“自我审视“

Reviewer: Lim Wei Bin | 林维彬
Performance: 1 September 2016

《Sleeping Naked》里的男主人公为了追求真理，相信圣人的理念，最后伤害了自己身边的人，最后是一场空。

戏名《Sleeping Naked》意为裸睡。一则指的是女儿得以与父亲裸睡。二则母亲妒忌女儿可以这么做，因为母亲希望那个与父亲裸睡的人是自己。三则是父亲与妓女裸睡的失败。四则是一种赤裸裸、自我审视的状态。

男主人公为了节制情欲，不与妻子同床，选择和女儿一起睡。女儿迷恋父亲直到脱光衣服与父亲同眠，乱了伦理。这对妻子而言是一种讽刺，对父女关系更显得荒谬，因为天下父女之间，哪有光身同床之道理？父亲因为寻找真理，节制情欲，结果间接害了女儿。女儿与母亲也因为能与父亲同睡而闹不和，这是极大的荒谬。女儿欺骗母亲，只为拿钱帮助父亲实现愿望。这样一来，父亲表面上所追求的道德是有代价的，而代价却在他至亲至爱之人身上。他因为不与妻子同睡，伤害了妻子，与女儿同睡，也伤害了女儿，因为女儿虽然很乐意这么做，却在不自觉中把父亲当作情人。另一层伤害则来自母亲与女儿的不和，因为女儿享有了自己与丈夫同睡的权力。男主人公的一举一动，给予的伤害是多层的。到最后一场空时，自己承受的是最大的伤害。伤害无形中蔓延，扩大，延伸。

母亲名为美满，但她的生活与感情，没有一样是美满的，这是一种反讽。母亲还带着悲情唱着《甜蜜蜜》，她的生活其实一点都不甜蜜。最后她为了满足情欲而出轨，攀上了另一个有妇之夫。这对男主人公而言，无疑是最大的背叛、耻辱、欺骗、讽刺，但讽刺的是，这一切的祸根都是男主人公所栽种的。

男主人公最后尝试与甘地一样，与妓女同睡，抗拒诱惑，但始终失败。这时他开始发现这些真理都是假的。之后，妻离子散时，男主人公才明白世界上没有所谓的真理，眼前的妻儿才是他生命中的真理。他失去妻子以后，才真正明白这个道理。真理到最后只是伤害身边人的工具，这世界上根本没有什么真理。此刻，他自我审视，才发现问题出现在自己身上，但一切都太迟了。

我们的生活当中有多少人表面上是一副正人君子，满口仁义道德，但他们也往往通过自己的行为举止对身边的人造成大害。我们往往都认为周遭的龌龊是因为别人品性不检，是否有想过要自我反省，看看问题是否是因自己而生？

“The Last Temptation of Stony – Sleeping Naked aims for the heavens but crashes into the sea”

Reviewer: Alex Foo
Performance: 3 September 2016

I can’t decide what I find most maddening about Sleeping Naked – the didactic dialogue, the tiresome transitions, or just the bizarre injection of Taylor Swift.

Let us start with the script, which seems bent on being a vehement rejection of the ‘show not tell’ dictum. The husband (Michael Cheng), the wife (Eleanor Tan) and the daughter (Eng Kai Er) soliloquize about their dissatisfaction at the start in Alcoholics Anonymous confessional style: I want to slip the surly bonds of earth! I want to sleep with my daddy! I am a sexually frustrated wife! After this comes a series of sanctimonious monologues that double up as a crash course in Gandhi’s dubious spiritual practice for the audience. And let us not forget the god-awful smutty strawberry metaphor for sex.

The painful dialogue is further belabored by a manually-rotated set, which gets rotated one too many times while generic New Age muzak plays. The set might reflect a mandala, time or the circle of life, but it is perhaps most poignant in mirroring the circuitous dialogue, where Leng Leng’s Electra complex and Mei Man’s mounting jealousy and exasperation is repeated at unnecessary length. Credit, however, must be given to Eng Kai Er, whose remarkable physicality and petulance animated the piece.

Unsurprisingly, the husband Stony’s quest for meaning unravels at the end, but his realization of the futility of his obsession is reached abruptly, as if someone just flicked a switch in him. There is some attempt at crafting some character history, including Stony’s absent father and his dreams of a ship, and these memories are resurrected with flimsy and uncentred audiovisuals. Yet are these supposed to stir pathos? It is difficult to emote with him for this presupposed sex versus spirituality struggle is not particularly compelling nor convincing, and thus the tragedy of his self-destruction has little resonance.

The premise of the play is intriguing, and the religious themes, heavy, so with a lot more sensitivity, this could have been a less moralizing and more pensive piece. What this play needs is not a spiritual guru, but a dramaturg.