““Me? I am cured… kemurnian”.“

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 29 September 2019

Is being stripped of agency truly the only solution to deviance?

This seems to be the question posed by Teater Ekamatra’s staging of A Clockwork Orange, performed entirely in Bahasa Melayu with English surtitles. The choice of language has a particular historical resonance — the author of the original novel, Anthony Burgess, worked as a teacher in colonial Malaya during the 1950s and was fluent in Malay. In fact, in one explanation of the book’s title, Burgess claimed that it was a pun on the Malay word orang, meaning man. The titular clockwork orange is a human being who has the appearance of life, but is inside merely cogs and wheels, emptied of agency; a living corpse.

Regardless of whether Burgess meant this origin story sincerely, there is nothing insincere about Teater Ekamatra’s production. The production cleverly employs a modified thrust stage, which allows the audience to be situated in most of the action. When Al (Alex in the novel) undergoes aversion therapy to reform his violent impulses, the audience too is subjected to a grotesque greatest hits montage in the genre of gore. By situating the audience physically in Al’s space, we also become implicated in his experience of this dystopian “therapy” as well as the suffering it causes; we too become interrogators of its ethicality and needfulness.

Later, when Al is presented to a crowd of admirers as a supposed success story of the “Othman reformative treatment”, several cast members stand in the back of the audience, clapping. The audience realises with dawning horror that we too are cheering his apparent loss of will to make decisions, this being viewed as the successful “cure” to violent deviance. We realise the fluidity of roles one may acquire in a repressive, totalitarian state as we move without warning from being victim to perpetrator; perhaps we may derive sobering reflections on parallels in our own extra-theatrical reality.

In this production’s interpretation of the infamously violent source material, the cast performs with both primal brutality and eerie fluidity, the latter being assisted by timely neon purple stage lighting. Control of body and physicality is strong across the board for this cast, but it would be most remiss not to highlight Rizman Putra’s remarkable performance. Rizman’s Al goes from hypermasculine aggression to grovelling sycophancy with astonishing seamlessness. As he spasms in sinewy agony strapped into a chair for aversion therapy, the audience cannot help but resonate with his bodily expressed protest of this cruel “treatment”. There is a throbbing viscerality to Rizman’s performance that reverberates with humanity, even in one who supposedly embodies social deviance.

At the end of the play Al stands, beginning again to exhibit in his body the primal aggression displayed in the beginning, and declares that he has now been “cured” – he has returned to kemurnian, meaning purity. And yet, in losing all “deviance”, and returning entirely to a sanitised, blank purity, it is possible that we lose also some of our vital humanity.

“Dear Elena: the sun still rises”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 20 October 2019

One does not come to a Nine Years Theatre (NYT) production without a certain expectancy. In the span of only seven years, NYT has effectively created a brand of performance that resonates viscerally with its largely Chinese-Singaporean audience: foreign classics familiar to English-educated theatregoers reimagined in Mandarin. NYT, negotiating this diasporic, post-colonial confluence of identities alongside its audience, provides one vision of a Chinese-Singaporean intellectual and artistic voice.

An excellent example of a manifestation of this vision is NYT’s Dear Elena, an adaptation of the Soviet-era play Dear Yelena Sergeyevna. Four students pay a visit to their teacher Miss Elena, ostensibly to celebrate her birthday; in fact, they are intent on coercing her to hand over the key to the safe where their exam papers are kept. Within this carefully choreographed dance of persuasion, Dear Elena negotiates the timeless struggles of morality and the human capacity for manipulation of power.

These high ideals can translate on stage as distant, elevated declamations, or worse, high-brow berating of the audience — if delivered poorly. Fortunately, delivery of dialogue is one area in which the strength of the ensemble comes through most strongly. The cast brings carefully calibrated synchronicity and a wonderfully balanced, pulsating energy dynamic to their performance. There is an utter inhabitation of dialogue on the part of the actors, bringing a believability to their characters.

