“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.

“What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”

Reviewer: Muhammed Faizad Bin Salim
Performance: 10 April 2015

“If you want to know my name, you have to get to know me first!” proclaims Ashley (Claire Chung), in her explanation as to why she adamantly refuses to abide by the school rule that requires all students of Trinity Girls School (TGS) to put on their nametags as part of the school uniform as it is clearly stated in the Student Handbook, a fact often harped on by the disciplinarian Miss Wong (Noorlinah Mohamed).

The preoccupation with naming or labeling conventions is a recurring motif in this play which questions the associations we tag to many things: the different academic streams – Special, Express, Normal, EM1, EM2, EM3 – and academic achievements like Bands 1, 2, 3 and 4. It is no coincidence too that the Shakespearean play that the class was studying was the tale of the star-crossed lovers ‘Romeo and Juliet’, themselves plagued, not by choice, by unfortunate last names. In trying to make the play more relatable for her students, Ms Sarah Hew (Oon Shu An), asks, “What is a Normal? It is nor hand nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a Man.”

Even the school as an institution is in the process of being conferred ‘Autonomous’ status as Principal Mrs Lim (Karen Tan) reminds her students and staff. Gaining autonomous status will allow the school to plan their own curriculum and activities as compared to other government-run schools. Ironically, in a bid to attain this coveted status, the school administrators seem more bent on adhering to the status quo rather than breaking boundaries.

The inclusion of Marianne’s (Lim Shi-An) character, the exemplary star student, the Limited Edition Barbie, as a foil to Daphne (Audrey Teong) and Ashley, the defective dolls is important to further drive home the point that we are all susceptible to seemingly innocuous labels and have our own demons to struggle with.

For a play that is so conscious about the effect that labels have on the selected parties, it is somewhat strange that in the costume design, the principal actors and the ensemble cast were “labeled” differently – the former with white blouses and the latter with black ones underneath their pinafores.

There are, of course, production elements that impresses: like the multi-purpose set which replicates different parts of school like the corridors, the elevated podium at the assembly ground and the black see-through mesh is even reminiscent of classroom blackboards but more importantly allows us to observe the ensemble in the background while still focusing on the principal actors in front.

Director Claire Wong’s decision to incorporate physical gestures and vocalized soundscapes is successful in evoking a believable convent school setting complete with the pre-requisite hymns.

After the curtain call, Checkpoint Theatre announced that there is an intention to restage the play in future and so begs the question: are you going to let this reviewer’s idiosyncratic take colour your own viewing of the play and enter the theatre with preconceived notions?

Or are you able to keep an open mind and get to know and assess the play on its own merits first before passing judgement?

“Fab normal”

Reviewer: Walter Chan
Performance: 9 April 2015, 8pm

What happens when you lose the rat race?

“Sadness is for us,” broods Secondary 5 student Ashley (Claire Chung) bitterly, as the play escalated to its climax. At that point, you feel the entire weight of the world on her tiny shoulders, and wonder what has happened to her to stoke such a cynical and abject attitude. After all, she seems like a normal girl.

Yet the word “normal” is exactly the subject (and title) of playwright Faith Ng’s newest play. She delves into the murky depths of Singapore’s meritocratic education system, exposing the political incorrectness that lies at the heart of it all: praising the best, and screwing the rest.

Ng’s script does not pull any punches; at times achingly honest, at times laugh-out-loud hilarious. With the protagonists who are Sec 5 girls Ashley and Daphne, she has crafted two memorable characters that are beautiful yet fragile. As the play details their struggles (that never seem to end), the girls are pulled in different directions, until life tears them apart. They become what one teacher condescendingly describes: broken Barbie dolls, abandoned and unwanted.

Director Claire Wong takes a practical, scaled-down approach with Normal, with a keen eye for detail. The soundscape crafted by the ensemble is also noteworthy, though it brings back echoes of another all-female production staged one year ago. (Hint: Wong was the lead actor.)

But praises must go to Claire Chung and Audrey Teong (making their professional debut as well, may I add), who portray Ashley and Daphne with mettle and tenacity. They carry the weight of sadness in their performance, but never show it on their faces. Therefore, it is truly a heart-rending moment when the play draws to its melodramatic denouement at the end: these girls have earned our tears.

Despite this, Normal, like its characters, remains rough around the edges. Perhaps it is the irregular pacing of the script – it was definitely shorter (and less nuanced) than the version presented at a public reading 2 years ago. Or perhaps it was opening night jitters showing in the ensemble’s lack of precision – just milliseconds apart, but definitely noticeable. I hear rumours of a re-staging swirling around (and deservedly so); I would love to see the “uncut” version.

I shall end by getting on my soapbox: Singapore theatre has perennially been plagued by a deluge of plays that tackle the thorny issue of Singapore’s education system. So, what makes Normal special? To put it frankly, it is the voice of the downtrodden; the voice of the forgotten; the voice of the invisible. And through characters like Ashley and Daphne, they can finally speak, loud and proud.