An actress (Sonia Kwek) and a dancer (Neo Yan Zong) meet in Happy Waiting, a new play written by Beverly Yuen, inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days and Waiting for Godot. Choreographer/ dance artist Bernice Lee is making her theatre directorial debut with Happy Waiting. This combination is exciting and creatively stimulating for a text-based physical theatre performance!
Vicky (Sonia Kwek) is trapped in a mound, but in a cheerful spirit, with only her limbs and head seen. In the mound, Vicky enters into a series of memories, imaginations and recollections of stories told by her folks when she was young. Often, she speaks to her husband Victor as she recalls the happy days of their dating and marriage. However, she is not acknowledged with any response. She thinks— perhaps, her husband is busy. Thus, she sings, dances with her limbs and plays games to occupy time. She is constantly “visited” by Bobo (Neo Yan Zong) who dances past her frequently but does not seem to respond to her. Is he her memory, imagination, or someone from her life?
We follow through the life of Vicky as she passes through the routine of waking up to her alarm, brushing teeth, and making breakfast for herself and her unseen husband. She is totally comfortable and joyous in her routine, maintaining an electrifying positivity within the confines of her limited mobility, hoping that Victor will respond to her one day.
While Vicky, stuck in the mound, is waiting for her husband to return, the play reflects any life situations when we are stranded, wanting to move on but afraid to do so, and thus choose [could be subconsciously] to stay in the comfort of a familiar, routine and nondescript condition. The absurdity of the characters onstage allows the audience to contemplate and ponder about their lives, be it their studies, career, relationship or family matters.Beverly Yuen
1. Happy Waiting (Process 1), 1 Oct- 2 Nov 2018
Putting herself in a box, Beverly Yuen, the playwright of Happy Waiting, started her journey in writing the original play, which is inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days and Waiting for Godot. She confined herself within the dimension of a box, exploring what it felt like to be stranded, and yet abiding in optimism; experience the bleak situation of being stuck, and yet hopeful. Her approach to writing is not merely sitting in front of the laptop! She was using a “doer” and “performer” approach to write the script. From there, she did an 8-minute presentation of Happy Waiting (Process 1) at Make It Share It’s Open Stage on 2 November 2018.
2. Phase 1 of rehearsals for the full-length play (April 2019)
Phase 1 of rehearsals involves exploration of the play with the director and the cast through script reading and improvisation. The script was finalised in the beginning of May.
3. Phase 2 of rehearsals (May 2019)
In Phase 2 of rehearsals, the director will work on the blocking of the play with the cast and continue in-depth explorations of the script. The script will may still undergo slight amendments.
4. Phase 3 of the rehearsals (June 2019)
Phase 3 of rehearsals is when everything comes together. The production design elements and the rehearsals will meet in the Phase 3 of the rehearsals.
5. Phase 4 of the rehearsals (July 2019)
Phase 4 is the final phase of rehearsals leading up to the presentation.
The presentation will take place on 12 July (8pm) & 13 July 2019 (3pm) at Stamford Arts Centre’s Black Box.
Playwright – Beverly Yuen
Beverly Yuen is the Artistic Director of Grain Performance & Research Lab. Under the collective, she directed and performed in a physical theatre piece A Walk into the Mandala in 2017.
Beverly obtained her Bachelor of Arts (Theatre Studies) from the National University of Singapore and a Masters and PhD in Communication Studies from the Nanyang Technological University. In 1995, she co-founded Theatre OX with Ang Gey Pin and a few other theatre practitioners, and was a full-time performer with the troupe from 1995 to 1999. In 1998, she headed to the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards (Italy) and received intensive performer training for a year.
Beverly founded In Source Theatre (IST) in 2001 and was its Artistic Director from 2001 to 2013. With IST, she produced, created, performed and marketed more than 20 original works locally and internationally. Beverly also performed in productions directed by various directors/ choreographers such as Lim Chin Huat, Kok Heng Leun, Jean Ng and the late William Teo.
She also penned four full-length plays: D-evil of Light (English, 2001), I Dance I Wander I Wonder (English, 2004), Cage (Mandarin, 2004) and Sleeping Naked (English, 2016). Happy Waiting is her second play to receive developmental support from Centre 42 under the Basement Workshop programme after Sleeping Naked (2016).
