“It’s a Neverlanding Spectacle”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 17 December 2019

Children soar over the stage this yuletide season as Wild Rice returns with its annual Christmas pantomime. This year it’s Peter Pan of Serangoon Gardens, a local take on J.M Barrie’s beloved children’s story.

The ageless boy Peter Pan flies into the home of three Singaporean siblings just as academic pressures and parental expectations threaten to smother their childhood. Emblematic of escapism and youthful innocence, Peter offers them a ticket to carefree adventure and perpetual youth in Neverland, to which they readily accept.

Akin to Wild Rice’s pantomimes of Christmases past, this one brims with spectacle from start to finish.

Characters take flight on stage, somersaulting in the air with the support of safety harnesses. Fight scenes between Peter and his nemesis Captain Hook resemble a stereotypical good-versus-evil showdown, complete with swashbuckling action and fancy footwork. Meanwhile, cross-dressing mystical creatures exude an air of ridiculous flamboyance. Clad in luscious wigs and glittering scales, a pair of drag mermaids flutter their false lashes and coo in falsettos in one scene, vying for Peter’s attention. In a separate scene, Peter’s overgrown fairy TingTong Bell prances around stage wearing a tight pink tutu and a sassy attitude; she showers the pre-flight children with fairy-dust as she goes, speaking in Pig Latin to mask her “itchy-bay omments-cay”.

The aerial tricks, melodrama and absurdity line-up one after another, garnering a chock full of laughter from the audience. It’s hard to tear my gaze away from the stage; I admit I’m enthralled.

But while Peter Pan can’t grow old, two straight hours of pure spectacle can. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a greater message or sociocultural issue waiting to be highlighted through all of this.

If anything, there is a brief attempt to provoke the audience into critically considering the effects Singapore’s education system has on our children. The jaunty overture that opens the production, “Time For A Story”, carries a conundrum in its cheery melody that hits very close to home. A chorus of sleepwear-clad children break into synchronised choreography on stage whilst belting in unison their desire to be read a bedtime story, desperate to drift off into a dream-like world of fantasy and adventure before the realities of school-life resurface at dawn. The sonorous voices emanating from the adult ensemble, however, adamantly oppose. Their reasons and rationale are delivered sternly, rhythmically shutting down the children’s pleas. And these stay in my head long after the last note ends:

“PSLE coming soon! Finished your revision? Think about your future first. No time to be a child!”

The life of an average Singaporean child is amplified in these lyrics for all to scrutinise. The perennial question concerning Singapore’s education system resurfaces: Is it robbing our children of their childhood? They’ll excel, but at what cost?

But as the play proceeds, the little focus that this sociocultural issue gains unfortunately tapers off, lost amidst the fantasy, larger-than-life characters and fast-moving plot.

Nonetheless, Wild Rice’s proclivity for revising classical tales for a Singaporean audience once again creates an epic theatre experience for the young and young at heart.

It’ll whisk you away to a magical land where you won’t need to think too hard.

“Here’s Another (Nearly) Immersive Performance”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 17 November 2019

Teaspoons clink against the interior of glass mugs, producing the signature soundscape of a kopitiam – Singapore’s no-frills coffeeshops. Chatter pervades the air, delivered in multiple languages. The shuffling of slippers precedes yet another drink order, hollered in dialect for immediate processing. Chairs shift, plates clatter, and an Asian koel cries intermittently, contributing to the cacophony. Save for the air-conditioning in the space, The Second Breakfast Company’s immersive theatre production, The Hawker, is a laudable simulation of a kopitiam.

The cast joins us around circular tables littered with dirty dishes and half-filled mugs. We watch up-close as their interactions unearth the stories and relationships that coalesce in this fictional eating joint.

Five vignettes concurrently play out in the space, rotating among the tables in a round-robin manner. A chance encounter between ex-army buddies gets heated at one table, while a married couple grapples with difficult decisions at another. Elsewhere, social inequality and peer pressure sway schoolgirls towards a questionable choice, a foreign worker makes an important call home, and religious differences jeopardise a blossoming relationship.

Given the performance set-up, it’s a miracle that the cast’s lines do not amalgamate into an incomprehensible whole.

Sure, my gaze periodically flits to a performer slamming the neighbouring table, and at times I overhear someone pacifying his mother over the phone. But these moments are conscientiously coordinated, executed at a volume loud enough to jointly recreate the aural ambience of a busy coffeeshop without overpowering individual vignettes. Despite overlaying sounds and the white noise of conversation, the atmosphere at my table remains largely undisturbed. Each visiting vignette is hence able to unravel organically, exuding a distinctive flavour that rivets my attention.