The factor of time becomes a character in itself. Dear Elena takes place in the night, extending into the wee hours of the morning. As a result, the performance always seems to be on the precipice of something — an imminent implosion of anarchic violence, perhaps. It seems also a contemplation of youth: on the cusp of evil and darkness, goodness and light, and seeking something like the compromise of the two in their lives.

Sound designer Jing Ng has crafted a soundscape very much conscious of temporality — the ticking of the clock is often heard, giving the production a nervous energy, racing ever forward into uncertainty. A cheerful waltz tune that begins as the music for a youthful dance ends up as the soundtrack for the horrific attempted rape of Lyalya (played with great sensitivity by Shu Yi Ching). There is a sense that any stability, safety, or established understanding between people is highly fragile. The clock ticks away, and takes certainty with it. Lighting designer Liu Yong Huay’s carefully constructed chiaroscuro lays upon this the anxiety of night awaiting the hope of daylight — will the sun ever rise? When will this nightmare of human manipulation end?

Yet it seems the sun still rises. At the end of the play, the key is almost, but not handed over to the students. Lyalya is almost, but not raped. Yet there is a sense of the irreparable. All teacher-student relationships and the innocence of youthful friendships seem broken.

But then the trembling Lyalya, left alone in Elena’s living room, lifts the key aloft as a torch, and declares to the emptiness a quivering goodness: “They didn’t take the key!” Behind her, the other three youths lift their right arms in a “like” fashion. Gazing down at this stage picture, one feels — however unreasonably — that despite the irreversibility of events elapsed and words exchanged, there is still hope for them, and also for all of us.

After all, the sun — however waveringly — still rises.

“How is it possible to be disinterested in colonialism?””

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 12 Oct 2019

The central conceit of Wild Rice’s Merdeka / 獨立 /சுதந்திரம் is deceptively simple. As the rest of the nation celebrates the Bicentennial anniversary of Sir Stamford Raffles’ founding of Singapore, a motley crew of six young, dissenting intellectuals – and also, it seems, aspiring thespian enthusiasts – form a reading group called Raffles Must Fall. They discuss and re-enact painstakingly researched hidden histories of this land, held onto only by a wisp of memory, negotiating with great ardency post-colonial identity and subaltern history.

As is typical of gatherings brought together by the spirit of youthful discontent, it is unclear at first what exactly this high-brow assembly is intended to achieve. The conceit of a reading group, of all the impractical things millennials get up to these days, inspires some degree of cynicism. Is this production yet another elevation of young middle-class intellectuals sitting about in tired criticism of the establishment with little actual change in sight? The set, resembling a museum exhibition, seems to lend weight to this skepticism. At certain junctures early on, the decidedly snarky, self-righteous tone adopted by several cast members veers dangerously close to obnoxiousness.

Nonetheless, the production’s strengths quickly reveal themselves in its ambitious re-enactments of stories from the past. Any skepticism regarding the set is soon remedied; the stasis of a museum gallery is transformed into a dynamic playing space for 200 years of history. The museum exhibits that frame the stage become costumes and props for this group of spirited storytellers, giving new life to tales from the distant past.

The soundscape, brilliantly crafted by sound designer Paul Searles, transports the audience across time and place, be it the ailing grandeur of Johor-Riau or the spirited Chinese students’ riots of the 1950s. The actors are intimately attuned to the nuances of rhythm and song, their bodies melding together with the soundscape in a manner that seems less rehearsed than it is intuitive. There is a sense of transcendence in the confluence of movement and sound; somehow, these stories from times past are converging with these bodies in the present. There are hints of an unarticulated intricacy yet in how these stories of the past shape and move differently the present.