Director – Bernice Lee
A National Arts Council Bursary recipient, Bernice received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance with Honours from The Ohio State University (OSU) in May 2010, where she performed the works of Bebe Miller, Gu Ming-shen, Meghan Durham, and Sololos by Trisha Brown, directed by Abigail Yager.
Her works have shown internationally in Vientiane, Solo, Jogjakarta, Bangkok and New York. She often devises performances collaboratively and those works have been presented in Singapore at ArchiFest, ArtScience Museum, Arts House, The Substation, and TheatreWorks. A prolific performer, she has worked for Frontier Danceland (2012-2014) and Maya Dance Theatre (2014-2017). She also performed in Mandala by In Source Theatre at GAC Black Box in 2014 and Shanghai International Theatre Festival 2015. In 2018, Bernice has been developing her artistic practice through residencies including ELEMENT at Dance Nucleus and Time_Place_Space: Nomad organised by Arts House Melbourne.
In Happy Waiting, Bernice is interested to examine how a stuck human body produces choreography and drama, and what it means to be trapped, and yet embody a sense of freedom. She is also inspired to excavate what it means for women’s voices to re-imagine the Beckett plays in this original work.
Performer – Sonia Kwek
Sonia’s arts practice sits between theatre, performance art and dance/ movement. She also partakes in image-making and content-creation. Sonia does not like labels, and enjoys exploring between and beyond defined disciplines. Currently, Sonia is interested in the politics of female eroticism, the human physical body as material, and decolonising her own artistic processes.
Sonia often engages in work across the performing and visual arts realms, both locally and internationally. In 2018, her solo work Hymen Instinct toured to Taiwan as part of《女。性。诫？》Alternative Lessons for Women, a double-bill selected for the 2018 Asia Weekend Theatre Festival (2018 亞洲假日劇場戲劇節). She was also selected as part of the 2018 Time, Place, Space: Nomad residency through Arts House (Melbourne), an action-research residency held in the Australian outback.
Sonia graduated from Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) in 2017. She was a recipient of the ITI-William Teo Scholarship for her studies. Sonia also holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama) with Distinction, a study in interdisciplinary practice, from Queensland University of Technology, (QUT). Sonia strongly believes in collaboration and mixing as an ethos; she continually seeks training and working opportunities that allow her to hone her understanding of body and movement across cultures.
Performer – Neo Yan Zong
Yan started dancing in 2008. In 2011, he was selected for a Scholarship Program at Frontier Danceland, a professional Contemporary Dance Company in Singapore. The training sparked his interest to pursue dance full-time in 2014. He is now a graduate of the Anton Bruckner Private University’s bachelor program, with a Degree in Contemporary Stage Dance and Dance Pedagogy.
Yan is passionate for theatrical, improvisational and performative works. He seeks to incorporate humour and props in performances. Yan was part of a collective named Yellooww, which performed a fully improvised work, The Happy Hour Show in Linz, Austria.
Yan has a keen interest in Contact Improvisation; he has traveled to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Taipei (Taiwan), Xiamen (China) for various festivals. He had the privilege to learn from one of the pioneers of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith. It is his practice to search for efficiency and functionality in movement. Yan has a deep interest in martial arts. He practised Aikido, Systema and Wing Chun, seeking to integrate other movement practices with dance.
Yan aspires to be a dance educator in the future. He had the opportunity to share his interests and teach workshops and intensives in Singapore, Poland, Austria, Germany, and the UK. He hopes to continue to improve his methodologies and approaches in dance pedagogy.
Set designer – Shalyn Lim
Sound designer – Mohammad Hafizh Bin Hardi
Lighting designer – Mohammad Nor Ermeen Bin Chohari
Costume designer – Mohamad Hakimi Bin Abdullah
Props manager/ designer – Tania Shafiqah Bte Arshad
Happy Waiting was developed in residence at Centre 42’s Basement Workshop from April 2019 to July 2019.
18 June 2019:
By-invitation only open rehearsal at Centre 42
3 July 2019:
By-invitation only open rehearsal at Centre 42
12 – 13 July 2019
Presentation at Stamford Arts Centre Black Box Theatre