The Hawker’s physical environment enthrals, its character’s plights provoke empathy, and I’m undeniably invested in the scenes that collectively present the humble coffeeshop as a microcosm of Singaporean society.

But something is amiss about this immersive work. We, the audience, are invisible and uninvolved.

Physically, the performance space and auditorium have merged; yet an impenetrable fourth wall remains to encircle the cast wherever they go, enclosing them in a fictional realm that we see and feel but are unable to independently interact with or explore.

I acknowledge that having an all-knowing audience, one privy to every development in the fictional world, necessitates this performance convention. Its existence, however, limits a truly immersive experience, re-establishing instead the conventional theatrical expectation of passive spectatorship.

Yes, immersive theatre is a performance genre that prioritises spatial design, where tactile and sensual environments contain visceral stimuli. The Hawker nails this part.

But equally important in immersive theatre is making the audience central to the action, privileging them with a purpose and sense of agency throughout. Immersive works need an audience to exist.

It’s a shame The Hawker feels that it doesn’t, promising an “immersive” experience that isn’t quite so.

“Anything can happen, and edutainment did”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 7 July 2019

Wild Rice’s youth division, Young & Wild, returns for a fifth iteration.

Part lecture-performance and part experimental Shakespeare, Anything Can Happen, Something Must Happen stitches a mix of performance genres and forms onto the bard’s Macbeth.

The work plays with the delivery of its canonised source text in imaginative ways, from an interactive camp segment to table-top puppetry involving edible cookies. Every so often, it breaks production concepts down into their nuts and bolts before unabashedly thrusting them into its audience’s faces.

Admittedly, this sounds like a brutal ride. But hear me out.

A pleasant surprise awaits if – and only if – you forswear the impenetrability of the fourth wall, forget about coherent narratives, and ground your disbelief. In doing so, you’ll discover the true value of this work and may begin to appreciate it for what it inherently is – edutainment.

“This is how it sounds like when the actress speaks to the actor,” a disembodied voice resounds.

The actress on stage obediently opens her mouth. Out comes her lines, and when they are done, she freezes.

The voice returns, now making a point on the quality of lighting. The scene resumes in accordance with this new direction, playing out for a few seconds before pausing for subsequent instructions.

More stage elements are isolated and tweaked, their effects made conspicuous. It’s as though we’re in a director’s head as she creates, toying with options and watching each one materialise on stage.

Granted, this is nothing novel for theatre students and practitioners. But for the general audience who too often consumes a polished product, this delightful dissection of stage elements renders them privy to the workings of theatrical magic.

There’s more.

The production devotes part of itself to making the discourse on theatre in academia tangible and relatively accessible for its audience. Theatre luminary Peter Brook’s definition of theatre, for example, is heard in the opening scene:

“A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.”

At this precise moment cast members traverse the performance area; the audience’s gaze follows them, held by this mundane act. They have validated Brook’s claims, whether or not they realise it. For those who have, the often-overlooked act of watching and being watched in the theatre is now made evident.

But more than that, the act of watching is made meaningful. It reveals the audience-performer relationship that exists within the performance space as an integral and valuable part of the theatre performance, one without which an act of theatre ceases to exist.

This production, unlike some others, is devoid of sensational storylines and glossy sets that coerce you into believing you’ve got your money’s worth.

Instead, it humbly offers something else of undeniable value: an opportunity to learn about theatre, through theatre. Not the most conventional mode of sharing knowledge perhaps, but an engaging one nonetheless.

And therein lies the production’s unmistakable charm.

“Letting Lore Live Once More “

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 9 June 2019

It’s terribly lively when I slip into Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre’s multi-purpose hall for Ground Z-0’s Island Tales.

Inspired by the street wayang of yesteryears, director Zelda Tatiana Ng attempts to revive elements of this traditional street entertainment, leveraging on the concept of casual, interactive performance to reintroduce the forgotten folklores surrounding Singapore’s offshore islands.

In true wayang fashion, her cast of three are heard long before they are spotted on a small elevated stage. Complete with flailing arms and heightened energy, their amplified voices parkour off the walls as they compete to deliver the local legends behind the origins of Kusu Island.