As the production draws to a close, we find that these characters, and their actors, are bringing to the fore not merely heated intellectual discussions of post-colonial identity and ideas of nation. They bring also with their bodies, their skin colours and their accents their own intimate negotiations of racial narratives, the post-colonial era and the Grand Narrative a younger generation has grown up with. We see the obnoxious intellectual posturing of “woke” ideals in the light of anxieties a person from a minority culture might experience growing up in present-day Singapore. We realise just how much more we are required to question our past if we truly are to own our present independence. As the characters ask us: how is it possible to be disinterested in colonialism, when it is ever both our past and our present? How do we forge the decolonised future without courageous engagement with the colonised past? Perhaps we must first know that which from which we needed to be free, before we may truly declare with all the voices of ages past and to come: Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

“We Were So Hopeful Then”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 31 July 2019

Never has the title of a production been more appropriate. I began as an audience member of The Necessary Stage’s (TNS) We Were So Hopeful Then in an appropriate flurry of pre-show excitement and high hopes. Unfortunately, these hopes dwindled with the passing minutes. We exist in a world of wanton cruelties, but also of gentle mercies; the glimmer of redemptive energy in this instance is that the passing minutes in We Were So Hopeful Then are limited to 60.

Where did it all go wrong? The concept is certainly promising. Upon entering the black box, each audience member is handed a voting slip for the 2025 Singapore Theatre Icon Awards. There are four nominees to vote for. Everyone is a little confused, but somewhat intrigued to see how things play out. Interactive theatre is on-trend!

The play begins at the awards ceremony itself, with cleaner Akilan Deswari (Sindhura Kalidas) — a truly ambitious name meaning Supreme Goddess of the Universe — being presented to the audience as the Theatre Icon. The question that occurs to me is — wait, but what about that voting slip? Who are we voting for if the Icon has already been chosen? But this is the theatre, and all things are possible, so I shelve my misgivings.

(Spoiler: our votes, collected later, change nothing. Natch.)

From here on, everything becomes something of a temporal muddle. The production mainly consists of conversations that take place over five-year lapses (2015-2020-2025-2030) amongst four backstage staff — Akilan, female rigger Rose/Yanting, driver Uncle Bo, and scribe Lore Lam — in the theatre as a show is bumping in. Timeskips occur largely without warning. Everything is confusing.

Charting little changes in recapitulated conversations over long periods of time can indeed be a meaningful endeavour. Unfortunately, the temporal shifts in this production are so jarring and so obscurely indicated that I spend most of the production bemused — when are we now? The lack of temporal anchoring is also crippling to narrative tension. The processes through which characters arrive at their “present” struggle are far too exhausting to follow. How and when did this thing even happen? What is happening to the characters at this point in time? Why are they sad?

Characters also speak, entirely straight-faced, such disingenuous lines as: “It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”. Then there’s the strange ramble about how Rose is somehow a less feminine name than Yanting. This is supposed to be a naturalistic play, but who in real life speaks like this and gets taken seriously by their fellow human beings?

More tragically, this production’s own framing collapses on itself. It claims to expose the “invisibility in our working environment” and “question the rationale and implicit biases of public accolades”, but truthfully does neither. Its assemblage of backstage characters remain unseen, and worst of all, unheard. Not telling the stories of the little people is to be complicit in their invisibility; paying lip service to the importance of their narratives and employing hacky dialogue in the process is to cheapen the legitimacy and dignity of their voices.

These are harsh words. But it is often insufficient to have good intentions and high hopes in making theatre — little people’s stories matter, so let us tell them with the groundedness and sincerity they deserve.

“Doesn’t God dream of forgiving our sins?”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 21 July 2019

In what is perhaps fitting in this bicentennial year, First Fleet is a tale of colonial exploits and exploitation. While convict transportation to the colonies was nothing new for the British Empire, this fleet was the first to embark on the zealous task of starting a penal colony in Australia. Serving in this fleet is Lieutenant Ralph Clark, who is charged with rehearsing a play, Molière’s Tartuffe, with a group of convicts. It is this intriguing episode that First Fleet explores with great intelligence, sensitivity and rousing passion.

