“… for the living, not the dead?”

Reviewer: Edward Eng
Performance: 29 August 2019

New writing is exciting. You enter the theatre without history, and hear language never pronounced beyond rehearsal. Checkpoint Theatre has historically supported new English-language play texts in Singapore, and Huzir Sulaiman and Claire Wong are often the first port of call for young writers.

This time, they introduce a play by Zenda Tan about family grief and grievances through the lens of a seven-day wake. The matriarch’s death has arrived, and like other Chinese-family-forced-to-come-together plays, is the impetus for an attempt at inter-generational and inter-personality empathy.

Tan’s play suggests scale: 13 characters over three generations, although Ah Ma’s attendance is only via her casket and the superstition that she is still floating nearby, spectrally. The first portrait of the family is at home, waiting on the cusp of her death. It fractures early when serious businessman and oldest son, Jerry (Hang Qian Chou), vents his frustration that the others are not taking the funeral rites seriously. This establishes a framework that pits the forces of the conservative and liberal, the old and new against each other.

The second fracture is when a grandson appears suddenly. Twenty-seven-year-old Eran (also played by Hang) is somehow estranged from his mother, turning up for the funeral only briefly with his girlfriend waiting in the car. He hands one of his uncles baijin (condolence money) instead of staying to fold joss paper. His mother is inevitably furious: the $50 notes aren’t even in an envelope. His brothers, Elijah (Adam Scott) and Eric (Chaney Chia), have feelings for him that respectively transcend and don’t transcend kinship.

But while Tan’s writing is often witty and plays lightly with meaning-making, it never reaches ingenuity. The gags stay gags, never becoming comedic critiques of characters and cultural structures. Jerry is the only character with a development arc, while the others are merely strangers with a few facts about themselves to perform.

Obviously this is true in real life, where we often only see uncurated slivers of people, but even naturalistic drama can stylise dialogue to its purposes. Characters in Alfian Sa’at’s Homesick are designed for the payoff when the truth comes out, while Florian Zeller’s The Father sketches its characters in recognisable distance so we can see ourselves in them. Because of this lack of textual direction and depth, Eat Duck falls mostly flat.

Wong’s stage direction is also odd. Transitions are bursts of discordant noises and harsh colours. Hang plays both major antagonists, one of whom only appears for about five minutes. A lot of the play is also geometrically static, with just two characters providing exposition about themselves, even though they have little impact on the direction of the plot.

Fortunately, some excellent performances are present. Karen Tan as the long-suffering arbitrator is heartrending, while Hang’s Jerry is surprisingly delicate. I wish I could say more about the other siblings, their spouses and the grandchildren, but I didn’t get a chance to know them.

“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?

“Poetry in Motion”

Reviewer: Lee Shu Yu
Performance: 2 March 2019

Upon entering the venue for Still Life – TheatreWorks’ white box at 72-13 – I swoon. We are in an artist’s studio, designed by Petrina Dawn Tan, and it is stunning. The centerpiece is a suspended sculpture, with branches caught in a net to form a nest. With the walls covered in portraits and nude paintings, and the studio bathed in warm light, it feels like I have stepped into a loving embrace.

The subject of our study, artist and former president of AWARE, Dana Lam, is sketching. Her piercing gaze passes over the crowd and her fingers work deftly to scrape charcoal on paper. In this casual but intimate setting, I feel exposed, yet well cared for.

That is the charm of Still Life, written by Lam, who also performs alongside Jean Ng, and directed and dramaturged by Claire Wong. This play comes at the end of a year where Lam set out to make all the art she had always wanted to. It is an introspection of her passion for both art and activism, but also a journey of finding peace with her late mother.

Lam is a joy to watch on stage. She carries the audience through vignettes of her life with great energy and fervour. From wrestling back leadership of AWARE to explaining about her three fathers to school teachers, the stories she shares are fascinating and heart-breaking. And she tells them with such lucidity and sincerity that I am hooked from start to end. Lam is tenacious and unflinching, and even when vulnerable, she is self-assured.

