommend this show. It will definitely help if you like history – the more obscure the better. But frankly, there's not a lot of art here, and I can see that putting some people off.
3 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 28 May 2012
]]>But Taj Express is wanting in terms of drama. I'm fine with over-the-top acting and stereotypical lovable rogues and innocent maidens - what bugs me is that some of the acting is actually bad and flavourless. (The Police Commissioner, for instance, has no stage presence, and the hyperactive band of thieves is plain annoying.) The plot's also a tad too simple, and the script is far too full of didactic explanations of Indian culture. Thankfully, the second act spends less time on talking and more time on madcap dancing. No sense coming for the story; come instead for the razzamatazz.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 6 Jun 2012
]]>The unlikely coupling of an Italian transvestite (Antonio Ianniello) and his adopted black daughter (Nambi E. Kelley) is revealed to be more than it seems through a series of otherworldly conversations between reincarnated souls and hooded figures in pursuit of a lamp stolen from a monastery lifetimes ago. As the stories intertwine, so do the reincarnated souls merge together. We discover that the man and daughter were, in their past lives, a slave owner who punished his slave girl for stealing a lamp, and a Japanese soldier who imprisoned his lover with his lamp. Somewhere in the mix is a cat that witnessed the theft of the lamp and has since been entangled in the fates of the man and the girl.
The Finger Players have an affinity with the dark and shadows, and it shows tremendously in this production. Reincarnated souls take the form of a tree, a rat and a skeleton, which are presented as towering shadows on the wall while an eerie underscore creeps through the speakers. I was well and truly spooked yet completely intrigued every time the reincarnations / shadows appeared. In this piece, the Finger Players also introduced a new element onstage - chalk. From functional drawings of doors and windows on the wall to scribbling endless spirals on the floor, the ensemble cast played creator, and also destroyer with a simple brush of a wet cloth. The set came alive before my eyes; a shape-shifting creature that brought the audience through time and space.
Actor Antonio Ianniello, resplendent in a woman's silk bathrobe and red heels, exuded a nervous energy that kept me hanging onto his every Italian-accented word. Nambi E. Kelley's composure balanced out Antonio's agitation, though she threw a mean screaming fit at the end where ----------SPOILER ALERT---------- she finds out she was stolen, not adopted. Actor and TFP resident director Oliver Chong played a number of supporting characters from a monk to a doctor, but was most memorable as a hissing, clawing cat.
The Book of Living and Dying is an absolute page-turner that captures all your senses and leaves you breathless, slightly mystified and completely in awe.
4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 1 Jun 2012
]]>Audience members are ushered into the darkened theatre, which has itself been turned into a work of installation art. We follow a long line of printed text against the wall, stepping in time with our breath, according to its directions. There are no seats: instead we assemble in front of Toh, who is seated at a desk in the centre of the performance area, writing on an endless scrip of paper.
The theatrical experience consists of multiple threads: the transcendent writings of the American activist Peace Pilgrim, expressionist extracts from Tufnell and Cricknay's Body Space Image, and Toh's personal anecdotes about her dying grandfather and the act of running away from school. These sequences balance one another: some are relentlessly avant-garde, augmented by the sensory overload of Andy Lim and Zulkifle Mahmod's light and sound design, while others are evocative and utterly emotionally convincing.
One could argue that there is nothing terribly innovative or complex about this piece. However, it is its very simplicity that makes it powerful and elegant. One hopes that it can be reprised in other locations.
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 10 Jul 2012
]]>Going Home shines mostly due to the strength of veteran actress Bridget Therese Lachica. She's comfortably natural in the role of a garrulous middle-aged widow, goaded by her daughter into accepting a date. Diana and Sidney, centred on an over-the-top TV executive and her bisexual ex-husband, is more emotionally intense, yet just as hilarious. It's also memorable for the chemistry between lead actors Zachary Ibrahim and Cassandra Jean Spykerman. The adaptation deserves praise, too: the characters work excellently as urban Malaysians rather than Americans. Kudos to director Elina Lim.
