“overcoming fears, embracing new experiences”

Reviewer: Yong Yoke Kay
Performance: 15 March 2019, 2pm (Sensory Friendly)

Fear not, as you step into the dragon’s mouth. Take a seat on the dragon’s tongue, among teeth, cushiony plague and a glowing uvula. The Dragon’s Dentist tells a tale of conquering difficulties and accepting differences. A no-nonsense dragon dentist, Master (played by Yazid Jalil), meets his young and excitable apprentice, Toothie (played by Tan Rui Shan). Things take an unexpected turn when she befriends every dentist’s enemy, Bactee (played by Cheryl Kjm). They work together with the audience, who gamely take up their new roles as Tooth Elves to embark on a quest to avoid the dragon’s wrath by keeping his teeth clean.

Contrary to what one might expect from the title, this is not a play advocating oral hygiene. Rather, beneath the fun songs and quirky characters lie a plot that explores concepts of loyalty, friendship, empathy and acceptance. While these are indeed concepts of value, they might be too complex for the target audience to fully comprehend. For example, a nuanced conflict arises due to the difference in working styles and personalities between Master and Toothie – and one wonders if the young audience can catch it. Perhaps a more direct way of explaining the conflict, or setting aside more time in the play to explore this in detail, could make for better understanding.

That said, the production on the whole is well thought out. I especially like the set design where the various colours and textures encourage exploration through touch. The relaxed seating arrangement is a wonderful idea for the restless and energetic young audience, and also facilitates movement for the interactive segments of the play. The two activities that involved the Tooth Elves are well executed and managed, and smoothly woven into the plot.

The sensory friendly version also includes a pre-show introduction by the cast of what the show entails, and a chance for the audience to meet the characters and experience the effects that will be used in the show (dim lights, smoke and loud noises). This helps to set the scene for the play, and establish the elements of a theatrical experience that may be difficult to grasp.

These little details extend beyond the experience within the room. There is even a downloadable pre-visit guide introducing the physical theatre space and the show contents, and a bring-home activity sheet.

One just wonders what message the children take home in the end: is it only fun and games, or have they understood the larger themes that the show explores?

“A Lesson in History”

Reviewer: Muhammed Faizad Bin Salim
Performance: 15 August 2015

Two themes resonate very strongly in this historical biopic that has been specially commissioned for the Pesta Raya stage.

The first is how the titular character is a champion for the common man. The second is the value of integrity in the face of adversity.

It is fittingly poetic then that this production successfully brings across an authentic and utterly believable depiction of the trials and tribulations of our nation’s very first Head of State – replete with allusions to landmark historical events that provide the backdrop to the overarching narrative. The irony of us only now being able to truly see, listen and learn about Encik Yusof Ishak (played sensitively by the talented Sani Hussin) is not lost on the audience. We all walk away with a deeper understanding, awareness and appreciation for a man whose history we knew little about and also did not receive as much public fanfare and media spotlight.

Kudos to the creative team for celebrating the life and legacy of one of our pioneer statesmen. It is evident that director and playwright Zizi Azah Abdul Majid (with dramaturg Haresh Sharma) have been very hard at work and conducted extensive, quality research. They have taken great care to capture not only the essence of the man himself and his relationships with his family, friends and compatriots but also the nuances of that particular time in Singapore’s and Malaya’s past.

Fatimah Mohsin (an iconic tour de force in the Malay wedding industry), dresses the cast in exquisitely beautiful baju melayu and kebayas and even the gentlemen looked dashingly dapper a la HBO’s Mad Men and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

The ensemble has great chemistry with one another and shuffles between the more tender, emotional scenes as well as the more light-hearted ones with ease. This is particularly impressive considering the fact that all of them (with the exception of the two principals) have to take on multiple roles whilst showcasing a range of regional Malay accents and dialects. Farah Ong excels in bringing out the comic character of the fictitious Sri. Najib Soiman and Erwin Shah Ismail exude confidence in bringing to life the many male characters that have been instrumental to Yusof Ishak’s life while Dalilah Shahril plays the maternal figure of Aishahton to perfection.

