“Holding On to a Sliver of Hope”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 5 September 2019

With an ominous-sounding title like a line could be crossed and you would slowly cease to be, one expects the play to be a doomsday declaration.

So imagine my surprise when the play, written by Andrew Sutherland, is anchored by two rather domestic stories. The first is a gay couple who has been keeping their relationship under wraps, but finally decides to move in together. And one of them has the urge to search for the mother who abandoned him. The other story is of a shy architect trying to strike up a conversation with a lady at a café. And the latter is doing a research project on the environment and wants to present her findings through art.

As the relationships develop and fissure, themes of loss and hope come to the fore. Factoids about the environment, such as the sex of turtles being dependent on environmental temperature during the nesting period, are subtly woven into the conversation.

Throw in animals telling us that individual or governmental efforts are not enough to save the environment, and we get a complex play that questions what we are going to do when everything that we know has changed – whether that’s within a domestic relationship, or on a global level.

Credit: Bernie Ng

Koh Wan Ching may be troubled by her impact on the environment, but her impact on the show’s direction is far from troubling. She puts the training that the students of Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) undergo to excellent use. The ensemble (Jin Chen, Theresa Wee-Yenko, Ted Nudgent Fernandez Tac-An, Tysha Khan, Wendy Toh, and Nourel Houda Essafi) exude a strong sense of physical dynamism and fluent mask work.

Despite the limitations of the space, Koh also manages to create a sense of grandeur for the entrance of a dying goddess by crafting a movement sequence that has the ensemble manipulating a long cloth.

That said, it is puzzling why guest performers (Jeramy Lim plays the gay partner while Jey Lim Jun Jie plays the shy architect) are recruited to play principal roles, given that this is an ITI graduation show. Furthermore, the intentions of Jeramy’s character are never made clear. As such, his scenes with ITI student Earnest Hope Tinambacan never progressed beyond a sense of wistfulness throughout the whole show.

Jey fares better opposite ITI student Regina Toon, as they have a better sense of connection. The little movement sequences that show the development of their relationship are also fun to watch.

It is anyone’s guess when we will have crossed the line of no return when it comes to our survival. But I am consoled by the fact that at least we have an excellent group of storytellers on our shores. One can only hope that some other life form gets to understand these stories when we are gone.

“The Many Prongs of Forked”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 18 August 2019

Under Chong Tze Chien’s direction, the latest staging of Forked by Jo Tan has evolved into a monodrama, performed by the playwright herself.

Inspired by her experiences in Paris when she was learning clowning, Tan’s play is centred on Jeanette, who goes to London to study drama. She struggles with her sense of identity as her school mates from various countries have certain expectations of her, while her crusty French acting teacher demands for her to be natural and speak in her “native language”.

There is a sense of normative determinism with this play. The search for identity places Forked well within Singapore’s tradition of monodramas, while the plot is in tune with the recent crop of plays that feature the acting profession in various ways.

Additionally, the displacement that Jeanette feels on a personal level mirrors that of Singapore in the international arena. Jeanette finds herself resisting both the residual colonial ideas of orientalism and her mainland Chinese school mate Yum Yum’s outlook that “Chinese people should help Chinese people.”

Yet, when there is a casting opportunity for a television series by a director looking for a bilingual East Asian actress, Jeanette is not beyond asking Yum Yum to coach her in Mandarin, or play up to certain stereotypes. But that ultimately leaves her feeling hollow, bringing the show to its climatic moment.

Tan’s versatility as a performer is well known within the theatre scene. Her ability to run through the gamut of accents and her comic physicality in embodying various characters have been much fêted. Her doing that with a toe injury intensifies the praises.

For me, the true mark of her versatility is her ability to continue the trajectory of the scene through her intentional play-acting without letting it become a full-blown vaudeville act. She also manages to inject pathos or bathos immediately when she changes character and deliver a smart quip or revelation.

That said, the presentation of the supporting characters in broad stereotypes does lose its comic novelty, even though the patient viewer is rewarded by discovering that they are also presenting a version of themselves to the world towards the last quarter of the play.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the wonderful design elements that enhance the play. Darren Ng’s cinematic sound design echoes Jeanette’s idealised version of England as presented by popular British movies. This is complemented by Chan Silei’s set, which has only the top frame of old English street lamps suspended at the sides of the space.

Also, there is a cleverness to Lim Woan Wen’s lighting design with standing lamps casting Tan’s shadows of varying sizes, or the flashing of boxes of light on the walls to create the illusion of the passing Underground train.