Acting is glaringly unpolished in the offbeat suspense thriller Settling Accounts and the slapstick The Man on the Floor. But then, these are directed by a first-time theatre director, who clearly requires further experience. Rough edges abound in other ways: the lighting design is virtually haphazard, set changes are clumsy and the program booklet provides a few plot spoilers. Not a bad show overall, but clearly, Visual should aim for higher production values next time.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 Jul 2012
]]>4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 22 Jul 2012
]]>The work is devised and performed by young poets Deborah Emmanuel and Lee Jing Yan, who've transplanted their names and personalities onto the characters they portray. Both are refreshingly genuine and unforced in their performances, and share a natural chemistry, whether talking or performing silent childhood games of make-believe.
It's especially commendable that the dialogue never gets preachy: while the health worker may point out the pitfalls of their soulless, treeless society, she can't offer a workable alternative system to the banker. Above all, we're reminded that questions of economy and social engineering aren't abstract: they're about individual people, struggling to cope and be human amidst the madness.
(Note: The reviewer has worked with the two creators in the spoken word troupe Party Action People.)
4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Jul 2012
]]>Nevertheless, the show soon has us rolling around in the aisles with its larger-than-life characters and its perceptive wit about the strange state of our New Normal, where a "government-led non-government organisation" might very well lead a "ministry-licensed public protest" against an errant construction firm. Playwright Luke Vijay Somasundram is clearly a talent worth looking out for, and I'm curious to see what director Christopher Fok could've done with a bigger stage. Once warmed up, the actors are also a riot of zany energy. In fact, this may be the best original work I've watched by a youth-led theatre group.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Jul 2012
]]>The shorter contemporary and neo-classical pieces really suit the dancers and the larger group works allow many personalities to emerge.
Balanchine, the master of abstract ballets, fully exploits the possibilities of partnering in Divertimento No. 15 as he weaves between lyrical moments and fast-paced accents created through intricate point sequences for the women, and powerful beats and small jumps for the men. Balanchine's love of patterns and arranging groupings of dancers often mirrors the cadences of Mozart's joyous music and this energy gives impetus to the numerous entrances and exits throughout the work.
Like a medieval chant that builds in intensity through repetition, Caniparolli's Chant asserts a ritualistic power that is accentuated by the superb music of Lou Harrison, titled Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan. Soaring lifts that come to earth with the dancers folding their bodies together in angular, animalistic poses are contrasted with powerful lines of men and women purposefully crossing the stage. The east/west music is a logical and inspired choice and the dancers are truly in their expressive element in this piece.
The evening ends with Liang's Age of Innocence. Inspired by the world of Jane Austen, it explores the restricted role of women in society, the social mores and the complexity of relationships in this repressive setting. Initially the dancers interact through the social dances of the day where fingers barely touched and formal structures of interaction were strictly adhered to. In Liang's work, the freer sexual norms for men, cleverly evidenced by their costumes, are contrasted with the suppressed desires of the women and their powerlessness in a male dominated, patriarchal society. It is luscious and erotic as pairs of dancers share intimate, private moments that are caught between the over-ridingly repressive respectability of the times. A poignant and beautiful work.
4 out of 5, Stephanie Burridge, 25 Aug 2012
]]>Yet this triple-bill has real problems. The first play, Inheritance, suffers the most. Written by Lee Jing Yan and directed by Wong Yiping, it tells the tale of two orphaned siblings meeting as adults, not quite daring to confront the violent, perhaps sexual circumstances that drove them apart. It's sinister, subtle and well-paced – though its dialogues tend to work better than its monologues, and its closing soliloquy feels unnecessary. What really damages the piece, however, is the dull-as-ditchwater delivery by the inexperienced lead actress. Playwright/co-lead Lee tries to compensate for this with his nervous energy, but to little avail: there's no chemistry to be had in this pairing.
Next up is The Untitled Funeral Play, written by Luke Vijay Somasundram and directed by Hazel Ho. This is the most solid play amongst the three: a hilarious farce about a tricultural family (Taoist, Christian and Hindu) preparing for a funeral. There are shouting matches, mixups, an incompetent funeral parlour worker, attempted exorcisms – in short, gag after gag with no other intent but to make us laugh. There's good comedic direction and acting here (especially from Vinesh Nagrani). My only quibble is that it isn't as polished as Somasundram's previous work Paper Men – the conclusion, for instance, really isn't that strong.
