“Braving a Raging Storm“

Reviewer: Lee Shu Yu 
Performance: 26 April 2018

Edith Podesta’s Leda and the Rage impresses with its staging of sexual violence and trauma. Seen in the light of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, this performance is vital viewing.

Leda and the Rage plunges face first into grimy detail. The play’s opening frame is set as a university module about trauma in art and literature. Podesta plays the lecturer, herself coping with a dark past, while Jeremiah Choy plays her therapist. As the two flit from mythology to memory on stage, shadow-interpreters Jun An and Amirah Osman complete the picture.

The title comes from a story in Greek Mythology, where young Leda is raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. The story is often romanticised as a ‘seduction’.  In this performance, the lecturer invokes Suzanna, Daphne, Philomela who suffer the same fate. I am immediately reminded that for all these mythological names that are known, so many more real names go unheard.

Fact and fiction bleed into each other. The dramatic sequences are spliced with statistics and rape apologist assertions. From rape culture, to childhood trauma and terrorism, the audience is never once allowed to forget the extent of the objectification and violence.

There is no breathing room between fragments as the audience is herded along the recesses of the survivor’s mind. The show is an hour and a half of claustrophobia, with all the frenzied haziness and excruciating detail of nightmares.

Despite the horror, Leda and the Rage remains tragically beautiful.

Podesta’s usual verbosity is effective. Her spoken word captures the sensation of a lump in one’s throat that finally spits back at the patriarchy. Even so, the words are a salve and an ode to survivors; it is equal parts formidable and gut-wrenching.

Besides making the play more accessible, the two shadow-interpreters from the Singapore Association of the Deaf are themselves stage players. The corporeal beauty of the sign language is at the forefront. This extra layer of stage business adds commentary about the dislocation of mind, body and experience.

At times, Choy sounds hesitant and lacks the lyricism needed for the text, but the performers are well-supported by the design. The grey set resembles a tomb, its various catches and transformations remind one of a pocket knife. This fortress is often shaken by uncanny multimedia, sound and lighting design and I constantly feel like I am clinging on to driftwood in open waters.

As the lights fade out on the last scene, the audience’s discomfort and exhaustion is palpable; one must take a breath to contemplate the weight of the work.

All things considered, Leda and the Rage is accomplished, fierce and constructive. By presenting solutions in the play and beyond – a post-show dialogue with relevant professionals and an information sheet about sexual violence – Leda and the Rage does not just promise a night of thoughtful theatre, but attempts to rattle the shackles of indifference that paralyses us as a society.

“Adapting for the Stage”

Reviewer: Myle Yan Tay
Performance: 19 August 2017

The actors do Foley work with household props, gesturing to the sound crew. Sonny Liew draws at his desk, his progress projected live onto the back wall. The tech team and their work stations are all on stage; Boney M’s “Sunny” plays over the speaker system. When the song ends, an actor approaches a mic-stand onstage and when given her cue, begins hosting a radio show.

The radio format forms the backbone for the show initially, but as the production progresses, it disappears. It comes back in drips and drabs, in between theatrical renditions of Sonny’s latest work and musings by the radio presenter. It is this disregard for convention that makes Becoming Graphic an exceptional, ambitious, but at times confusing piece of theatre.

The show revolves around Sonny, exploring his latest project. The actors recreate his work, both visually and verbally. The multimedia, expertly crafted by Brian Gothong Tan, showcase Sonny’s process. Real interviews with Sonny’s family intermittently play over the speaker.

Edith Podesta constantly reminds us that we are watching a play about Sonny. There is no suspension of disbelief, immersing the audience in a fictional story; there is no illusion that we are watching anything but a play.

It is a truly ambitious task, bringing the graphic novel to the stage, transplanting one medium onto another. To do so, Podesta utilizes inventive and dynamic techniques such as shadow work and overhead projections, to integrate the live ensemble and the comic book. In each presentation, there is an element of struggle, putting the two mediums at odds with one another rather than neatly fitting together.

The enjoyment of these recreations hinge on their novelty, so when certain techniques like the live voiceover are re-used/overused, their initial freshness is lost.

One exceptional sequence mixes pre-recorded, accelerated footage of Sonny drawing and live projections of his sketches. At this point, Sonny is the only live part of the stage. The sequence prompts the audience to question what makes a medium.

Does “liveness” make theatre? Does sequential art make the comic book? Becoming Graphic provides no answers, leaving the audience to form their own opinions.

My major qualm is the production’s pacing. The show does not have a conventional narrative structure or an obvious through-line for the audience to follow. The shifts between sequences are jarring, discombobulating the show. I feel repelled rather than absorbed for most of the production. Having said that, it does not make the show any less thought-provoking or challenging, but less patient audiences should be wary. It is simply because this is not a show that flows naturally or can be fully appreciated in the moment.

Becoming Graphic is not for a passive audience member. It requires constant thought and, eventually, reflection. Personally, as an avid comic book reader, Becoming Graphic grasps what makes the two mediums special and distinct. Rather than hiding from the complications, Podesta and her team dive headfirst to confront the challenge, creating a memorable and poignant piece of theatre.

“Chained and Connected”

Reviewer: Beverly Yuen
Performance: 30 April 2016

Dark Room, a docudrama written and directed by Edith Podesta, shares the true stories of former inmates of Changi Prison. They are based on recorded interviews which lasted an average of two hours each. The first incarnation of the play was entitled Dark Room x8 and staged as a work-in-progress in 2014.

The set, designed by Chris Chua, is symmetrical in most of its configurations. It is unbearably sharp and geometrical with its lines, edges, pointedness and rectangularity. Coupled with the harsh lighting design by Adrian Tan – which casts lines, angular shapes, and shadows – the stage is transformed into an enclosed space of castigation, control, and confinement.

