“More to be unearthed“

Reviewer: Jocelyn Chng
Performance: 6 May 2018

The Hidden was created in response to the Singapore International Festival of Arts’ (SIFA) open call for works to be exhibited or performed at a local National Monument. The monument that storyteller and director Kamini Ramachandran chose to work with is the Armenian Church. Built in 1835, it is the oldest surviving church in Singapore.

The piece consists of three distinct segments that take place in different locations within the church compound. Two performers, Daisy Mitchell and Jeremy Leong, serve as “guides” of sorts. They drop snippets of information about the history of the church and the small but influential Armenian community in Singapore, and also shepherd the audience from one location to the next.

In each segment, Ramachandran tells a story that is loosely connected to the location. First, we hear a creation myth in the chapel; next, as we move to the parsonage, we listen to a fairy tale that begins with a bewitched young girl trapped in a cucumber; and finally in the Memorial Garden, against the sombre backdrop of tombstones of eminent figures from the Armenian community, we encounter a dark story about an ill-fated couple, involving murder and the supernatural. The stories are enlivened by Derrick Tay’s sprightly performances on various percussion and wind instruments.

Ramachandran’s storytelling is captivating, and her skill as a storyteller in the oral tradition is evident in the structuring of her stories, her vocal control, and her connection with the audience.

Yet, I am not entirely convinced by this “intimate site-specific storytelling performance”, as the piece is described in the marketing material. Although the stories do somewhat relate to the location, they are not linked to or inspired by the space to an extent that justifies the term “site-specific”. The Armenian Church and its significance is not highlighted, and neither does its location provide an added layer to those particular stories, which could be told anywhere else without losing their meaning.

The overall performance framing is also problematic. Mitchell’s and Leong’s personas appear too separate from Ramachandran’s, leading to awkward transitions between the former’s expositions and the latter’s storytelling sequences.

The Hidden’s appeal lies mainly in the weight of the venue – one simply cannot tread in such a venerable religious monument without feeling some sense of awe and respect. While the work is enjoyable on this level, it can certainly be challenged towards a performance that reflects the link between the content and the chosen space more clearly and meaningfully.

“Dragonflies Drags On“

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 24 August 2017

Dragonflies opens with a bang. Rumbling thunder and rainfall spill onto a pristine minimalist set. Midway, intense LED bars descend from the rigged theatre heavens, creating the sterile ambience of a clinic. Side lights plot with absolute precision spill from booms hidden in the wings, hitting bodies on stage to form faint silhouettes. A fire breaks out and is quelled without being a hazard. And a hint of fog is released, giving a dreamlike illusion whenever Adrian Pang talks to the dead.

The aesthetics are indomitable, as usual.

Set in a xenophobic post-Brexit world, Leslie Chen’s (Adrian Pang) UK citizenship is revoked after his wife’s death. Evicted and homeless, he is sent packing for Singapore with his step-daughter Maxine Wilson (Selma Alkaff).

If you can’t picture all that, it’s alright. Imagine watching a beautifully edited blockbuster drama in the cinema. The effect is similar.

But therein lies the problem – Dragonflies isn’t a film, it’s a live play.

Lines are delivered on cue without a hitch – the cast is well-rehearsed and must be commended. Yet, there is something strangely mechanical about the entire process that drives the illusion of the narrative on stage.

You don’t see a character airing his thoughts for the very first time. What you see is the actor, automatically running lines and performing his actions, probably for the hundredth time. Liveness is lacking and the physical acting score, comfortably formalised. When a xenophobic British national confronts Leslie in a clinic, his reaction lacks the nuances of restrained frustration expected of a man caught off-guard in a racist diatribe. Pang’s composed body language isn’t so much a result of his character’s desire to avoid conflict, as it is an anticipation of this fictional antagonism as an actor. He sees it coming before it does. It is stage action without spontaneous reaction. And with this lack, the visceral element unique to theatre is lost.

Additionally, excessive expositions plague the scenes. Perhaps it’s unavoidable. Dragonflies delves deep into character psyche to expose intricacies of social relationships across times and locations – all within two hours. Nonetheless, long chunks of spoken text quickly become tiresome to follow. Mentally filtering out key points of the discourse to keep up with narrative progression becomes the only viable option.