The final piece is Postgrads, written and directed by Joel Tan: a portrait of four NUS grad students in a shared apartment, coping with the fact that one of them is quitting academia to travel the world. This is acted with wonderful naturalism and pathos, and it's full witty details and questions about the purpose of life that really draw you into the play – the whole is far more intimate and honest than Tan's more famous script, Family Outing. And yet the plot's not there: the stakes aren't high enough, and there's almost no development following our discovery in the first scene that the main character is leaving. This play is all texture and no substance – and no matter how beautiful the writing is, it's hard to get excited about a play about aimless over-educated 28 year-olds.
One final criticism for the entire production: the set changes under dim blue lights look terribly clumsy. More important is the fact that Take Off Productions has access to enough talent to create three creditable plays. There's great potential here: with more time and more focus, this company should be able to shine.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 5 Aug 2012
]]>aWake begins excellently, with the ensemble of five staging a shifting tableau of random characters in an HDB void deck, from taichi practitioners to Filipina maids. This gives way to the portrayal of a Chinese funeral wake, where the audience is invited to partake of customs like folding hell money and tying red threads to our wrists to ward away bad luck. While this is wonderfully immersive, the experience is marred by an underdeveloped script, the bulk of which consists of a young woman complaining about the angst of deracination, and her relatives telling her, "Don't ask stupid questions". It's an extremely didactic and repetitive – illuminating for foreigners, perhaps, but less convincing here.
One unfortunate side effect of the year-long Kuo Pao Kun Festival is that Coffin has become a huge cliché. Fortunately, Director Mok Cui Yin has truly injected new life into it, turning it into a comedic three-hander with truly contemporary multimedia elements. The piece is framed as an online chat: an office-suited Johannes Hadi tells us the story while actress Daphne Quah's irreverent responses appear projected on a wall as she taps away at her iPhone. The two also have great chemistry as the earnest grandson and a pushy undertaker with no sense of personal space. Still, the piece also feels repetitive after a while, due to its unnecessary additional dialogue about standard-size lives. There was also little sense of a climax here – after a lengthy bureaucratic deadlock, the story leapt to its resolution in the blink of an eye.
What's worth taking away from this production is its "pop-up theatre" aesthetic – thanks to a minimal setup routine, the show was staged alternately in the PigeonHole Café and the 5Footway.Inn breakfast room, the entire cast and crew hopping between venues for matinee and evening performances. New directors and playwrights have sometimes had trouble securing opportunities to make their names - small-scale, low-budget, portable performances like this may well be the solution.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 16 Sep 2012
]]>Erin Clare is compelling as Percy, the ex-jailbird/waitress and leading lady. Perhaps she's a little colder and less expressive in her acting than I'd like, but that adds to her strength and stage presence, and she more than makes up for it with her stirring vocal solos. Emma Etherington also deserves praise as Effy, the gossipy postmistress: though she's a supporting character, she's brought fully to life, flaws and all. The best actress of the night, however, may have be Alison Eaton as Hannah, the elderly diner owner who nurses a tortured secret.
Not all the cast have reached professional standards - one in particular kept going off-key during solos - but this is still definitely a show worth catching. Its soulful plot has a particular relevance to Singaporeans, after all: it's about jaded villagers gradually beginning to love their hometown once again.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 18 Sep 2012
]]>Eventually, the community gathers together for a final "family photo" and we sense their melancholy at losing this beloved place of theirs. As their grief reached its zenith, the clouds spectacularly broke and the performers rushed out into the torrential rains in a poignant, dream-like frenzy. The weather on this opening night could not have been more perfectly planned and I can quite safely say that it made the show all the better. Mesmerized audience members watched as the drenched perfomers collected water in bowls, waltzed with umbrellas and ran around, trying to make sense of their predicament. Slowly, resignedly, they wandered barefoot into the world outside in search of another sanctuary, melting into the night.
Director Irfan Kasban has pieced together another production that is rich in its visual aesthetic and an apt tribute to forgotten spaces in a city which is so caught up in glorifying the glittering future at the expense of the past. While the meandering nature of the piece makes it feel a little unfinished and patchy, there is beautiful attention to detail in the objets d'art thoughtfully scattered all over this little-known landmark, once the site of bustle and activity, but now a shuttered space collecting dust. The performer-collaborators also deserve much praise for carrying on with such vigour despite the relentless weather.
All of us tend to feel displaced and rootless as we search for our identities in this constantly-evolving global village. This production conjures up, in a stirring way, the despair of the dispossessed.
3.5 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 27 Sep 2012
]]>Acting-wise, Ian Tan was a revelation - grounded, vulnerable and fluid - and one of his monologues (performed under a table, in briefs and with total commitment) was electric.