The internment experienced by the prisoners is also enhanced by Darren Ng’s sound effects of metal prison doors opening and shutting, and the metallic sounds of bars and chains. However, at some points, the sound is so abrupt that it interrupts the performers delivering their texts.

Prison life is depicted as boredom, loss and fear.  The inmates play games, share meals and singing sessions to relieve the tedium. Their lives in the prison are “chained and connected to one another.” They are visited by their parents, represented by a middle-aged couple played by Lim Kay Siu and Neo Swee Lin.

Amongst the cohesive ensemble of 11, Oliver Chong and Pavan J Singh constantly engage the audience with their adroit performances. They deliver their characters convincingly with a pertinent grasp of rhythm in their actions and speech, tinted with a sense of wretchedness and dark humour.

The other six male prisoners add diversity to the spectrum of personalities.  Nelson Chia and Noor Effendy Ibrahim play the long-term inmates who orientate and give advice to the newbies; Timothy Nga plays the gay inmate who is placed in the same cell as the other straight men; Ian Tan plays a discouraged ex-convict who struggles with issues of acceptance in the society; Mohd Fared Jainal plays the melancholic inmate; and Erwin Shah Ismail plays the inmate who sheds light on the life in prison with his composed, and occasionally perceptive account.

Shafiqhah Efandi, who plays the only female prisoner in the piece, sustains her acting with a poignant inner soul-scape. She delivers her final soliloquy compellingly, with each word piercing right into the heart of the viewers.

The script is a sincere and intelligent piece of writing, especially with its use of humour amidst the intense treatment of the subject. However, the overly-dense text of the play – which clocks at 2 hours and 15 minutes – falls flat at some moments during the second half of the show. By this time, there is hardly any display of the intention and subtext behind the lines. However, this is a well-researched, earnest, and humanity-championing piece of work that should be seen by more people.

“Struggling with the Outside from the Inside”

Reviewer: Alisa Maya Ravindran
Performance: 30 April 2016

Dark Room opens and ends with monologues that are inspired by true accounts from prisoners, immersing the audience in the experiences of the characters and their loved ones from the get-go. The play walks you through the experiences of convicts from their court date until their release date, and comprehensively addresses the ups and downs as it develops.

The star-studded cast, with the likes of Lim Kay Siu and Noor Effendy Ibrahim, does not disappoint. The actors interject comedy and grief and introspection throughout, so the lengthy run time of two hours is not difficult to sit through. What is most powerful about this performance is the diversity of characters, in terms of ethnicity socio-economic class. A Malay uncle in his forties, young, well-educated gay men, a Chinese waiter and a foreign worker all share the same cell.

The cast’s use of space is praise-worthy, as the male characters work within a mock-up of a Changi prison cell for the bulk of the show. Besides showcasing the daily routines of prison life and how the characters cope with their new circumstances, Dark Room also benefits from the perspectives of parents and loved ones, and shows how a prison sentence punishes the jailed person’s family as well. In essence, this is the central struggle all of the characters face: the idea that life in a jail cell is about figuring out one’s past, present and future while all the while being conscious of, but out of touch with the outside world.

Nelson Chia’s Chinese monologue about caning in the prisons has the audience in total silence. His character’s empathy with the prisoners who are caned is equal parts moving and disturbing. In his speech, the humanity of each prisoner is brought to the forefront, as he strips away labels of crime, shame to highlight the universal experiences of pain and humiliation. Shafiqhah Efandi is the only female inmate in the play, and single-handedly conveys women’s experiences of prison. While her performance is compelling in terms of its somberness, it is ultimately one-dimensional in that the upsides of prison life, no matter how minute, are barely discussed.

In the final analysis, the identities of the prisoners and the crimes for which they are incarcerated are never revealed. Instead the play focuses on how “normal” these archetypical prisoners are and raises a long-debated question: just how effective and ethical is the current prisons system?

“Dark Room Sheds Light on Prison Life“

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 5 July 2014, 3pm

It seems that there is a rising trend for docu-plays where the script is based on extensively edited interview transcripts. In this case, Edith Podesta (director and writer) interviewed several former inmates of Changi prison and transformed their experiences to the stage.

For a work-in-progress, it was hugely effective. In fact, the indications that this was a work-in-progress showcase were the free admission, the actors holding scripts, and no set. Apart from that, the showcase was polished, well thought out, and deeply affecting.

I was surprised to learn that all the actors only had access to the interview transcripts and not the recordings. Despite that, all of them delivered nuanced performances: capturing the speech quirks of the interviewees very well. Additionally, they picked up on each other’s cues seamlessly despite not having memorised the script fully.

As the presentation went on, my initial reservations about whether a docu-play could match a documentary film faded away. Seeing eight men huddled together in a square lighting plot (designed by Adrian Tan) or to exchange looks in tender moments of friendship, made it a profoundly visceral experience. This is complemented by the fact that the audience is huddled together in a confined space which gave them a vicarious experience of the whole process.

The strength of this production was that it only presented the voices of the former prisoners. There was no authorial or directorial slant to portray the prison in any way apart from what was said. This resulted in a complex production that illustrated prison life in a very human way – its harsh realities, sorrows, and simple joys: the audience were left to form their own opinions.

I strongly believe that this play is a step in the right direction confronting the stigmatisation of former prisoners. I have always considered myself open-minded and accepting. At the end of the play, I realised that I was as judgemental as the next person – do their crimes and sentences really matter? Isn’t it more important that these people have served their time and have turned over a new leaf?