It is an invigorating portrayal of womanhood that is so rare, I hesitate to breathe for fear of breaking the spell. A play about women, made by women, Still Life shows sensitivity and wisdom. Strength, anger, humour, age and sensuality collide in a heady mix in this play, a cocktail so different from the usual reductive and misogynistic stereotypes of women in media.

Yet, beneath the strength lies tenderness. In one scene, Ng sits atop a table, posing for Lam. In the long silence, Ng and Lam look at each other, and the audience looks at them. Something silently passes between them; I see shared honesty, and love emanating from Lam’s brush as she caresses the canvas. The connection and tenderness they share brings all the other canvases in the room to life.

Through the brush and text, Still Life presents image after stirring image. The beauty of the staging and the poignancy of the writing makes this an evocative experience. The work is poetry in motion, delicately wrought by Lam’s lyrical word, and expertly executed.

“Sisters are doing it for themselves”

Reviewer: Christian W. Huber
Performance: 12 April 2018

With Thick Beats for Good Girls, Checkpoint Theatre continues to present original theatrical and multi-disciplinary work that boast strong writing, performance and direction. This coming of age tale stars two talented performers, Pooja Nansi and Jessica Bellamy, who gradually peel away the layers of what it means to be women – and especially women who come from an ethnic or religious minority background. Over the course of the evening, they share funny and poignant anecdotes with the audience, along with their common passion: hip hop, the genre of music that has featured so prominently in their lives.

It is very clear from the get go that the words and conviction of the performers are paramount in this staging. Also playing a key role is the great soundtrack of carefully curated music, which makes even the hip hop rookies among us move to the thick beats in their seats. Nansi and Bellamy’s performance and chemistry come across as honest and engaging, and the way they share the heartfelt moments in their lives make us feel a little like voyeurs. This is especially apparent when they define for themselves what a ‘good girl’ from either a Hindu or Jewish family should be like, or describe their first forays into discovering their bodies, or share the first time each of them enjoyed sexual relations (their not-so-enjoyable experiences get mentioned, too).

Kudos to the performers and director Huzir Sulaiman for knowing how to rein in moments that could have become too melodramatic or ‘emo’, by keeping the action moving. Through it all, hip hop is always there for them, whether it’s in the club, on the radio, or in a car.

The set by Petrina Dawn Tan is simple and effective, with colourful circles and lines on the floor and back wall of the stage to depict the vibrant universe that the women live in. It allows us to focus on the text without distraction.

There are no special twists or turns to keep audiences guessing what might happen next in this work, and the fact that the theatre was only about a third full on the night this reviewer attended is a sign that it may not be palatable for all tastes. Nonetheless, the 95-minute piece makes for a good night out at the theatre, especially for those who can relate to how music can help one’s journey through life.

The sense of empowerment with which the performers live their lives – warts and all – is beautifully captured with all the swagger that hip hop music is known for. It reiterates Shakespeare’s take on music being the “food of love”, and if so, it needs to be played on and on.

“The play’s the thing”

Reviewer: Christian W. Huber
Performance: 13 July 2017

NS50 celebrations are currently in full swing to recognise those who are serving or have served National Service over the years, with activities ranging from giving them shopping vouchers to putting on an array of army-themed events. One such event is Checkpoint Theatre’s FRAGO, which focuses on the trials and tribulations of a group of operationally ready National Service Men as they embark on one of their final high key reservist training sessions in the field. The play is written by Checkpoint’s associate artist Lucas Ho and directed by artistic director Huzir Sulaiman, and this funny and nuanced work should resonate with all Singaporean men who have gone through the NS Journey and their families.