Yazid De Jalil was also strong, especially in stillness when he suffused himself with curiosity, desire or disapproval, his emotions reaching right to the ends of his fingertips.
Bright Ong has not yet learned this suffusion trick, and often seemed (despite his size) smaller than the world of the play. But he still performed with discipline and confidence.
In smaller roles, Chan Sze-Wei and Jean Toh added quirky, poised support, though the latter might work on varying her vocal delivery.
But the real star of the production was Patricia Toh, whose direction was a 4D physics puzzle made of milk and moonlight, and whose text was like a wallpaper collage of forgotten poems - it stayed in the background but made everything else look beautiful.
Sure, the production is not quite as coherent thematically as it is aesthetically: a couple of segments feel extraneous, and some of the text could do with more pointing and foregrounding. Nonetheless, the theme of growing up is apparent; and if it is not as clearly defined as it might be, then it at least pulses with a hormonal confusion that fits its subject matter.
Also, at an hour long, the piece does not outstay its welcome, and at $15 it provides some of the best-value theatre around.
4 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 22 Sep 2012
]]>Casting Back is framed by a original playlet by Robin Loon featuring the actresses as seafaring adventurers who leave their hometown in search of a brave new world. However, this sequence of scenes, with segments such as "The Land of Forgotting" and "The Land of Failed Light Cues", reads like a prose poem and its postmodern posturings strike an odd note with the warm, personal style of the rest of the narrative. The production is at its most earnest when it features the women casually trading anecdotes and insider quips about productions, people and places - from long forgotten venues like the PUB Auditorium and old Drama Centre at Fort Canning to the colourful directors they've worked with ("You never forget a fight with OKS"). One gets a sense of a meaningful life spent in the theatre and, more significantly, of the growth and development of an industry from its infancy. I particularly enjoyed a segment towards the end where the actresses read out excerpts from reviews written about them over the years, both critical and complimentary, drawing out laughs by stressing particular words.
Director Casey Lim opts for a simple staging with scattered loudspeakers on the floor, suggesting a cacophony of voices from the past. The retro music also does a great job in setting the mood for a fun trip down memory lane with these effervescent thespians.
3 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 13 Oct 2012
]]>Chong organizes the performance around three central debates. We are confronted with Singapore theatre's identity politics as it slowly shook off its colonial roots and began to embrace a unique Singaporean idiom. There is the perennial debate between the citizen and the state, fought out in the battle between censorship and artistic expression. Finally, the spotlight shifts to the voice of the people by examining the role of the media as commentators on the theatre landscape. It was particularly sobering to be reminded that in all these years, we've never really built up a strong critical voice in the arts community and people have moved in and out, lacking that history and cultural background to be able to assess the development of the scene.
If all this sounds like a boring history lecture, think again. Janice Koh and Siti Khalijah do a superb job in bringing the issues to life by taking on the guise of numerous characters. Through the use of a few simple props (a bag, a pair of glasses, a wig), they inhabit the roles of a wide assortment of theatre personalities and members of the arts community: from an earnest Alvin Tan permanently mopping his brow, to the erudite T. Sasitharan and the articulate and delicately poised Ong Keng Sen. The rapid-fire impersonations are brilliantly funny but at the same time, quietly absorbing. Carefully chosen anecdotes projected on the screen give us a sense of the conversations that have gone on over the years and one realizes that in terms of big issues, perhaps things haven't changed all that much: we're still not sure about the use of Singlish, we still gripe abut arts funding and the issue of censorship has never stopped rearing its ugly head. There's a veritable torrent of information thrown at the audience (it's impossible to read and digest every single quote) but everything is paced well and the length is just right to make us pause, reflect and learn.
As the sister production of two other Esplanade tenth anniversary commissions, National Broadway Company (a homage to Singapore musicals) and Casting Back (a revue on the role of actors), Rant & Rave ties the whole weekend together perfectly by looking back to the very roots of our theatre industry and illustrating the exhilarating journey we've been through, artists and audiences alike. There are not many opportunities these days for younger audiences to learn about our rich and varied theatre history and this production proves to be a true revelation. I only hope it gets revived or developed into a workshop or exhibition so more people would get the chance to see it.