Thematically and aesthetically, Forked has grown into a complex play that leads us down many roads of discovery and contemplation. With the director admitting that the piece is still a work-in-progress, one cannot wait to see the next incarnation of the piece.

“Sly Fun With Fantastic Mr Fox”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 16 August 2019

In order to survive and feed his family, Mr Fox steals food from three mean farmers (Boggis, Bunce, and Bean). Enraged and humiliated, the farmers go all out to exterminate the foxes, forcing them to go underground. Will Mr Fox manage to save his family?

How do you stretch such a simple plot out to an hour, while retaining the attention of 400-odd children?

By surprising the audience at every turn, and roping in the children to help the foxes dig.

Fresh from directing Faust/Us for Nine Years Theatre, Cherilyn Woo proves that she can entertain children, too. She utilises every nook, cranny, and fly bar of the theatre as characters and props appear from everywhere. The pre-show segment in which the characters teach the children how to dig pulls the young audience into the action, and encourages them to imagine the animals going farther underground.

Vester Ng shines as the charismatic and quick-witted Mr Fox, who seems to be able to get out of any situation at the drop of a hat. He is complemented by Isabella Chiam’s charming performance as a loving Mrs Fox to both her husband and her children. The little exchanges the couple have, and the clear concern they have for each other, is endearing to watch.

Huge kudos go to Ric Liu, Sugie Phua, and Sharon Sum, who double up as the fox children and the farmers. It is no mean feat to play two very different characters in consecutive scenes, while dashing for a complete costume change. The comic sequences among them as the bumbling farmers are tight, which adds to the general mirth of the show.

All of this is rounded up by Juni Goh as the Badger, whose gentle demeanour invites the audience into story as he narrates and offers witty commentary – often at the expense of the farmers.

That said, the show does drag on a little, especially during the digging sequences in order to give the actors time to change costumes. Additionally, Mr Fox addressing the morality of his actions by saying that his family needs to survive, and that every parent would do anything for his child seems unsatisfactory — do the ends justify the means?

While Mr Fox did not dig himself out of that moral quandary, that did not detract from an enjoyable show that emphasises the importance of kinship and community.

“Curiosity Cultivators”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 4 August 2019

We all expect stories meant for children to have a simple plot and clear ending, so that the little ones will be able to understand the moral of the story. But what if we have a little faith in children’s intelligence and make the ending indeterminate? 

That is what The Theatre Practice did with the well-known tale of Mr. Fool Moves the Mountain. The original tale, briefly put, is about Mr. Fool, who wanted to move two mountains that are in front of his house so that his family will have an easier access to the outer world. While he was derided for his seemingly futile efforts, he persisted, and a deity was impressed by his resilience and helped him move the mountains. 

The Theatre Practice turns the tale into a fun musical in which wee Question Mark (Ang Xiao Ting), wee Comma (Ng Mun Poh), and Exclamation Mark (Windson Liong), retells the tale with a few crucial changes. Several generations of the Yu (a homonym for foolish and fish in Mandarin) family has been digging for two hundred years, and the family of fishermen is now known as the mountain movers. They are later joined by the rest of the village to speed up the process, but as soon as some members of the younger generation realise that there is wildlife on the mountain, they are reluctant to continue digging.

A fable that seems trite now becomes a moral dilemma: to dig or not to dig? 

The story is complemented by catchy tunes by Julian Wong, witty lyrics by Xiaohan, and an engaging cast that is adept at facilitating discussions with children. Director Kuo Jian Hong leads the way in showing how children can learn through play. 

While the children may not realise it, they are grappling with a perennial problem in our country: do we conserve nature or destroy it in the name of “progress” and convenience? Is there a middle way?

Expectedly, the children are stumped, and so are the adults. But the most refreshing thing about the show is how they encourage children to ask questions with no clear answer.

Perhaps, being fine with uncertainty while not dimming one’s sense of curiosity might just be an antidote to a society that tends to determine certain fixed pathways for a child the moment he or she is born.  

“Awkward Assembly”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 14 July 2019

The biggest conundrum facing any director restaging a play that was written several decades ago is balancing between “making it relevant” and letting the piece speak for itself.

In dealing with Ovidia Yu’s Three Fat Virgins Unassembled, director Grace Kalaiselvi does a little bit of both. The result? A slightly awkward assembly.

Yu’s play is a blistering satire about how women are often placed in impossible situations, and judged by equally impossible standards in the various roles they play in society. It also reasserts a sense of self-worth by reclaiming the derogatory labels of “fat” and “virgin”, and declaring that women should be comfortable with being who they are.