On a bare stage, equipped with only their bodies and household items for props, the performers take turns at bringing their respective renditionof thislegend to life. Whenever one performer commences their storytelling, the other two assume characters in the tale. They buzz around the stage animatedly, interacting with each other and the space around them. Over the course of 30 minutes, three contrasting legends are expeditiously shared. Each actor is convinced of the legitimacy of their version, but the real work lies in convincing their audience to believe the same. At the end, weget to vote for the versionwe’re most sold on.

And boy, do they put in the effort to win us over.

Squatting down at one point, the performers transform into a couple of rokok-smoking fishermen, rowing away with great gusto in imaginary sampans. Seconds later, swaying bodies and a cry of mock horror accompanied by the crash of an opera gong indicate the beginnings of a storm. In another legend, the performers become orang laut, sea nomads of 16th century Singapura. With large, exaggerated strides, they venture into a mysterious, make-believe cave. More often than not, the realism that pervades the stage is magnified and heightened. Thankfully, it’s reeled inwhenever itbegins to borderon tacky, saving the piece from cloying melodrama.

What is perhaps most intriguing is the curious style of performance employed –one that embraces tiny lapsesin actingand openly incorporates moments of improvisation into its script. There areonstage nudges, giggles and tuts.Exchanges are brief yet witty, infused with a familiar smattering of local dialects and nostalgicpop-culture references. Responses appear scripted and rehearsed, but at timesbecome impromptu, catching even the performersthemselvesby surprise.

What then emerges is a performance that looks rudimentary and feels unpolished, butisentertaining all the same.

Devoid of mediatisation, the charm of Island Tales may very well lie in its overt liveness and ephemerality, where we get to witness blips and nicks as the performers strive to curry our favour. Either that, or that the allure of myth, storytelling, imitation and fantasy – coincidentally the very elements that modern theatre emerged from– is something we, like our ancestors, are primordially predisposed to.

“The underground, a new playground”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 21 June 2019

The local arts scene has recently seen a number of theatrical experiences that are marketed as “immersive”, “interactive”, or “ambulatory” in nature, where participants are thrown headfirst into the playing space. The Inside Space’s inaugural performance, Underground: Black Lotus (UBL), is the latest to fall within such categories.

An address is disclosed to me via a cryptic text message 24 hours prior to this immersive experience. With it lies the outline of a highly classified assignment. This clandestine transmission concludes aggressively: “RESPOND WITH AN ‘I COMMIT’,” it demands.

Obediently, I acquiesce and hit send.

The following day, I arrive at an industrial complex unit, whose rough exterior conceals an elaborate 1960s-style residence — one that houses the headquarters of a fictional drug cartel. Tasked by its boss to expose a mole who has infiltrated it, we, its 15 guests, are transformed into undercover detectives upon entry.

Heeding the warning to trust nobody, I remain circumspect whilst exploring the space under the guise of a benign guest. I’m pulled into rounds of blackjack with inebriated cartel members and down whiskey that tastes strangely like Coke. The air is sweet yet stale, and hushed exchanges meld into the ambient jazz. From props to sound, UBL’s detailed design creates a vibrant atmosphere tinged with underlying tensions, sustaining its dream-like, arcane world.

The cast, largely comprising amateur performers, build compellingly enigmatic characters. They improvise well, revealing layers of their personality in their extemporaneous exchanges with the wandering participants. It’s a notable feat given the interactive format of the experience. Albeit terse, these affective exchanges take raw and intriguing turns. As I engage in conversations with particular characters, for instance, they lead me into covert spaces that are inaccessible to other participants, and I am fed intel.

My initial apprehension yields to genuine concern as the stoic cartel boss tearfully confides a personal loss to me, exposing a rather unanticipated sliver of human fragility. Later, a cartel member’s anguished revelation renders her a suspect. But something about her dire pleas for help surprisingly impels me to reassess my suspicions.

While both the cast and mise-en-scene conceive an evocatively immersive experience for its participants, however, inadequate game-design sadly underwhelms the promised gamification of this theatrical experience.

UBL’s laissez-faire approach to theatrical storytelling parallels a role-playing game (RPG), where participants have a clear objective — in this case, uncovering a mole. But when 15 participants are scattered in free play, things inevitably get messy. For one thing, any coordination of information is near impossible given the group’s size. For another, this hinders strategic planning for an efficient investigation. Clues seem to appear by luck, if at all. Moreover, weak leads provide little incentive for working towards the goal.