4 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 14 Oct 2012
]]>The dancers tonight delivered on all of this. There were many highlights in the programme. The Black Swan duet from Swan Lake, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and the wedding pas de deux from Don Quixote attracted great applause but the Tchaikovsky pas de deux performed by Daria Klimentova and Vadim Muntagirov took my top honours. The dancers had marvellous rapport and were technically wonderful. Another highlight of the evening for me was undoubtedly Among the Stars danced by Yuan Yuan Tan and Davit Karapetyan. Based on a Japanese tale about two lovers banished to opposite ends of the Milky Way who can reunite only on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month each year, the performance saw them dancing across a large piece of silk placed like a pathway on the ground. Full of passion, split-leg extensions and beautifully choreographic lifts and phrases, it was an example of contemporary neo-classical ballet at its best. Also worthy of praise: the Hamburg Ballet dancers Silvia Azzoni and Alexandre Riabko performing an excerpt from The Lady of the Camellias were totally committed and believable in the tragic role – they also shone in their interpretation of John Neumeier's The Little Mermaid.
The theme of the festival, Dance to Love, was perfect for classical romantic ballet. While some other shows struggled to create work aligned with this theme, there was no such problem here – desire, intertwining bodies, tragedy and melodrama are an intrinsic part of the romantic era. The selection of works was an entertaining mix of both traditional favourites and variations from more contemporary choreographers such as Neumeier and Balanchine. An interesting addition to the usual bare stage was the use of animated projections. In some works, such as The Little Mermaid and Among the Stars, this worked particularly well and added to the performance. After serving the festival well as a popular showcase over several years though, the gala format can perhaps be revitalised. A stronger theme, for instance, or allowing lengthier excerpts would make this a more aesthetically satisfying experience.
4 out of 5, Stephanie Burridge, 23 Oct 2012
]]>In this folksy version reminiscent of traditional village entertainment, the ensemble of performers sit on a carpet behind an august portrait of Shakespeare-ji on an otherwise bare stage and walk up to the front to play their respective characters. When not acting, they freely interject scenes, react to the other characters and have a merry time ad-libbing in the background. The essence of the plot is retained but the comedy is played up and colourful song and dance numbers feature prominently, all performed by the talented young cast with the aid of three live musicians.
The Hindi translation must be commended for its use of beautiful rhyming couplets and clever wordplay. The characters all retain their original Shakespearean names and I was particularly tickled at a sequence where Olivia kept mispronouncing Cesario's name to hilarious effect. The production also boasts an impressive range of styles from the Indian musical tradition: the Fool sings a entrancing song in the style of a Sufi mystic, Sebastian and Andrew Aguecheek trade insults in a raucous Qawwali number and Olivia evokes the melodrama of a Punjabi heroine to great effect.
Kumar's production makes some interesting departures from the text and plays up the theme of star-crossed lovers with true Bollywood spunk. In a new scene, the disguised Viola, facing the anguish of Orsino's unrequited love, quietly removes her disguise (a fake moustache and a turban) and weeps in solitude. The actor playing Sebastien throws in many jibes about how small his part is in the play and tries to milk his scenes as best he can to prolong his stage time. And while the usually pivotal Malvolio subplot is reduced in focus here, it still delivers its moments of high humour, yellow panty hose and all.
While basic scene descriptions in English are flashed up every now and then, one rather wishes that more effort had been made to surtitle the production so that non Hindi-speaking audiences could appreciate the superb dialogue alongside the physical comedy. That said, judging from the belly laughs coming from my non-Hindi speaking friend, I think this production got its masala-filled message across just fine.
4 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 23 Nov 2012
]]>I still can't quite work out why Roots feels bigger than itself - capable of transmitting far more emotion than its modest form suggests. But then I suppose that's appropriate for this gently blossoming piece: like a tree, the source of its strength remains unseen.
4 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 29 Nov 2012
]]>4.5 out of 5, Tan Sock Keng, 16 Jan 2013
]]>It's rare these days to have a theatre performance without the requisite cocktail of sets, lights, sound and multimedia effects. Best Of is a refreshing return to the basics of storytelling: it offers us nothing more than one character sitting on a chair, telling us about a day in her life. There are elements to this tale that we've all heard of: the academically underacheiving Malay schoolgirl, a marriage quietly disintegrating, the gang-member cousin in jail for petty vandalism and candid observations about racism in modern Singapore. However, Best Of delves deeper and explores themes that have not been aired very often. In particular, we learn about divorce under Syariah law from the perspective of a woman and concepts of life and the afterlife held by members of the Malay-Muslim community.
