Centre 42 » Isaaac Lim https://centre42.sg Thu, 16 Dec 2021 10:08:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.30 In the Living Room: Year in Reviews 2017 https://centre42.sg/in-the-living-room-year-in-reviews-draft/ https://centre42.sg/in-the-living-room-year-in-reviews-draft/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:45:05 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=9082

A panel of seven reviewers from Centre 42’s critical writing platform Citizens’ Reviews and online arts publication ArtsEquator revisited the local productions staged in 2017. The session was moderated by Robin Loon, chief editor of Citizens’ Reviews.
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What were the performances that captivated you and what were the ones that left you cold in 2017?

As the year draws to a close, we invite you to revisit the local productions staged in 2017 with critics from Centre 42’s critical writing platform Citizens’ Reviews and online arts publication ArtsEquator.

Join us in the Living Room as the panel of seven reviewers discuss and debate the best and the most disappointing productions, performances, design, and other theatrical experiences they witnessed in the last 12 months. The session will be moderated by Robin Loon, chief editor of Citizens’ Reviews.

An accompanying exhibition featuring the 2017 productions and ephemera from our Repository archive will be held in the Front Courtyard.

EVENT DETAILS

Saturday, 14 December 2017
8pm @ Centre 42 Black Box
Admission price: Give-What-You-Can
(Cash only, at the door)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

FROM CITIZENS’ REVIEWS:

Casidhe Ng
Casidhe is currently serving his national service,  having just graduated from the School of the Arts, Singapore. He enjoys reading and writing, and believes that theatre reviewing is an excellent motivator for artistic improvement when done right. Aside from writing, his true passion is for the stage and enjoys acting, designing and occasional dramaturgy.

Christian W. Huber
Christian has been away from the theatre scene for over ten years as he focused his time in running and managing the family business of Boncafé International Pte Ltd – A Pioneering Gourmet Coffee Roasting and Manufacturing Company in Singapore. Christian stepped down from the company earlier this year to pursue his other interests and to spend time with his family of four. He continues to look after another family business, as well as to pursue his renewed interest in the arts.

Christian is a C42 Boiler Room 2016 playwright, and enjoys being an audience member to different mediums of the arts. He finds arts invigorating to the soul, and truly believes that the vibrant arts scene has come a long way from its humble beginnings. He looks forward to appreciating, experiencing, and exploring more of it as a Citizen Reviewer!

Cordelia Lee
Cordelia is a second-year Theatre Studies and English Linguistics double major, who is currently trapped in a full-time relationship with the National University of Singapore. When life with NUS gets too overwhelming, she purchases student-discounted tickets to local plays, slips into the theatre, and savours every moment of her temporarily bought freedom.

She views the theatre as a liminal space providing far more than simply entertainment. It is there where inspiration strikes, where beliefs are challenged and discussions are sparked. While she appreciates a wide range of theatrical styles, she admits to being especially intrigued by avant-garde performances. Often, the more perplexing and thought-provoking they are, the better.

Outside of university and the theatre, she finds herself spinning to Spanish music on the salsa dance floor, torturing her obliques in the gym, and routinely singing to ’90s hits in the shower.

Isaac Tan
Isaac graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, and he took Theatre Studies as a second major. He started reviewing plays for the student publication, Kent Ridge Common, and later developed a serious interest in theatre criticism after taking a module at university. He is also an aspiring poet and his poems have appeared in Symbal, Eunoia Review, Eastlit, and Malaise Journal.

To top it off, he is equally passionate in acting and flamenco dancing, and hopes to pursue all his passions in equal measure. He blogs infrequently at pre-lude.blogspot.com, while his portfolio and other reviews can be found at www.isaactanbr.com.

Jocelyn Chng
Jocelyn holds a double Masters in Theatre Studies/Research. She is a founding member of the Song and Dance (SoDa) Players – a registered musical theatre society in Singapore. She is currently building her portfolio career as an educator and practitioner in dance and theatre, while pursuing an MA in Education (Dance Teaching).

Myle Yan Tay
Yan is currently studying in Yale-NUS College, where he enjoys spending his free time in far too many productions. Having tried acting, writing, and directing for the stage, Yan looks forward to reviewing. He believes that theatre should challenge both the audience and creators. Theatre, to him, is about constantly pushing the boundaries of what the medium can do while telling a compelling story.