If not for smaller roles and the brief reflexive moments they bring on stage, I may have disengaged completely.

Frances Lee plays Agnes, a Filipino help with an infectious perkiness. Her inner child emerges during a friendly rebuttal with her employer, Margaret, about a television actor’s looks. Eager to convince Margaret of her views, she nudges her and giggles shyly, suddenly becoming more than a foreign domestic worker hired in the family sphere. Agnes becomes part of the family, and this is heart-warming. Likewise, Shrey Bhargava’s single line as a nameless police officer is beguiling. He shuffles around the room and begrudgingly picks up a laptop for inspection. He stares at it – channelling the honest vibes of an overworked, jaded law-enforcer – before sighing deeply: Banyak videos sial! And in that moment, I see a real police officer.

Dragonflies offers what Pangdemonium does best – slick realism set against a stunning stage design. However, this never fully compensates for what it lacks elsewhere. At its core, Stephanie Street’s long-winded script highlights the potentially fatal consequences of pressing global issues. There is a need to undo the normalisation of racial prejudice, passivity towards climate change, and disillusionment regarding the ongoing refugee crisis in our present world.

For now, Dragonflies’ message of hope is its saving grace.

“Some Enchanted Evening.”

Reviewer: Christian W. Huber
Performance: 17 August 2017

The Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA) returns with its 2017 edition with a thoroughly absorbing festival opener, Art Studio. It’s based on a novel by Singaporean poet, novelist, and literary critic, Yeng Pway Ngon, and produced by Nine Years Theatre (NYT). NYT’s co-founder and artistic director Nelson Chia – who adapted the novel and directed the resulting play – has courageously created a choreographed piece that showcases his experience on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Viewpoints, and which his theatre ensemble has adopted effectively.

Viewpoints is an improvisational system that trains an actor to use their body in time and space to create meaning, while The Suzuki Method restores the wholeness of the human body to the theatrical context and uncovers the actor’s innate expressive abilities with a rigorous physical discipline. The two techniques complement each other and gives artists the control to make conscious, deliberate choices in performance. No other theatre company in Singapore has used them with such dedication as NYT, and it is wonderful to see the results in such a richly textured, poignant and moving tribute to artists.

Whilst a stylistic piece – it has no extravagant staging, and minimal multi-media usage – it relies on the buy-in of the audience to imagine the changes in settings and time created and described by the ensemble.  Each movement, stage business, scene change seems to move to a rhythm set by them.  Clearly ‘less is more’ works as an asset to this piece.

That everyone in the ensemble tells the story at some point also engages.  The story begins with a young school dropout coerced by his friend to become a model for life drawing by a group of artists. It then splinters to follow the journeys of these artists over a period of almost 60 years (from the 1950s to 2010 Singapore), told in the third person, or through one person’s subtext, or like a Greek chorus. The storytelling is shared fluidly amongst the performers, and makes the story unfold ‘live.’

Some of the best moments are the ones that come completely out of left field.  A bit of absurdity (e.g. an actor coming out as a mynah bird, or the impression of French people in a very funny routine) helps to break the seriousness, and shows how NYT is willing is to break from the norm.

Whilst the one regret this reviewer had is not being able to appreciate the piece in its chosen performed language (surtitles don’t always give you the full meaning or intention of its translation from the original), one acknowledges this enchanting work from NYT that has succeeded in touching the hearts of the audience by the generous and rapturous applause given at curtain call.

It is heartening to see NYT take great leaps to bring Chinese language theatre to another level in Singapore’s art scene.