Siti does a magnificent job in keeping the audience captivated throughout this demanding performance. Even though the story itself is only part autobiographical and partly culled from various interviews conducted by Sharma, it is a true testament to Siti's skill that some people were left wondering if the play was just a no-holds-barred confessional by the actress. The stream of consciousness narrative flows smoothly and is both amusing and bittersweet. Yet, there is some drag even at sixty minutes. While I enjoyed the unconventional starting point of a prison visit, the sudden revelation of the character's mother having cancer felt unnecessarily maudlin; surely one did not need to hear about chemotherapy sessions to feel empathy for this simple girl who just wants to stand up for herself.
Best Of succeeds in glorifying the overlooked, in painting a portrait of a somewhat peripheral figure in our society and making her life every bit as relevant, significant and unique as the other glittering examples we may be led to venerate. Its broad brushstrokes and vivid colours may occasionally overwhelm but we are left with a picture we cannot help but admire.
3.5 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 25 Jan 2013
"It's about time" was probably the most common thought running through people's heads when word first go around that Siti Khalijah would be putting on a one-woman show for the M1 Fringe Festival this year. Given her prodigious talents as an actress she has certainly deserved to be given a solo showcase after all these years, especially since many would not have seen 1996's How Did The Cat Get So Fat?.
And those coming to see a theatrical tour de force will not be disappointed - even if they might be a little surprised. For one, the connection between the subject matter of this specially-commissioned piece and its title seems more than a little mysterious. A young Malay woman starts her day at the prison and ends it in the hospital. In between, we follow her thoughts and memories as they are sparked off by her observations of the world around her and the stories of her struggle to end a loveless marriage under Syariah law and the pain of facing the potential loss of a parent. What could this simple story of anger and acceptance possibly be the "best of"?
The stark simplicity of Alvin Tan's staging may also surprise those who have become used to seeing various characters in an interior monologue impersonated in full with a flurry of flourishes and the whipping out of a hitherto hidden pipe. Best Of features a chair, a spotlight, a simple backdrop, and Khalijah herself - telling "her" story and pulling her audience further and further in with nothing but the exuberance of her stage presence and her natural charisma.
This is storytelling in its most basic form - and at its best. So catch this "One in a Mi-lian" production while you still can!
4 out of 5, Karin Lai, 25 Jan 2013
]]>Conceived, written, and performed entirely by a group of nine TPJC graduates, the work introduces the audience to a recently reunited pair of siblings, an imperious, no-nonsense matriarch, and a hapless salesman trying to close a deal, amongst other characters. Of course, woven into the script are the constant reminders that this is ultimately about Peranakan history and culture so there is no shortage of references to domestic pride, generous hospitality, excellent cuisine and the occasional traditional superstition. Aptly enough, the ancestral altar is the starting point of the play, becoming the portal through which we step back into history: two younger members of the family play with hand puppets, re-enacting the origin story of the Peranakan people. In a simple stroke of ingenuity, the sail of their boat then becomes the screen for a short shadow puppetry scene, underscored by one of the cast members singing an improvised melody. The play here is at its most poetic, before we are brought back to the present world with the re-entry of Ah Noi, domestic helper extraordinaire - a world where houses must be immaculate, gender roles clearly defined (it's a slippery slope if men show any sign of domesticity: "First you want to cook, then you want to clean; what next, you want to wear kebaya?!"), and cuisine is exquisitely and lovingly prepared.
Transitions II is definitely one of the more successful site-specific pieces I have had the privilege of watching in Singapore. It did not make the common mistake of inadvertently turning the space into a gallery, with the audience's experience closer to observing installation art on display rather than watching a story inextricably linked to its physical surroundings. The beauty of site-specificity is that this play could not have achieved the same effect outside of The Intan, and in the process, the Intan is also simultaneously transformed by housing this play - the audience gets to see the space in a new light, and to physically be a part of a living heritage space.