Engaging the characters, their stories and revelling in the atmosphere of the make-believe world become my priorities, rather than actively tracking down the mole. I ultimately question the extent to which goal-oriented gamification contributes to this immersive theatrical experience. Is gamification simply foisted on it?

If so, perhaps UBL is only worth your time if you, like me, value a visceral, immersive experience over the process of solving a game.

“This Is What Happens When Obscurities Exist”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 12 May 2019

Pangdemonium boldly brings to the fore the contentious subject of sexual misconduct in This Is What Happens To Pretty Girls. Its premiere is timely, given the recent spate of voyeurism cases and the prevalence of movements supporting the disclosure of sexual assault and trauma on social media.

Drawing upon interviews conducted with those who had previously been in such precarious situations, playwright Ken Kwek fleshes out eight characters interlinked in an intricate web of narratives: a student-professor relationship laced with romantic attraction goes wayward, a sexual encounter between colleagues is perceived very differently by each party, and an unearthed case of childhood sexual bullying haunts those involved.

Pangdemonium’s latest is breath of fresh air in a climate of technology-enhanced activism, where third-party bystanders swiftly dole out blame and impose victim/perpetrator binaries.

By sidestepping categorical pitfalls, the piece focuses on the grey areas inherent in some cases of sexual misconduct. It leverages on the liveness of the theatrical medium to do so, delivering a couple of uncomfortably visceral moments with sufficient nuance. This distinct quality of theatre privileges us, its spectators, as silent witnesses to the full unfolding sexual interactions within scenes. It renders us privy to details and nonverbal cues that even an articulate recount would fail to coherently capture.

A key example of this is when colleagues Natasha (Tess Pang) and Ray (Jamil Schulze) wind up at the latter’s apartment after a company party; what is meant to be a ‘couple of drinks’ gradually develops into a physically intimate encounter. Pang and Schulze put up a laudable attempt at portraying how wordless interactions can be easily misconstrued, if not missed altogether. They skilfully manoeuvre their bodies within the space in a passionate – albeit awkward – dance that is somewhat consensual, yet not quite. These shifting proxemics and body languages cause the concept of consent to remain in a flux throughout the scene.

Consent is never explicitly given or removed in speech. It instead ebbs and flows within the moments and spaces between the pair. Opportunities to decline sexual advances are sometimes taken, but at other times not. Communication is initiated when one notices the other’s discomfort, but disintegrates when the latter refuses to converse. It is here where the play makes its most salient point – witnessing all sides of a story unfold concurrently through an unbiased lens does not make it any easier to hold one party fully accountable for violated boundaries.

The multifaceted nature of the parties involved in each developing scenario is also explored. Confounding character traits and histories surface throughout the play, disrupting an easy mapping of stereotypes onto characters based on gender or powerplay within situations. Exposing a character’s inner vulnerability and desperation for clarity and repentance humanises them, without negating the severity of their offending action. Whereas stubborn, temporal silence can indicate a quiet resilience driven by sturdy rationale, and not entirely by weakness.

The strength in This Is What Happens To Pretty Girls is thus in its ability to offer us what the real world cannot – time and space to thoroughly review a matter through multiple lenses and perspectives, and the realisation that some cases of sexual misconduct and the labels we attach to those involved are perhaps more layered and complex than they may seem.

“Rockin’ Around Victoria Stage“

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 28 November 2018

A $ingapore Carol is Wild Rice’s glitzy, localised musical spin on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and it is everything its title alludes to.

Our Singaporean scrooge, the miserly mobile app tycoon S. K. Loo (read: Skloo), is efficiently haunted into festive generosity by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. The triad — a banana tree hantu, a digital screen-travelling spirit, and the disembodied voice of an autonomous Alexa — successively drag an unwilling Loo across the fourth dimension, realigning his trajectory from a certain afterlife in hell.

The production lands unapologetically in the realm of unadulterated spectacle. From skilfully dangling a cast member mid-air for added phantasmal effect, to building an impressive digitalised columbarium with oversized touch-enabled niches, A $ingapore Carol’s mise-en-scene is consistently a glossy curation of all things larger than life.

In a similar vein, the production’s musical score largely comprises a rich amalgam of catchy tunes, choreographed dance and lyrical farce. The bigger and bolder, the better.