Aaron Yap’s set design is simple, with screens depicting silhouettes of a tank and other militaristic visuals hoisted on three sides of the performance space. They are used to provide a backdrop for the on-stage action, as well as surtitles when Mandarin or other dialects are used during the performance. There is also good sound design – there are some great classical music choices and updated renditions of army songs – and imaginative use of miming props or stylized military exercise sequences like stripping a rifle or attacking enemies. All this allows the audience focus on the intimate conversations shared between this band of brothers, and it is nice to see the text take paramount importance in this work.

Huzir has cast a powerful ensemble cast of mostly young and fresh actors who brought Ho’s text and dialogue to life. From sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly in their lives, it is clear that the actors have touched on their own personal experiences. And they are bold enough to unmask this with their ‘buddy’ or peers on stage, and with the audience too. With the honesty in the text and performance, this play thoroughly engages.

Whilst a male heavy play, the most understated performance for this reviewer came from one of two females in the cast – Jo Tan. Her performance as a seasoned but tired Female Warrant Officer who has come to accept the glass ceiling she has hit, and the sexism prevalent in the system, is incredibly restrained and nuanced. One hopes she can touch on her vulnerable side more in future roles.

If the use of dialect and expletives – largely common in military chat amongst the men – turn you off, and you are up for more slapstick humour showcasing how boys become men, this piece will not be up your alley.

But for those who can appreciate the nurturing and grooming of a new generation of local playwrights that write with passion – something very welcoming in today’s theatre landscape, where style often takes precedence over substance and story gets lost – FRAGO would be this reviewer’s choice to support, hands down.

“A Nominal Fee For Nostalgic Lessons“

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 15 April 2017

One wonders why anyone would pay good money to watch an idealistic teacher’s futile battle against educational essentialism. Or why one would willingly spend two hours watching biases against Normal stream students materialise on stage.

After all, these are not shockingly interesting revelations.

For those schooled under Singapore’s educational system, the issues raised in Faith Ng’s Normal are almost par for the course.

Yet, it is precisely this “commonplace-ness” that gives Normal its local approval.

Ng’s social commentary is initially hidden beneath the bittersweet nostalgia that first hits her audience. But gradually, a critique of Singapore’s stifling system and the school culture it breeds is revealed. A primary school friendship disintegrates in secondary school, not because both parties mutually drift apart; it is instead stimulated by the social divide that comes with academic streaming. A teacher’s analogy describes Normal technical girls as unwanted Barbies – thrown into a box and sent to ITE. It incurs a brief, awkward laughter from the audience. But as the statement hangs in the air, it promptly becomes unsettling. Her words reveal a deeply ingrained prejudice against students in lower streams, portraying that even teachers are guilty of unconsciously propagating such stereotypes.

Claire Wong’s direction supports Ng’s text with a functional set design and a lively ensemble. By dividing the stage lengthwise with translucent screens, the set design brings the cinematographic technique of shallow focusing to the stage. Downstage, the main cast push the narrative forward during a classroom scene, alternating between heated teacher-student altercations and intimate disclosures. Meanwhile the ensemble – representing the remaining students in class – stay upstage. They gasp as a politically incorrect remark from Ms Hew’s (Julie Wee), and snigger as Ashley (Claire Chung) retaliates with a crude joke. This ensemble’s live reactions to the developing drama create an additional dimension to the mise-en-scene. This muted background action effectively underscores the stage action while installing the fictional reality and community, plunging the audience deeper into the narrative’s fictional realm.  

However, this layering effect isn’t always successful.

There are moments where the ensemble’s background responses and vocalised soundscapes distracts. Their ambient chirping noises during an outdoor scene rudely disrupts the ongoing dialogue (when did mynah birds get so loud?). And as they clear into the vomitorium during the final monologues, faint whispers emerge from beneath the tiered seats. This persists through Chung’s lines, loud enough to be audible by the audience in the last row. Then someone hushes them, and the whispering stops. Whether this awful diversion tactic was intentional, we will never know.