Michelle Tan, 25 Jan 2013
]]>Structurally, Tahan tends to meander due to it being composed of a series of vignettes which do not always flow neatly from one scene to the next. Yet, there is a quiet strength in its ability to highlight the banal, everyday routines of policemen we so often take for granted - the mind-numbing 12 hour shifts, vexatious complainants and their private lives and grievances. The importance of never letting one's uniform stick to one's body, as one character is told early on in the play, is driven home: one should not lose oneself in the process of doing the job. The seven-actor ensemble acquit themselves well in a variety of roles. Farez Najid, as rookie Corporal Adil, starts out a little tentative but finds his feet as he grows and matures over the course of the play. There is also very good work by Isabella Chiam (who stands out as a screaming auntie) and Tan Shou Chen in his dual role as a detached, scholarly inspector and a campy OIC.
Irfan has an excellent ear for dialogue - both comic and tragic - and scenes such as HDB neighbours screaming vulgarities at each other and parents being informed of a loved one's death have a strong stamp of reality. On the technical side, Bani Haykal does evocative work on the live soundscapes. While the production is more than competent, the philosophising by Adil could have been trimmed down and I found the repeated voice-overs detailing aspects of police routines somewhat laboured. There's also a scene involving a "powder dance" by one of the characters which seemed nothing more than an aesthetic indulgence.
We've had the world of the army splashed on the stage many times so it's a welcome change to see our men in blue get their moment. Tahan is a warm, wistful and immensely watchable ode to our policemen and despite its minor shortcomings, this is one script that is full of humanity and heart.
3.5 out of 5, Naeem Kapadia, 23 Feb 2013
]]>For this year's festival, the group's started off with the same ingredients - the mansion, the audio tour format, and an array of 12 student writers (Paula Sim, Gwendolyn Lee, Hazel Toh, Philip Lee, Ong Hua Xin, Benita Choo, Hazel Ho, Kim Tan, Wang Liansheng, Jenson Chen Zhirong, Kathleen Tan and Kor Jia Her, in case you were wondering). What's emerged, however, is something quite different from before: a single play, each scene composed by a different playwright, yet completely coherent and unified in tone.
It's a noir detective story: set in 1927. We follow Inspector Dickson around the mansion and its surrounding streets as he tries to track down the murderer of young master Edward Tan. Along the way, through flashbacks, through monologues and dialogues, we learn of the webs of romance, jealousy and corruption that led up to the murder, fleshed out by the nostalgic detail of Singapore's Jazz Age.
It's really enjoyable - I'm especially impressed by how few pauses there are, with one scene leading almost directly into the next without pause, despite the tricky logistics of moving the audience member from one room to the next. I suppose my quibbles would be that the language doesn't always seem appropriate (even the servant girl speaks perfect upper-class English!), quite a few scenes seem redundant, and it's easy to get lost when you're wandering in the alleyway. Still, I'm pleasantly surprised to see a play from Spell #7 so fuelled by plot that it's almost a genre work - it's a refreshing change from their meditative, experimental style, yet still full of soul. Plus, in spite of its being a student-created work, it doesn't feel amateur at all.
3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Mar 2013
]]>It's tough for anyone to play this role, especially a young woman. And yet Level 3 Musical Theatre student Vanessa Powell pulls it off - she commands the stage from the moment she calls out from the audience to halt a rehearsal, to her final epiphanic solo, Rose's Turn. The force of her personality drives this musical forward towards its inexorable conclusion, keeping us hooked throughout its entire three-hour length.
Yet truth be told: the standard of the production is pretty uneven. The reconfigurable set, for instance, was meant to be versatile, but often ended up looking cheap. Because of the need to showcase the graduating batch of Musical Theatre students, some very odd - dare I say inappropriate? - casting decisions were made. And while the trio of Alison Eaton, Erin Clare and Kelly White were able to pull off a show-stopping rendition of the burlesque anthem You've Got to Have a Gimmick, much of the remaining second act seemed rushed and unpolished. All in all, I'd say this show's compelling, but last semester's production of The Spitfire Grill was a superior effort.
3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 19 March 2013
]]>Gwendolyn Lee's Two in the Morning would have risked becoming self-indulgent if not for the specks of hilarity in the interactions between loud-mouthed ex-best friends Alaric (Asher Tan) and Bianca (Annie Low) who have been carrying a torch for each other. In the intimate confines of Alaric's hostel room it was hard to miss the romantic and sexual tension emanating from the duo, but Bianca's frivolous nature made it difficult for me to develop any empathy for her and her quest to revive her relationship with the cynical Alaric. I was also uncomfortable with the unfortunate cross between American and British accents, which may have worked for Low, but clearly didn't for Tan, and gave the piece an unnecessary pretentiousness. I appreciated, though, the noise of midnight traffic constantly droning in the background and the true-to-life set. Clearly designer Sakinah Tan has an eye for detail, creating a messy yet homely abode.