“A Million of Me”, for example, has the Ghost of Christmas Present (Audrey Luo) crawling out of a TV screen in a Sadako-like fashion before robotically strutting to a techno beat. A trippy video edit of her character streams in the background as Luo maintains a sharp angularity in her onstage movements. It creates an effect reminiscent of a kitschy Lady Gaga music video.

My senses are assaulted by a myriad of visually and aurally arresting stimuli. But although my eyes are glued to the stage, I’m ironically too distracted to intellectually process the song’s lyrics, let alone emotionally engage with it on a deeper level.

Granted, most of the original numbers are energetic showstoppers that easily rev up the crowd. Yet, the same elements that mesmerise can also occlude. And this becomes evident as the excessive dynamism and extravagance in some numbers begin to overshadow their intended message.

As a result, I float through the two hours, consuming entertaining spectacle after spectacle without much critical thought.

“Bunga Pisang”, the hauntingly poignant song by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Siti Khalijah), is perhaps the only musical number that is distinctly affective. Hints of traditional Malay music are heard in the soothing underlying instrumentals of the piece, beautifully complementing the 1950s kampong setting that the song is performed in. It serves as a brilliant back-drop for Loo (Sebastian Tan) as he watches his younger self grapple with heartbreak and lost opportunity. An effective dramatic element that develops Loo’s character further and advances the narrative, “Bunga Pisang” is what I hoped the rest of songs would be like.

But alas, it remained a one hit wonder.

Much like an orh luak-nog or a satay turkey stuffed with ketupat, A $ingapore Carol is all in all a delightful modernised Asian fusion of a Western classic. While its overt theatricality and Singlish puns might leave you feeling a little jelak, this lively yuletide production will appeal to your inner child and keep you in your seat.

Just be sure to expect loads of jaunty entertainment, and little else.

“Diving Back In, And Making Small Waves“

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 3 August 2018

Bound Theatre returns after a three-year hiatus and dives headfirst into staging a locally-written romantic drama, The Taste of Water. This piece centres on the relationship between Joycelyn (Erika Magnicay) and Oscar (James Chia), ex-classmates whose chanced reunion rekindles a romance that threatens the stability of their separate lives. By fluctuating between the pair’s past and present interactions, the work explores the tragedy of missed opportunity and the inability to reconcile heart with mind.

Magnicay and Chia initially establish a convincing connection by navigating their volatile onstage relationship in a nuanced manner. When the conversation between Joycelyn and Oscar over a meal veers towards their separate love lives, the actors begin embellishing their speech with filler words and pauses – long enough to signal their characters’ discomfort without appearing as though they have forgotten lines. An avoidance of eye contact and a slight shifting within the seats further detail this awkward exchange, effectively building palpable tension within the space. The pair also execute a touching moment well as they slow dance and reminisce about their shared childhood in another scene. The dancing is far from perfect, but an earnest intimacy is exhibited as they silently melt into each other’s arms. In that moment, affection is exchanged in its purest form.

The pair are supported by a strong ensemble, who personify the private thoughts and emotions of both protagonists through mime and movement. When Joycelyn discovers that Oscar’s school art folder still exists, she contains her surprise and appears composed. Yet the ensemble crowding behind her expose her contrasting internal state. They crane their necks forward, eagerly peering into the contents of the folder. As Joycelyn takes out a drawing, they too simultaneously each grab one and fan outwards with arms raised. They silently admire the sketches while delicately suspending the pieces of paper, bodies easing into an unhurried, fluid motion. The ensemble’s physicality visually captures the sensation of time slowing down for Joycelyn, and effectively expresses her dreamy euphoria as she savours Oscar’s art.

Everything flows consistently in the first 45 minutes. Aside from noisy scene transitions – a medley of elephant feet and boxes hitting the ground – nothing else irks me.

But then the climax arrives, and completely misses its mark.

Unlike the earlier scenes, Magnicay and Chia’s performance lack the requisite chemistry to persuade anyone of the sexual tension between their characters. They half-heartedly feign a make-out before fumbling awkwardly into the hotel room. Consequently, the energy during this scene dissipates, persisting to undermine a heated argument that follows. The slap Magnicay delivers to Chia in response to Oscar’s rejection is weak and uncommitted. It is a pity that their performance unravels during this critical scene.

Though some areas of this production require finetuning, Bound Theatre deserves credit for bravely executing it with nothing more than a couple of black boxes and a lively cast. Their sincere acting and dynamic physicality propel them to achieve artful storytelling despite the minimal resources available – something of a rarity in recent times.