Normal concludes, perhaps slightly disconcertingly, by maintaining the status quo – neither the suffocating school culture nor the structural flaws in the system gets resolved. Yet, this doesn’t render the production irrelevant.

By mirroring the mundane reality of school life, Normal highlights recurring problems that continue to prevail through generations of students. And more importantly, it provokes critical thought and initiates much needed public discourse about an otherwise overlooked topic in society.

“The Last Bull”

Reviewer: Kei Franklin
Performance: 26 August 2016

Legend-making is tricky business. Issues of representation, exaggeration, and neutrality abound. Checkpoint Theatre approaches this endeavor with grace, inclusion, and joy, in their most recent production, The Last Bull, a sketch of the life story of Antonio Vargas – a legendary flamenco dancer and current resident of Geylang.

The Last Bull is both grand and anecdotal – a mélange of memory and the now – joining dance, theatre, film, and music into a celebration of a life, art, and passion. A cast of performers from Checkpoint Theatre work joins Antonio Vargas to narrate his life journey from his birthplace in Morocco, through his renowned career as a flamenco dancer and choreographer, to his current home in Singapore.

The level of Vargas’ artistic mastery, developed over a 60-year career in Flamenco, is mesmerizing. His poise, precision, and passion are extraordinary. His impeccable rhythm is complemented by a fervent and pure delight in movement. While Vargas could easily be the sole focal point of The Last Bull, Claire Wong and Huzir Sulaiman (artistic directors of Checkpoint) make sure this isn’t so.

My initial doubts about the universal relevance of a single man’s life story are quickly dissipated, as the archetypal tale of Vargas’ extraordinary artistic success is intermingled with raw and vulnerable testimonies delivered by a diverse cast of performers. They share openly about the challenges and joys of choosing an artistic professional path, the doubts and support of their families, and the parts of their bodies they most love and reject. At first these testimonies feel out of place, but as the piece progresses, their connections are clear and strong.

While The Last Bull is certainly an introduction into the world of flamenco – a world that much of the audience likely knows little about – it becomes clear very quickly that it is much more than that. The Last Bull humanizes professional artists, reflecting upon the honest hardships (and joys) of choosing an artistic path. It also considers the complexities of artistic specialization, and the era of prodigies and maestros.

Perhaps most unexpectedly, The Last Bull also feels like a celebration of Singapore.

“Finding Spaces Between Memories”

Reviewer: Dawn Teo
Performance: 27 March 2016

The performance is housed in a simple set of trapezium wooden frames that grow in width to invite the audiences’ seating area within its staged compounds. It embraces the audience as it implicates him/her. I feel like I am part and parcel of the creation of this work just by being present, and that is a lovely feeling to have before as well as after the performance.

The two actors acknowledge the audience and speak directly to them – complete with conversational gestures and eye contact. After initial awkwardness in both presentation and reception, everyone eases into the casual atmosphere eventually. The bond created through set and actors endures and endears throughout the performance.

Recalling Mother is a new iteration of a work-in-progress for theatre makers Claire Wong and Noorlinah Mohamed.  This 2016 version is its fourth staging. Discovering and rediscovering memories, the duo explore their ever-evolving relationships with their own mothers.

Wong and Mohamed transform themselves as fluidly as memories do. One moment they are their present selves chatting with each other, in the next, they are children watching their mothers cook once more. However, the seamless transitions are most magical when both women alter their physical shape one limb at a time to assume their mothers’ appearance. Watching the detailed transformations right in front of my eyes is a beautiful sight and brings the performance home to me, literally

Recalling Mother is genuine and poignant story-telling. Despite the use of Cantonese and Malay without subtitles, the tone of voice and context given in minimal English at each time are enough to paint the complete picture for the audience.

I left the theatre studio deep in thought while being overwhelmed with emotions. I reflect on my own relationship with my own mother: pondering on what this performance has brought and will bring to our relationship.