“两只眼睛看慈禧“

Reviewer: Liu Chang | 刘畅
Performance: 13 August 2017

慈禧太后（1835 – 1908）是中国近代史上颇具争议的人物，实际掌权时间可达四十七年之久（1861 – 1908），一生留下许多待解之谜，深得东西方史学家和各类文艺作品的强烈兴趣。慈禧一生跌宕起伏，身处内忧外乱的末代皇室，又逢新旧世界秩序交替，东西方文化冲撞，国际局势风起云涌，故仅以一部长度为两至三小时的歌剧来塑造其形象注定不易，且难面面俱到。

<Forbidden City – Portrait of an Empress>基于历史真实存在的美国女画家Katherine Carl （1865 – 1938）为慈禧太后画像一事（1903-1904，历时9个月），并参考Katherine Carl相关回忆录《With the Empress Dowager of China》（1906年出版）创作而成。该剧首演于2002年，十六年间多次重演，无缘观看，故不作比较，仅以2107年版本做讨论。

本剧虽然没有对慈禧本身及大历史提出更新颖的理解和诠释，但在塑造人物形象方面还是比较成功地完成了高难度挑战。深究其成功的原因，可谓该剧的视角选择比较精巧，兼顾了中国历史背景和西方之眼，始终将慈禧太后置于大历史之下审视，同时又不忘叶赫那拉是一个纯粹的人类个体。

首先，全剧通过老年慈禧对美国女画家讲述回忆，有机地将慈禧一生中几个重要转折点、及晚清史上的大事件融合贯通起来，既刻画了叶赫那拉个体的遭遇（爱情，丧夫，丧子，被千夫所指等），又将其置于动荡时代的风口浪尖，描绘其政治经历及成长（火烧圆明园，垂帘听政，戊戌变法，义和团等），也满足了观众对与慈禧相关的历史之谜的好奇心（同治之死，王权争夺等）。并且，值得一提的是，配角（亲王，史官）和合唱队的表现优秀，展现出一个动荡的时代与人民的愤怒，却又没有抢主角的风头，有效地帮助完成了慈禧形象的塑造。这样就使得在中国历史框架下，在权力争夺、王室危亡和愤怒民心之背景下，慈禧本人的形象较为全面且立体。

另外，通过美国女画家及英国记者George Morrison的视角，是为西方之眼来看待慈禧。英国记者代表了侵略者殖民者的立场，对政治人物慈禧不满，进行造谣中伤，搅乱局势；而女画家自始至终都关注和同情叶赫那拉个人的爱与痛。同时，英国记者对女画家的欺骗和利用，既增加了戏剧悬念与冲突，也为该剧添加了一个叙事维度，使得女画家与慈禧惺惺相惜：同为女性，画家与叶赫那拉均面临着爱情的折磨，各有各的痛苦。这样，慈禧在西方之眼下，虽依然不能摆脱风云人物所要面临的世人指摘和矛盾境遇，却也兼备普世的人性困境。这是对上述将慈禧置于中国历史框架下观看的一种很好的补充，不仅符合当时中西交流的历史事实，也丰富了该剧的文化层次。

“在森林和原野里“

Reviewer: Liu Chang | 刘畅
Performance: 18 August 2017

<画室>改编自新加坡著名华文作家英培安的长篇小说《画室》。从人物塑造、情节、感情基调和叙述角度等方面，该剧都成功地忠于原著；同时，现代舞台设计和戏剧形式（例如合唱队）的运用，使得该剧在小说之外，有着一种属于自己的风采。

该剧中所有主要人物性格和命运各异，却都与一间画室有直接或间接的关联：到画室做人体模特的少年继宗和阿贵，老师颜沛（及前妻婉贞），颜沛的学生思贤、宁芳、健雄（及未婚妻美凤）、素兰，以及只来过一次的叶超群等。

这些人物均有跨时代的人类情感通性，如对艺术和爱情的执着追求、在名利诱惑下的矛盾与挣扎、以及对孤独与死亡的深刻思考；人物塑造又都符合故事发生地的时代变迁特征（新加坡，1970年代至2010年）。例如1960年代起，新加坡经济逐渐起步至腾飞，颜沛（由郑光辉精彩演绎）和叶超群（以合唱队形式塑造）就代表了两种类型的画家：前者虔诚于艺术，生活朴素，不好名利，即使其妻婉贞为经济问题与其矛盾重重、婚姻出轨、甚至最后与之离婚，也终身不为金钱利益所动，能够忍受艺术创作中的寂寞和冷遇；而后者则不屑钻研艺术本身，只热衷于攀龙附凤、结交社会名流、借中国改革开放等机会扬名新加坡内外；再如，1970年代新加坡社会依然存在各种不稳定因素，青少年易迷失自我，失学少年继宗和阿贵即是两类典型。前者被学校开除后依然求学心切，后者则自暴自弃，加入私会党；却未料到随着新加坡社会进步、经济发展，二人生活轨迹愈发不同：继宗成为 大学老师，生活稳定，阿贵最终早陨于酗酒。