First Fleet is a production with a relentless belief in the affinity of the human spirit with art, and the human being’s boundless capacity for reformation. These topics are debated at length, with different characters coming to represent different positions on these subjects.

Major Ross is played by Mia Chee with a villainy so convincing and gleeful that she resembles the Trumps and Johnsons of an exhausting political reality. She is tired of being shafted to handle human “garbage”, who lie beyond any hope of redemption: “Criminals were born to commit crime, they’re different from us,” she declares. Others, such as arts enthusiast Lieutenant Clark (Timothy Wan) and idealist Governor Collins (Neo Hai Bin), are defenders of and believers in art and its ability to reform human beings.

The play itself moves between the convicts’ rehearsals of Tartuffe, the navy officers’ discussions of the absurdly humane treatment of the convicts, and the backstories of the convicts themselves. The rehearsals are, particularly in the beginning, a hilariously stilted and overacted riot; but as they progress, the audience observes the emergence of an unbridled idealism that seems to come naturally to the actors and directors of this ensemble. The animated discussions on understanding character motivation, the importance of authenticity in theatre, and the merits of Shakespeare and Marlowe all have a rather meta resonance for this audience of formerly colonised theatregoers.

There is an utter inhabitation of these ideas on the part of the members of the Nine Years Theatre Ensemble, and there is a lived believability to their enthusiasm. The strength of this ensemble — their harmonious movements as a unit on stage and their emotional synchronicity — makes a strong case for the use of actors who train systematically and produce works together over a longer period of time.

There is nothing groundbreaking in the content and premise of this production. But First Fleet is still — for this reviewer — entirely overwhelming. In a world dominated by draconian legalities without mercy, and religion that has lost faith in the ability of human beings to be redeemed, this is art that defiantly maintains the belief in compassion and the human capacity for betterment and renewal.

One leaves First Fleet convinced of this: that one may see goodness yet in this land of the living. This is art worth working towards.

“I have loved you every day since the day you were born…”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 25 June 2019

American playwright Paula Vogel’s How I Learned To Drive first premiered Off-Broadway in 1997, and it won her the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1998. Watching Wag the Dog’s production of the play, this reviewer understands why it’s such a powerful work. While distinctly American in its cultural references and setting, the play’s explicit portrayal of sexual abuse, pedophilia and incestuous behaviour still retains its unique ability to discomfit any audience.

The story follows a non-linear narrative, with Li’l Bit (Victoria Mintey) recounting various episodes from her childhood. She grapples with her sexually abusive relationship with her Uncle Peck all through her adolescent years, as well a toxic family culture surrounding discussions of the female body and sexuality. Uncle Peck is the only one in the family who supports Li’l Bit’s dreams of college. He teaches her how to drive. But he is also an unrepentant and progressively delusional pedophile.

One must give Sean Worrall credit for his committed performance of this man, who is in equal parts pitiful and revolting. He is a plague upon himself and the young child whom he grooms in warped perceptions of female beauty, desirability, and the freedom to love and be loved. Some of the most repulsive exchanges take place when he offers words of affection that actually come from a place of twisted obsession: “Li’l Bit, I love you… I have loved you every day since the day you were born.” Can there be anything more horrifying than the truth?

In Wag the Dog Theatre’s staging of the play, it is truth and transparency itself that terrifies, with partially obscured faces speaking from behind translucent screens. These voices, which belong to Li’l Bit’s other family members, provide a commentary and reveal secrets that she is blissfully unaware of as she plays out her memories on stage. The figure of the young girl is consistently rendered vulnerable by her lack of access to information, entrenching her in the position of prey.

Susie Penrice Tyrie, who plays various Greek-chorus-like characters with great aplomb, issues memorable one-liners in the most droll of voices. At one point, she delivers with judgey pursed lips and a hoity-toity tone that “a wet woman is still more conspicuous than a drunk woman”. The audience chuckles, but we know this caricature of the older woman in a young girl’s life is a reminder of how ignorance and closed-mindedness are perpetuated within a family, generation after generation.