“The Mother We Share”

Reviewer: Alex Foo
Performance: 25 March 2016

Checkpoint Theatre’s latest production, Recalling Mother, is, as its title suggests, an exercise in constructing autobiographies. Much like a home cooked meal, it is written, performed simply and sincerely by Claire Wong and Noorlinah Mohamed. There is no fourth wall, no hagiography, just simple and powerful storytelling – the very atom of theatre making – at its core. And what tender and touching stories we hear!

The two leads walk us through their childhood, the gradual aging of their mothers and the performance history of the piece (this is its fourth staging). They slip into their characters effortlessly, modulating their tones, speaking solely in their mother tongue and altering their physical gait, right down to the sallow droop of a weather-beaten face. In this parade of characters, the audience meets Madam Wong, the transparently emotional passive-aggressive Cantonese-speaking mother, and Cik Bee Bee, the endless spring of supportive love with a smile that conceals all. Crackling with tension and bravura, the play renegotiates the evolving giving and receiving dynamics between a mother and daughter in light of physical deterioration and dementia. The result is heartbreaking at times, but always humming with infinite tenderness.

At some points, portrayals of Madam Wong and Cik Bee Bee border on caricature – the mother obsessed with whether her daughter has eaten or the mother who keeps getting non-Chinese names wrong – but these moments are deliberately comic and comment on how nostalgia and the passing of time distorts of memories. For Wong and Noorlinah, memory acquires auditory, kinaesthetic and gustatory textures – Noorlinah assiduously romanising the Arabic script for her mother’s Hajj and Wong looking doe-eyed at her mother cooking up a storm.

At times, I found the lighting a tad jarring, especially in the sharp demarcations of scenes. Yet, some of the best scenes are achieved through the intelligent use of lighting, such as front lighting Noorlinah and Wong as they twirl around on stage to strains of Cantonese opera, producing enlarged silhouettes on the cyclorama, the telling presence of a larger, maternal figure as they yearn to be a child again and drink from the milk of maternal goodness.

What makes this such a compelling production is the well-paced direction and sensitive script, flowing with the natural cadences of everyday speech. When playing their mothers, there are long tracts of Cantonese and Malay, delivered without any surtitles. By the end of the play, when Wong and Noorlinah finally introduce the names of their mothers to us, whilst their mothers’ recorded voices play in the background, we feel like we have already met these wonderful women.

“Changes and the Things We Return To“

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 26 November 2015

The glib phrase, “change is the only constant,” is supposedly meant to encourage a stoic attitude in others. More often than not, it disregards the personal struggles of the individual in their search to find their place in the world again.

For Raghav — amidst the technological changes, eroding traditions, and distant friendships — the hit Bollywood movie, Sholay, is his anchor. It reminds him of childhood games and the intermittent power failures that give him reprieve from homework. Even when he leaves Ambala to study at the National University of Singapore, the show is the only thing that he shares in common with other Indian students who hail from parts of India he has never heard of. And it is from this starting point, that he observes the changes around him, struggles with these changes, and finds his way back again.

In this coming-of-age story, playwright Shiv Tandan weaves scenes from Sholay and Raghav’s reminiscences (which are largely autobiographical), into a hilarious yet thoughtful play.

The ensemble rewards the audience with a brilliant performance that brings out the child in us. They display a strong synergy in their display of robust physicality in recreating scenes from bicycle races to the improbable gunfight scenes in Sholay. The ensemble’s versatility and keen sense of comic timing hit the audiences at all the right spots as we laugh at their various exaggerations of Bollywood stock types that we have come to love.

That said, there are some things that need to be dealt with: some scenes from Sholay should be shortened, actors must learn to cope with audience’s laughter, and sound effects created by the ensemble should not drown out the actor narrating the scene.

With the original production receiving nominations for Best Original Script, Best Director, and Production of the Year at the 2012 Straits Times Life! Theatre Award, this restaging deserves the same nominations and Best Ensemble should be added to the list.