值得一提的是，所有人物中，健雄（由梁海彬精彩诠释）十分特别，是新加坡特殊历史条件下的人物，其命运令人唏嘘。

健雄本是1970年代新加坡工地上的体力劳动者，业余时间热爱画画，有一个善良温柔的未婚妻美凤，幸福生活触手可及。出于偶然接触或是个人原因，他亲近左派，并曾向往做一个苏联画家科尔日夫那样的艺术家，为革命绘画。但他迫于政治原因仓促逃亡马来西亚，苦盼三年才上队，刚入森林就因突发事件稀里糊涂地做了逃兵，从此跟随林中偶遇的救命恩人大胡子开始了长达十几年（其实连他自己都算不清楚年月）的流亡生活，既要躲避政府军的追捕，又要避开同志队伍对“叛逃”行为的清算。

在上个世纪特殊的历史背景下，森林（包括原野——“在森林和原野是多么的逍遥，亲爱的朋友呀，你在想什么？”）曾一度肩负起不同国家不同民族对新世界的激情与浪漫向往，也为后世承载了太多的历史政治想象，如古巴革命、马共游击等。革命始于森林，终止于森林。从这个角度看，健雄这个人物就多了画室之外的意义，有别于画室里的其他画家。但他也打破了普世对革命同志的刻板印象——对理想至死不渝，勇敢坚韧等。健雄没有打过一天游击，没有杀过一个敌人，森林唯一的功能似乎就是令他认清了自己的“懦弱”（却也是人之常情）、不彻底的革命性和对尘世生活的眷恋。他对森林的感情经过了一系列变化：从不切实际的浪漫向往，到认清自己，至最终半是无奈半是欢喜地长眠于森林。

当马共队伍于1989年最终放下武器走出森林，也许依然有笃信革命的同志继续以森林为家直至终老，但健雄的“始于森林，终于森林”却从头至尾充满了黑色幽默的讽刺和辛酸。本剧（及原著）对健雄的死亡处理很残酷，但又非常写意甚至浪漫，也从一个侧面反映出小说原著对人生与革命的态度和感悟。

并且，通过对健雄的塑造，“森林”在本剧（及原著）中成为继“画室”之外另一个具有重要意象的人物活动的空间。画室是密闭、狭小和安全的，属于既充满善良也四处作恶的人类社会，森林是开放、广阔与危机四伏的，有极其残酷却简单的丛林生存法则。前者衬托出画家的伟大和高尚，而后者更易使画家认清自己的渺小与平庸，而在这两者截然不同的空间里，对艺术、孤独和生死的思考却始终占据了人物的心灵。

“Adapting for the Stage”

Reviewer: Myle Yan Tay
Performance: 19 August 2017

The actors do Foley work with household props, gesturing to the sound crew. Sonny Liew draws at his desk, his progress projected live onto the back wall. The tech team and their work stations are all on stage; Boney M’s “Sunny” plays over the speaker system. When the song ends, an actor approaches a mic-stand onstage and when given her cue, begins hosting a radio show.

The radio format forms the backbone for the show initially, but as the production progresses, it disappears. It comes back in drips and drabs, in between theatrical renditions of Sonny’s latest work and musings by the radio presenter. It is this disregard for convention that makes Becoming Graphic an exceptional, ambitious, but at times confusing piece of theatre.

The show revolves around Sonny, exploring his latest project. The actors recreate his work, both visually and verbally. The multimedia, expertly crafted by Brian Gothong Tan, showcase Sonny’s process. Real interviews with Sonny’s family intermittently play over the speaker.

Edith Podesta constantly reminds us that we are watching a play about Sonny. There is no suspension of disbelief, immersing the audience in a fictional story; there is no illusion that we are watching anything but a play.