This also makes the dripping malice of Li’l Bit’s Aunt Mary, whom Tyrie portrays later on, land with greater force. It is a reminder that the greatest damage is often done to us by those who sit close by and speak with affection — who claim that they love us.

This is a story about secrets, about the demons that burn us up and hurt those around us. But it is also about the catharsis of articulating and exorcising the memories that fester within, and then, like Li’l Bit, flooring the gas pedal, and learning to drive into a new and better life.

“remember, we are all on the same side…”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 26 May 2019

Checkpoint Theatre’s Displaced Persons’ Welcome Dinner has been one of the most talked about local theatre productions so far this year. Commissioned by the 2019 Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), the play follows an international team of humanitarian workers navigating a crisis on the field.

Displaced Persons’ Welcome Dinner is at once fiercely cerebral and incandescent in unfiltered feeling. The dialogue is awash in acronyms explained only in the aftermath, situating the play firmly in the world of bureaucratic moribundity. Characters make frequent references to crises going on around the world without further explanation, assuming audience awareness of dire situations in Yemen and Sudan. The play goes into painstaking detail about sanitation processes in refugee camps, legal machinations within humanitarian organisations, and the unrelenting onslaught of paperwork that threatens the flame of compassion burning within even the saintliest of do-gooders.

Yet the play never veers far from its grounding in ardent and unmistakably human feeling. The soundscape, with hints of Gregorian and Celtic music, sets these interactions over paperwork and sanitation repairs in a world that seems almost supernatural in its fever of emotion. The characters, pushed beyond amicability or even compassion itself, consistently teeter on the brink of breakdown. At best, they are cynical, prickly, oversensitive and quite alarmingly inclined to holler expletives; at their worst, they are malicious, cruel, seemingly beyond redemption. It is occasionally difficult to remember that these people are, as Mike Miller (played by Emil Marwa) points out, “on the same side”. They are, to all intents and purposes, committed to doing good. What, then, is the character of this humanitarian work, that its workers must battle in futility to maintain some semblance of humanity?

It is a tall order to pinpoint a standout performer in this cast, given the ensemble nature of the play as well as the impressive displays of physical theatre, multiple languages and a variety of accents (although this last had its inconsistencies). It would be unseemly, however, not to mention Dawn Cheong’s performance as Sara. In a play that might have been so consistently overwhelming as to almost numb the audience to the intensity of emotion, Cheong’s performance leaves the audience reeling anew as the character grapples with sexual assault. Sara’s trajectory of trauma is perhaps the most well-explored, and Cheong is fully immersed: at one point, Sara, standing centrestage, has a breakdown so long and protracted it is quite terrible to behold. And yet it is not all brokenness — there is also courage, and perhaps even, towards the play’s end, a nascent triumph, not least of which is Cheong’s lending of an unlikely dignity to the traumatised female body.

As I leave the venue, I hear conversations of this tenor amongst some fellow theatre-goers: “I can’t believe I paid money for this. Once I heard the accents, I gave up.” This makes me sad. This production is hardly perfect, but it tells an important story with commitment and courage — not unlike the humanitarian workers in the play. Rather than dismiss the entire effort out of hand, I would urge an examination of how this work may encourage the local theatre scene to create productions that consider with even greater moral courage and artistry Singapore’s positionality in the larger currents at play internationally — humanitarianism, the currency of victimhood, and refugee crises. In a world oversaturated with exploitative portrayals of suffering, the art we make must awaken our senses anew to the truthfulness of human hurt. Let us not give up. For are we not — in the end — on the same side?

“this is my grandfather’s road…”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 20 April 2019

As a child born and raised in Singapore, this reviewer grew up quite familiar with this common reprimand for any kind of unruly behaviour: “eh you think this is your grandfather’s road ah!” This is not a claim to fame just anyone could make, but Neo Kim Seng certainly can: his grandfather was businessman Neo Pee Teck, for whom Neo Pee Teck Lane is named.