FROM ARTS EQUATOR:
Kathy Rowland (Managing Editor)
Kathy Rowland, as is glaringly obvious from her name, is from Malaysia. A chance encounter with a commedia dell arte troupe in her teens led to a career in the arts (also, lifetime penury).  Since 2011, Kathy has lived in Singapore, where she teaches part-time at LASALLE College of the Arts. She is a writer, editor and producer. Her articles on the politics of culture have appeared in publications in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the US and South Korea. Kathy edited and introduced  Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts Centre 1984 – 2014 (2015), Huzir Sulaiman: Collected Plays 1998 – 2012 (2013) and Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, Selected Writings (2003). Kathy has produced theatre and visual arts events in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, New York, Australia and Thailand.  She is part of the Asia Europe Foundation’s ASEAN Researchers’ program, Regionally Speaking (2016-2017) led by Prof Dr Ruth Bereson of Griffith University and is the Lead Researcher in a theatre archive project run by Five Arts Centre Malaysia.

Biography taken from Arts Equator
The last Centre 42 event of 2017, “In the Living Room: Year in Reviews” was held on 14 December 2017. Six of the Centre’s Citizen Reviewers and Kathy Rowland from ArtsEquator were invited to look back and share their opinions on the local theatre productions they watched this year. The session, which was moderated by Citizens’ Reviews’ chief editor Robin Loon, was divided into six sections: 2017 as the year of the musical; The Necessary Stage’s 30th anniversary season; productions by smaller collectives; the most disappointing and exciting shows the panellists watched this year; and what they’re looking forward to most in 2018. Photos: Daniel Teo

Source: Centre 42 Facebook 

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The Living Room is a programme by Centre 42 that welcomes chat and conversation. Through focused but casual dialogues and face-to-face exchanges, this programme encourages participants to re-examine trends, happenings, people (on & off-stage) and phenomena in Singapore theatre.

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RED SKY by Nine Years Theatre https://centre42.sg/red-sky-by-nine-years-theatre/ https://centre42.sg/red-sky-by-nine-years-theatre/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2016 04:21:42 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=6083

“A Life Performance”

Reviewer: Isaac Lim
Performance: 22 October 2016

It is New Year’s Eve, and all at the senior care centre are gathered at the courtyard for a celebration. The seniors are each to present something for the rest. An elderly Mdm Tan, played by Goh Guat Kian, stands up from her seat, not without difficulty, and moves to centre stage. She announces that she will perform “life”. She tries to abandon her walking aid, and the young ones rush to assist her but are all brushed aside.

This is a “life performance”.

Nine Years Theatre gathers eight veteran actors to put up Stan Lai’s 1994 play, Red Sky. This is the company’s first show outside of a black box, and also their first work that isn’t translated from the Western canon.

Director Nelson Chia removes all the signposts in the original script that referred to Taiwan and the China Communist Party, resulting in a work which is not rooted in a location. This makes it relevant to an even larger audience.

The eight seniors have so much story to tell. Mr and Mrs Lee (Johnny Ng and Liow Shi Suen) are the only couple staying together at the home. The old Mr Lee, an ex-political activist, keeps sharing about the autobiography he hopes to write. Old Max (Henry Lau) loves to sing but never does so in front of the others. However, the large ensemble also pose the problem that each story never doesn’t get told completely.

What the audience sees is the everyday lives of the seniors at the centre, from spring to winter. They spend a fair amount of time out in the courtyard, under the sun. The red sky that the title refers to is perhaps the autumn sky, painted by falling leaves, in reference to the characters’ old age.

One would expect a play about seniors in an old folks’ home to be rather sad and depressing. However, this staging of Red Sky isn’t. Director Chia has managed to keep emotions in check, balancing between being touching and tear-jerking. Even when we do see a character nearing the end of his life, the audience can’t help but smile as he has led a fulfilling, blessed life.

In contrast, the play reminds us that seniors are very much like the younger kids, leading almost carefree lives. They love to banter, a lot. Their competitive edge is shown in several scenes. In one, Mdm Teng (Lim Poey Huang) and Xiao Ding (Elena Chia) tries to make each other jealous with their fantasies of being the sweetheart to a popular movie star. In another, Mr Lee and Er Ma (Tay Kong Hui) challenge each other to a sing-off in multiple languages.

It is known that Nine Years Theatre has a strong focus on actors training, and it is very apparent in this performance. All the physical actions of the veteran actors are very precise, making the characters real and believable. The supporting cast, consisting of the company’s Ensemble Project members, spends most of their stage time handling scene transitions. Their coordination and movements are performances in themselves—clean and purposeful.

What is life? Life is, maybe, about shining on the stage when it is your turn, and making full use of it. Or maybe, it is about being full of dreams, and not being constrained by any factors, especially not age. Perhaps, it is about letting the red hot sun be like a blanket, living each day filled with warmth.

Do you have an opinion or comment about this post? Email us at info@centre42.sg.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

RED SKY  by Nine Years Theatre
20 – 23 October 2016
KC Arts Centre

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Isaac Lim is a third-year Theatre Studies major at the National University of Singapore who enjoys bustling in all-things-arty, gets crafty, and indulges in being a foodie

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