THE WAY WE GO by Checkpoint Theatre

“The Way It Went”

Reviewer: Andre Theng
Performance: 29 November 2014, 3pm

Going by the white coffin placed markedly at the centre of the stage throughout the play, The Way We Go appears to be a story about death. But it is also a story about life, and more specifically, a reflection of guilt and regret in the face of death.

The Way We Go, directed by Claire Wong and staged at the wonderfully intimate SOTA Studio Theatre, is Checkpoint Theatre’s latest production. Checkpoint has made it a trademark to focus on original Singapore scripts and this production is no exception – the script is written by local playwright Joel Tan.

It stars Lydia Look as Agatha Mao, principal of a fictitious convent school, Neo Swee Lin as Agatha’s colleague and friend, Violet Chan, Malaysian actor Patrick Teoh as Edmund Gomez, who at one point is in a relationship with Agatha; and two lesbian convent girls, Julie Wee as Lee-Ying and Chng Xin Xuan as Gillian Koh. The play begins at the funeral of Agatha, who has died from cancer. The rest of the performance zips between scenes in both her personal and professional lives intertwined with the other characters.

Unfortunately, the selling point of the production also becomes its greatest failing – as it tackles the all-important topic of “life”, I found that it tried to do too much in/with too little, given the relatively short 90-minute runtime. While it has been described by other reviewers as a “quietly gentle” play, I find that it never picks up and despite the (good attempts) at humour and to show multiple facets of each character. I had a largely depressing Saturday afternoon at a moralistic play that was trying to teach me about life.

While the lens of the convent school made the play uniquely Singaporean (tapping into the rich culture of convent education), I felt that the lens was not a particularly useful one in helping to consider the issues tackled during the play. Worse still, this framing perpetuated stereotypes of wild, lesbian convent girls and repressed female convent teachers who put up false fronts while hiding their vulnerability and personal struggles.

The most enjoyable character was ironically, the grumpy Patrick Teoh as Edmund. Teoh is a famous Malaysian TV and stage star, but is probably better known to younger Singaporeans for his YouTube appearances. I was engaged by the multifacetedness of his character and as the play progressed, it becomes clear his failings are not always due to ill-intentions. Conversely, the character of Violet did no justice to veteran actress Neo, and she came across as whiny and perpetually the cause of problems.

The Way We Go certainly adds nicely to the collection of Singapore theatre. Plays not just Singaporean because of the token “lah” inserted into dialogue, but also where they become a window to a certain period or area of Singapore history or culture. There is also of course a certain joy in watching something you’re familiar with but from a distance, as a local play would often allow you to do.

Unfortunately, local plays always end up being compared to foreign productions, and are often seen as their poorer cousins giving rise to phrases like “it was good for a local play”. But if Singapore English-language theatre is to go anywhere, it has to be not just a “good local play”, but simply a “good play”. Unfortunately, judging by the way it went, this one fell a little short.