Kalaiselvi’s interventions manifests in several ways. The first is to push the play to say more than it originally did. In his review, writer and critic Ng Yi-Sheng expressed mixed feelings about the suggestion of a possible suicide, which was not in the original script. This reviewer agrees with Ng that it is unwarranted, and it also feels like a strident push to amplify the pitifulness of an unfulfilled wife and mother.

Furthermore, the pace of the show is slightly slower than what is demanded by the script. With three actors role-playing different sorts of “fat virgins” and a fourth doubling as a commentator or “the man” in various situations, we are supposed to see an accelerating parade of silliness, which highlights the ridiculous standards being imposed on women. Yet the gentle pace of this staging does little to emphasise these caricatured vignettes, thus dulling the play’s bite.

Yet another one of Kalaiselvi’s directorial decisions is to update the play’s references. The clearest example is to change Agony Aunt columns in magazines (which offer nonsensical advice to teenage girls) to that of forums on Reddit and Quora. It is interesting to note that due to the fleeting nature of modern technology, the substitution does not seem to hold as much cultural sway as magazine advice columns did in the 1990s.

That said, the performance is buoyed by a sense of playfulness in the cast (Chanel Chan, Munah Bagharib, Zelda Tatiana Ng, and Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai) as they don and doff their various characters with ease. Their sense of derring-do as they play certain stereotypes to the hilt also adds to the overall enjoyment of the show.

It is always a boon to restage older local plays due to our shallow cultural memory, but it requires a really deft hand to maintain a classic’s integrity while ensuring that it is still impactful on the modern audience.

“Keeping Grimm’s Magic While Shining a New Light”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 12 April 2019

Grimm’s tale of Hansel and Gretel is full of action, tension, and the cleverness of children outwitting horrible characters. But what significance does it hold for children apart from entertainment?

Perhaps playwright Suzanne Lebeau had a similar consideration when writing her adaptation, Gretel and Hansel.

The show throws a spotlight on Gretel and her resentment of having a younger brother, who seems to be getting all the attention. This resentment grows to a point in which Gretel even considers harming Hansel when they are both tricked by a witch. But Gretel soon sees that she is nothing without Hansel, and much of the original plot then plays out from there.

Lebeau succeeds in keeping the magic and grittiness of Grimm’s original, while introducing a topic that will be familiar to most children who have siblings. The only problem I have is that the sudden dissipation of animosity seems like a cop-out.

This is especially so when in an earlier scene, the siblings seemed to share a bond as neither of them ratted each other out to their mother after a fight. Additionally, why Gretel realises that she is nothing without her brother is also not made clear to the audience.

Apart from those minor flaws, Daniel Jenkin’s taut staging of the show makes this the second children’s show that I did not have to question if the seven-year-old me would have had a good time. (The first was Charlotte’s Web, also staged by The Little Company.) I thoroughly enjoyed the performance as an adult, and the eagerness of the 400-odd children in the theatre appears to be a resounding concurrence with my opinion.

I was surprised that the show was a two-hander. Where is the fun and excitement without having an actor playing the wicked witch? However, Tia Andrea Guttensohn and Joshua Lim as Gretel and Hansel are wonderful.

Both show a great deal of versatility in play-acting the other parts, such as manipulating costumes on hangers to represent their parents, or Guttensohn embodying the physicality of the witch, while a silhouette is projected onto a cloth. As the titular characters, Guttensohn has a lot of spunk, while Lim’s innocence is utterly endearing.

Despite the limitations of the relatively small stage, Petrina Dawn Tan’s set design and Gabriel Chan’s lighting design are ingenious. Flip half of the house like turning a page of a book and the children’s house becomes the witch’s candy house. Let Chan cast a swirling light pattern on it, and we sometimes forget that it is largely the same set. Need a forest? Simply draw a white curtain with motifs of trees on it, as Chan casts light to reveal and conceal what is behind.

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to credit Leonard Augustine Choo’s beautiful costumes, which are largely inspired by the 1940s, but with some modern touches to complete the look.

Gretel and Hansel is such a treat that I regret not bringing a child along to share the joy of this lovely show.

“The Doctor Who Couldn’t Save Himself”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 19 January 2019

A Fortunate Man is an attempt by New Perspectives, a theatre company based in Nottingham in the UK, to respond to a book of the same name by art critic and essayist John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr.

First published in 1967, it chronicles the routines of a country doctor, John Sassall, and the personalised style of care that made him indispensible to the community. The book took on a new complexion when Sassall killed himself 15 years after its publication.