3 out of 5, Tan Sock Keng, 21 Mar 2013
]]>The Wild Rice cast members, all from the original 2009 performance with the exception of Lim Kay Siu (Reverend Chausible), go beyond simply doing justice to Wilde's wit; they raise the scintillating repartee to a new and thoroughly enjoyable level with their cross-gender parodies and stirring vocal articulation. The Importance of Being Earnest was my first performance back in theatre school decades ago, and still the fast-paced dialogue pierces with razor-sharpness. With aphorisms and rebuttals being exchanged at the speed of a bullet train, one easily forgives the minor but noticeable stumbles in delivery.
This second run of Glen Goei's Earnest appears to be little changed from its debut but there's no harm in that: judging from the audience's 'Wilde' laughter, it still works.
4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 13 Apr 2013
]]>The work has graced the stage in various versions, notably as a one-act ballet by British choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan. It seems natural to set the tale to the compelling rhythms of flamenco considering its origin but Flamenco Sin Fronteras has also decided that the Albas are to now be the Neos, with playwright Joel Tan transporting Lorca's story to Singapore and portraying Bernada as the authoritative matriarchal figure of a Peranakan household.
Flamenco's vocabulary lends itself extraordinarily to the friction between the five sisters of the household. The accelerated stamping and the menacing clapping all add to the various confrontational moments in the piece. A slinky falsetto violinist and wonderful guitarists and percussionists make up an onstage band which also contributes greatly to the action.
Meanwhile, Tilly Wong plays a striking Adela, the youngest daughter who defies Bernada and has a secret affair with Joseph Fernandez who is betrothed to her eldest sister. She exhibits a beautiful, contrapuntal use of her upper and lower body, her delicate arms belying the ferocious footwork beneath her flamenco skirt. It is a shame that Toshiaki Konno's slick Fernandez doesn't get much stage time, even though all the sisters lust over him, and he is the cause of much of the story's drama. He performs with suave confidence, repeatedly lowering his heel on one foot, arms suspended.
Unfortunately, The House isn't so convincing in its moments of flirting with contemporary dance. In the second act, Wong and Konno perform a sensual duet while a jealous elder sister, Martha looks on voyeuristically. Generic deep plies and emotive reaches make up most of this comparatively rigid section, and the previously-seen dynamism of these tremendous performers is momentarily withheld.
4 out of 5, Germaine Cheng, 24 Mar 2013
]]>The dialogue – all sniping, shorthand and subtext – feels utterly authentic, and the characters manage to be both highly specific and utterly recognizable. The wife, Swen, jumps off the page and is embodied wholly by Jean Ng who plays her loneliness with the throbbing of scarred-over wounds reopened. Julius Foo has slightly less scope with the husband, Gerald, who perhaps needs a little more mining from the playwright to get all the way down to his core. But Foo plays what is there with unerring instinct. And, most importantly, the chemistry works: it is impossible to believe that Ng and Foo have not been married for 30 years.
Certain touches ring false. Yes, the auntie-sounding Swen may have gone to RGS, but there's no way she'd have been on the debate team speaking like that; and the cause of Swen's miscarriage – an outlandish abdominal exerciser – fell on the wrong side of the line between quirky and silly.
But perhaps there was a way to make these odder elements work: the play occasionally felt like it was pawing against the door of psychological realism, wanting to be let into a brighter room beyond – but the direction wouldn't take it there. Perhaps a little more stylised boldness from director Claire Wong and sound designer Shah Tahir would have opened that door.
Apart from faintest suspicion of missed opportunities, though, Wong and her team did excellent work, creating space with the lightest of suggestions, shaping the dramatic line, and providing an apt physicalisation of Ng's already impressively visualised script.
Last year did not produce much in the way of original Singaporean scripts, so Ng's effort here is extremely welcome. Indeed, it feels churlish of me to want one further draft that excavates deeper into Gerald, treads less water in the middle, and is formally a little bit bolder. But For Better and For Worse is such a solid, well-observed and affecting play that it makes me want to be picky.
4 out of 5, Matthew Lyon, 23 Mar 2013
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