To those who may have reservations about viewing a performance in a vernacular that you may not be familiar with, don’t fret. Nothing is lost in translation and in fact, it’d be an opportune time to be reacquainted with our national language as the narrative of this icon of Singapore’s past unfolds before your eyes.

The only misgiving one has at the end of the performance (also known as the big prepare-your-tissues-coz-Siti-Khalijah-is-bringing-out-the-onion-cutting-ninjas moment) is how it is unfortunate that only a select audience would be privy to this wonderful showcase; those who were lucky and quick enough to get their hands on tickets to the sold-out shows.

Yusof (not Yusok, shame on you MAS!) definitely requires a restaging sometime soon. It may not be a glitzy musical played in a larger venue across the bay area and may not run for as long but it can stand as tall and as proud or even more so for finally putting the spotlight on other heroes who set the foundation for the first-world nation we are so proud of today.

“Democratising Theatre for Youth”

Reviewer: Muhammed Faizad Bin Salim
Performance: 28 July 2015

ArtsWok Collaborative and the Esplanade have come together to plug what appears to be a gap in the Singaporean theatre scene: the lack of an avenue / platform for youth to showcase their works to the public. And if the maiden run of the festival is anything to go by, future iterations are looking promising … but not before ironing out some kinks first.

The 5 festival plays were conveniently chosen from the 2014 Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation for Drama (English) for Junior Colleges and Centralised Institutes. They share a commonality in that they all are loosely based on the festival theme of Causality. In addition, according to the festival’s Artistic Director Alvin Tan, the 5 plays features strong ensemble pieces and they provide an antidote to an otherwise individualistic and competitive world. What he fails to point out however, is how most of the works being presented are not actually written by the youth themselves and the direction is also usually provided by an adult – a teacher in charge of the school drama club or an arts practitioner, roped in to help mentor and train the students for the competition.

The standout pieces were Hwa Chong Institution’s The Female of the Species and Raffles Institution’s 10,000 Cigarettes. The former showcases the casts’ acting chops really well by getting them to play stereotypical female personas ranging from the gossip schoolgirl to the wife dealing with the partner’s infidelity at the cusp of ending the relationship. Alex Broun’s darkly humorous play 10,000 Cigarettes on the other hand is given a whimsical treatment by RI with lots of physical theatre thrown in to complement the brilliant banter. Catholic Junior College’s Poop handles Chong Tze Chien’s writing with great sensitivity and care. This showcase features committed performances by the three female leads playing the roles of Emily, Mother and Grandmother. The use of white masks for the cast, whilst simple, conveys the theme of hallucinations, spirits and the afterlife across clearly.

What ultimately soured the experience though, was ironically the very people this festival was supposed to cater to and celebrate. Admittedly, some of the issues presented on stage are not your everyday, run-of-the-mill topics the average school-going Singaporean student would identify with but neither are they so highfalutin that it would be beyond their grasp. It is irksome then, to have them react (oohs, ahhs and ooh la las) rather loudly and inappropriately to the littlest of things. One of the male actors from CJC gave the whole experience a rather positive spin during the Question and Answer segment by stating that the experience taught him that as an actor his job was not just to deliver the lines but to also react to the audience and pace the performance accordingly. For me (and the rest of the ticket-paying adult audience) though, part of a youth theatre festival must at the very least in its outreach efforts, be concerned with cultivating a sense of decorum that is unfortunately sorely lacking in young theatre audiences.

The short interval where the Q&A is conducted for the group that came before is neither purposeful nor insightful as the questions are over-determined and banal, and they do not mask the fact they are time-fillers while the next group is prepping to perform. Regardless of the audience demographic, the facilitator need not have dumbed down the questions.

Peer Pleasure certainly holds a lot of promise but for it to be a successful youth theatre festival, it must aspire to be a theatre of the youth, by the youth and for the youth.