As the book consisted of an interplay of photographs, pithy lines, and vignettes, playwright and director Michael Pinchbeck decides to take the audience into the book through what the programme notes rightly describes as an “expressionistic explosion”. And it is a beautiful one at that.

Initially framed as a lecture-performance, actors Haley Doherty and Jamie De Courcey introduce us to the book by way of Mohr’s photographs, projected on a medical screen, and Berger’s philosophy as entry points. Sassall’s practice is also contrasted with how things are today, as time pressures and bureaucracy make it almost impossible for professionals to practise personalised care. Pinchbeck also keenly highlights Mrs. Sassall’s role in keeping her husband’s practice together – a fact left out by Berger altogether.

Where the expressionistic element comes in is through tossing the audience into an avalanche of images. Pinchbeck brings in lines from the book, other writings by Berger, and props that enhance the atmosphere of the vignettes presented.

A memorable example is when Doherty bandages a tree branch as De Courcey narrates an incident in which Sassall treats a man who had been crushed by a tree. Apart from eliciting laughter, the absurd image also highlights the futility of the treatment in this case, as Sassall comforts the patient by saying, “I know… I know… I know.”

That simple phrase may mean little on paper, but it has a great effect on the patients. This also epitomises the whole production as the actors offer very understated portrayals, allowing the audience to let the images to sink in and process the emotions they elicit.

Yet, the meditative atmosphere does result in the show sagging a little towards the third quarter.

But just before I tip over into a state of comatose, I am revived by the beautifully elegiac rumination on the effects that Sassall’s bipolar disorder had on him. It is heart-breaking to watch how the doctor could not save himself, as the options for treatment then were so dismal.

As De Courcey, embodying Sassall, walks on a carpet of strewn papers towards the audience with a bottle of medication in hand, I had the urge to hold the good doctor’s hand and not let him retreat into the pages of the book; into the bottomless pit of his condition.

With the book prized by medical professionals as a reminder of their calling, it is tragic that we still have not come up with a way for the carers to be cared for 52 years after its publication.

“Reclaiming a Sober History”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 17 January 2019

“Fraser was a well-known figure in Singapore […] and there are many stories of him, but not fitted for this sober history.”

In her lecture-performance of Ayer Hitam: A Black History of Singapore, Sharon Frese recites the quote above from the book, One Hundred Years of Singapore. Fraser was a Caribbean butler who came to Singapore from the West Indies in 1887 when his master, Sir John Goldney, brought him along.

While the original context meant that anecdotes about Fraser are not relevant in an account of Singapore’s colonial legal history, the phrase “not fitted for this sober history” is emblematic of any record of people of African descent in our region.

Researched and written by Ng Yi-Sheng, directed by Irfan Kasban, and largely performed by Sharon Frese, Ayer Hitam is an attempt to retell a sober history.

Featuring local and regional personalities who are largely forgotten; contributions of the African diaspora to world events; and interspersing the show with African myths, Ng’s script covers a wide range of topics. Ng subtly compels us to confront the complex historical legacies that resulted in the spread of the African diaspora that go beyond slavery, which a simple apology and financial restitution will not be able to put right.

Ng may have charted this historical odyssey, but it is Frese who is our guide. She is thoroughly engaging and shape-shifts across a range of characters with sheer ease.

The constellation of her identities also makes her the perfect person to tell the tale. Being a British national of Jamaican descent who has worked and volunteered in Singapore for the past decade, she embodies certain aspects of the histories that she tells while having knowledge of Singapore.

Throughout the show, I find myself wondering about the choice to use a certain accent during particular segments. Why a crisp British accent to relay historical facts? Is there an added commentary here? I then had to remind myself that it is part of her identity too. Her composite identities make her both an insider and an outsider at the same time, as she reminds the audience that she is not really part of Singapore’s Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others race categorisation.

Towards the end of the performance, Frese expresses her unease that while she feels safe as a black woman in Singapore, she wonders if that is because of her British passport and her middle-class status. While her privilege might play a part, I also had the gnawing feeling that the low number of people of African descent in Singapore means that they are not seen as a threat. What would happen as soon as they are perceived to be disrupting the order, however ridiculous that perception might be?

It is important to note that the narrative of the show has a very general focus on Africa. What if we were to tease out finer-grained relationships between Asia and the diverse countries and cultures within the African continent? This reviewer can only hope that Ayer Hitam will continue to unearth more histories that have been buried for far too long.