For multidisciplinary practitioner Kim Seng, My Grandfather’s Road is clearly a painstakingly assembled labour of love. The original street sign, revealed in the performance to have been bid for with much strategising in a 2003 auction, hangs in the entrance to the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Monochrome images, seemingly taken from the pages of beloved old haunts, family vacations and neighbours are projected on screens at appropriate junctures, accompanied by affectionate accounts of childhood exploits and idiosyncrasies.

This iteration of My Grandfather’s Road sees two different versions being staged, one in English and the other in Cantonese. This particular Sunday afternoon performance, featuring Tan Cher Kian as the voice of Neo Kim Seng himself and Gary Tang as an unnamed third-person narrator character, is in Cantonese. Tang cuts a much stronger figure in terms of stage presence and command of the stage. His control of speech and body gestures as he seamlessly plays different characters causes him to somewhat overshadow Tan’s performance. Interestingly, this results in the character of Kim Seng and the stories he tells in the first person being somewhat less convincing than those that Tang’s third-person narrator tells on Kim Seng’s behalf. Whether intended by the production or otherwise, it seems as though the character of Kim Seng requires a third-person narrator to navigate this overwhelming mess of memory, and that this externalised figure is able to access and comment on these memories with greater directness and vividity.

The audience is largely silver-haired and Cantonese-speaking. Combined with the thrust stage set-up of the studio, the conversational manner of speech employed by the actors and the humming of cicadas, one feels like a child sitting in a black-and-white Neo Pee Teck Lane, listening to an “old grandfather story” told by an alleyway elder. I do not speak Cantonese as fluently I would like to, so I have invited my father, a native Cantonese speaker from the same generation as Kim Seng, to watch with me. The response from him, as well as most of the audience, seems to be overwhelming in its resonance – whether that’s lovingly recounted tales of neighbours with politically incorrect nicknames (“Black Skin” for a dark-skinned neighbour, for instance), the places being erased, or the land and its fast-forgotten names.

My father tells me as we leave the theatre that theirs is a displaced generation, who lost their roots to the land through systemic resettlements and demolishment; there is nothing physical to hold on to. My Grandfather’s Road responds in conversation: but there are still the stories your grandfather told you. On the train ride home, I sense in my fast-ageing father a renewed determination to do just so: one cannot always hold on to the land, but one can tell its stories.

“And this our life, exempt from public haunt…”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 20 February 2019

Lasalle’s As You Like It can, perhaps, be seen as an attempt to Singaporean-ise the work of a dead, white, male playwright from Britain who lived almost 500 years ago. The audience is informed in the programme booklet that the production is set in Singapore and Malaysia in 1965. Director Michael Earley writes that this was “just as Singapore is about to be exiled from the Malayan Union”, which is as blatant a shout-out to facile patriotism as anything.

However, a quick fact check reveals that the Malayan Union ceased to exist in 1948, replaced by the Federation of Malaya. Now this may seem an impertinent quibble, but amidst recent discussions concerning the long-perpetuated hero myth of Stamford Raffles, this factual misstep begs the question: if we do not grasp firmly our own past, who will? This, too, from a production that makes the claim of “celebrat[ing] a crucial episode in Singapore’s bicentennial history”.

Intercultural Shakespeare is hardly simplistic. For one thing, should these productions reflect the culture of Britain, or that of their own?

In this instance, it appears to be the latter – but unflatteringly so. Singapore as a backdrop has no impact on the storyline whatsoever, other than some “ethnic costumes” reminiscent of Racial Harmony Day celebrations in local primary schools. In fact, Singapore is literally a backdrop – it is, varyingly, tropical leaves and batik prints, projected on a screen. This production is seemingly quite content playing Singapore as a glossy surface onto which white-man Shakespeare can slide on and off. We must ask – what does this say about us and how we see our own culture?