It is a truly ambitious task, bringing the graphic novel to the stage, transplanting one medium onto another. To do so, Podesta utilizes inventive and dynamic techniques such as shadow work and overhead projections, to integrate the live ensemble and the comic book. In each presentation, there is an element of struggle, putting the two mediums at odds with one another rather than neatly fitting together.

The enjoyment of these recreations hinge on their novelty, so when certain techniques like the live voiceover are re-used/overused, their initial freshness is lost.

One exceptional sequence mixes pre-recorded, accelerated footage of Sonny drawing and live projections of his sketches. At this point, Sonny is the only live part of the stage. The sequence prompts the audience to question what makes a medium.

Does “liveness” make theatre? Does sequential art make the comic book? Becoming Graphic provides no answers, leaving the audience to form their own opinions.

My major qualm is the production’s pacing. The show does not have a conventional narrative structure or an obvious through-line for the audience to follow. The shifts between sequences are jarring, discombobulating the show. I feel repelled rather than absorbed for most of the production. Having said that, it does not make the show any less thought-provoking or challenging, but less patient audiences should be wary. It is simply because this is not a show that flows naturally or can be fully appreciated in the moment.

Becoming Graphic is not for a passive audience member. It requires constant thought and, eventually, reflection. Personally, as an avid comic book reader, Becoming Graphic grasps what makes the two mediums special and distinct. Rather than hiding from the complications, Podesta and her team dive headfirst to confront the challenge, creating a memorable and poignant piece of theatre.

“A House is not a Home…”

Reviewer: Jocelyn Chng
Performance: 13 August 2017

The concept of Open Homes is intrinsically heart-warming – people from various walks of life opening up their homes and sharing their personal stories with a select audience (interested audience members are required to register due to the limited space within each home). First produced as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) in 2015, this series has returned to SIFA 2017 with 30 more doors being open to the public.

The idea of being invited to someone’s home carries a certain significance; in the urban, high-rise context of contemporary Singapore, visiting someone else’s home usually means that one is either family or one is considered a close friend.

In this ‘visit’, Lemons Lemonade, the host Laura Schuster imbues the idea of “home” with added layers of meaning. Having spent more of her life living outside of her country of birth, and having moved house various times within as well as across countries, the idea of what or where “home” is becomes complex and bittersweet. As she invites us in, she makes it a point to say that although this is not her home, it is where she currently lives, and we are nevertheless welcomed.

Once we are all gathered in her front hallway, or “Indonesian hall” as she calls it, Schuster wastes no time in diving into her story. One cannot doubt the remarkable nature of the personal story she shares – she reveals difficult episodes in her life such as going through a divorce and being diagnosed with breast cancer. Reminding the audience of the title of her session, she references the phrase “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” while serving us – no surprises there – lemonade.

Although this is ostensibly Shuster’s private space, there is something very theatrical about the space that makes this home (or house) an ideal site for a project like this. Each room in the house is impeccably curated/dressed – the front hall filled with traditional Indonesian crafts and decorations, the library filled with a truly impressive collection of plays and books on theatre/performance and movement, and her bedroom hidden behind a false wall, filled with the palpable sense of precious personal time.

Influenced by Shuster’s emphasis that this is not her real “home”, I am aware of being in a liminal space – transitional, not only for us, the audience, but also eventually for her. As the performance progresses, this liminality is heightened as the ideas of performance/performer and audience are themselves increasingly implicated into the nature of the experience. I leave slightly disoriented, and pondering the cliché that home is where the heart is. Because although she has taken pains to stress that this is not her “home”, it clearly still is a place of deep personal meaning.

And isn’t that what home is?

“Shakespeare, the writer of our discontent”

Reviewer: Walter Chan
Performance: 9 September 2016

“Who ever heard of a writer growing up happy?”

That quote comes in the middle of the performance of Sandaime Richard, written by Hideki Noda and inspired by Shakespeare’s Richard III. And when said writer is Shakespeare himself, you get a sense of the narrative complexity and comic irreverence of this play.

Directed by Ong Keng Sen (known for his other intercultural Shakespeare pieces like Lear and Lear Dreaming), Sandaime Richard uses Richard III to dive into the personal history of William Shakespeare, the author. Translated into a Japanese context, the events in Richard III is transformed into infighting within an ikebana (flower-arrangement) clan.