A particularly unsettling directorial decision is to play Singaporean-accented English as lower-class, with the “country folk” speaking in Singlish so exaggerated it is demeaning to Singaporeans who speak with this accent to varying degrees on an everyday basis. The upper-class characters also switch to Singlish in conversation with the “country folk”, as if to get on their level.

Disturbingly, it seems that the whole accent is consistently played for laughs – only, to most of the cast and the audience, it is our accent, and it is us who are being played for laughs. That some cast members are clearly more comfortable speaking this staged variant of Singlish than whatever quasi-Anglophone accent they are effortfully imitating adds an unwelcome element of tragedy to a Shakespearean comedy.

Thankfully, the all-student cast is committed and charming. Hilary Armstrong’s Rosalind has a delightful vivacity and the energy to carry the play through its forest daydream of lusty aspiration; Steffi Ooi’s Celia plays off her exuberance with flair. Miso Choi’s Jaques is a cynical riot. Amiens (Ilina Hattangady) and guitarist (Karl Luis)’s music offers welcome reminiscent of a campfire, an invitation to come and sit alongside in this Arden Forest.

The set is simple but effective. When enlarged paper cranes descend from above, a delighted flutter ripples through the audience. It is make-belief with the workings of its conceit exposed for all to see, but it awakens something within – a childlike wonder at the magic of a simple toy.

It is this wonder that is captured close to the curtain call, when all the characters, having had more weddings and happiness than fate should allow, sing and dance on stage. Suddenly the division between play and reality blurs: we see not only the characters but also the actors, in the blindingly bright, achingly hopeful energy of youthful possibility. May they – and us, too – find new ways to challenge the local play to speak honestly and resonate ever more truly within ourselves.

“It takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 2 March 2019

At first glance, The Necessary Stage’s (TNS) Theatre for Seniors (TFS) may sound like an extension of some active ageing policy. But it’s much more than that. Over the last ten years, TNS has been working with a dedicated group of senior theatre-makers, rigorously training them to take on roles both onstage and offstage such as playwriting, directing, technical work, and even facilitating improvisation workshops. It is, in the words of TNS’ artistic director Alvin Tan, “a form of discipline”.

TFS’ latest production is titled It Takes All Kinds, but rather than performing pre-written scripts, the group is taking a different approach. This time, the team collaborated with Japan’s Setagaya Public Theatre to devise a work drawn from the seniors’ stories. The result is a lovingly assembled exhibition of the lives of those who have walked a little further.

The piece takes a non-linear approach. This allows for individual cast members to tell stories in short vignettes to capture a single moment, thought, or emotion, fleshing out in sometimes painfully intimate detail the experience of growing old. A particularly affecting story is enacted by Michael Tan and Padma Sagaram, who play out a juncture in life that is rarely spotlighted in performances featuring seniors. They walk slowly towards each other from opposite ends of the stage, smiling; a soft, gentle song sung by a young girl plays in the background. It is young love. And the audience remembers that the old among us, too, once had hot blood coursing through their veins, and knew the quickening of heartbeat.

This makes it especially crushing when we hear Sagaram confess that she and her husband had drifted apart over the years. In a way that perhaps only those who have lived whole lives together in love, anger or even hatred can understand, she questions the point of clinging on to him, even as she clings on tighter: “Why am I unable to touch him?” And yet, the theatre is silent.

There are moments when the piece meanders, or fails to find its footing. For instance, the actors would repeatedly strive to link their stories back to the central themes of control, communication, and unconditional love. This is not necessary; the stories shine on their own, and perhaps the production team could have put more faith in them. There is also a panel discussion segment on what it means to be a parent in Singapore. This is an interesting experiment, but it had no clear direction and could do with a bit more focus.

Nonetheless, when the stories are left to tell themselves, the cast carry it well and their resonance with the dialogue shows. And these are stories that we need to hear, for does it not take all kinds for us to be?