The Japanese context sets up an intercultural medley of performance styles: there is the rowdy and playful Takarazuka, such as when the ensembleof actors slip in and out of their roles to perform, then parody the personal drama of Shakespeare’s family. There’s a smattering of noh theatre during a particular scene in Kenzan Tower, where the dialogue oscillates between the noh style of slow, solemn chanting and a naturalistic delivery of lines. And that’s not to mention the Indonesian element, through the shadow puppetry of wayang kulit that mirrors the onstage action in some scenes.

I admit, this piece could be somewhat difficult for non-Japanese speaking audiences to follow (even with the surtitle screen on the side), given that the majority of the dialogue is in Japanese. (Oh, and I should mention that the other languages used in this play are Balinese, Bahasa Indonesia and English.) However, as with all his intercultural pieces, Ong’s dexterity with balancing different languages and performance styles not only demonstrates his deftness at constructing an intricate (or one might even say “difficult”) piece, but also challenges the audience to ponder about the frisson between the divergent elements in the performance.

And towards the end of the play, when all the different storylines (spoiler alert) converge and the story world collapses in upon itself, we are left in a dizzying spiral of delusions – the boundary between past/present, England/Japan, performance/reality is dissolved. The audience member walks out of the theatre, feeling very confused about the piece. But that’s probably the point – to throw supposedly stable elements, like the meaning of the words in Richard III, the history of Shakespeare’s life, and the authority of Shakespeare, into question.

“A game of throne: Cultural bytes, digital bits”

Reviewer: Beverly Yuen
Performance: 10 September 2016

Sandaime Richard, written by Hideki Noda and directed by Ong Keng Sen, is a bold encounter with works of William Shakespeare. It introduces Shakespeare (Doji Shigeyama) into the play as a character put on a trial for falsifying history of Richard the Third (Kazutaro Nakamura).  Inspired by the War of the Roses, the fight of an ikebana clan is depicted. The story is also staged in the framework of a Zen paradigm. This results in texts which suggest the non-duality of things, a minimalist set design, and repetitive patterns of multimedia images.

Each performer plays different characters. It is presented on a bare stage which is transformed into a series of digital images by Keisuke Takahashi. This creates a sense of a cyberspace, complemented with electronic music by Toru Yamanaka. The audience is thus put in a trance-like state, while the characters seem to be modified, re-edited, intertextualised and cross-referenced with the convenient use of editing technology.

In this induced digital world, the characters from Shakespeare’s texts are dressed in white surrealistic and futuristic costumes designed by Yanaihara Mitsushi. They are like avatars reprogrammed to take on changing identities or one that is faceless. In this flux, they challenge history, traditions and assumptions. Multimedia images such as the continuous feathers which endlessly fall on the characters and the circular shapes that sustained the scenes remind one of the cyclic existence of life.

The lighting design (Scott Zielinski) employs bold use of shadows, striking colours and follow spots to create the phantasmagorical world. Shadow play is an integral and essential element gives the characters a larger-than-life quality, while evoking a self-reflexive sense of mockery. While we are looking at the absurdity of how Shakespeare’s characters are transmuted with the development of the plot, we are also reminded that we should take time to laugh at the tough situations we sometimes go through.

Nakamura plays Richard with his feminine and yet strong physicality through his fluid and complete control of his movements and expressions grounded in kabuki techniques. Janice Koh, who plays Shylock, and Kyogen performer Doji Shigeyama, who plays Shakespeare, stand out with their hypnotic delivery of lines, and their ability to display the subtle changes in the characters.

Performed in English, Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia, with English surtitles, the different languages offer a certain musicality due to the variations of tone and rhythm of the poetic text. The occasional punctuations of live laughter, screaming, or groaning, add to the aural richness.

Multimedia images of fire appear in the beginning and towards the ending of the play, in the context of Shakespeare’s writings. It sets me thinking: in this digital age, can books really be burnt? Perhaps not. If so, does it mean that editing and re-editing; creation and re-creation; and examination and re-examination can be made possible with complete freedom? And, what would this freedom lead to?

The play ends with a whitewashed stage with wayang kulit puppeteer I Kadek Budi Setiawan’s chanting.

Emptiness.