“Navigating a Haphazard Dream”

Reviewer: Teo Xiao Ting
Performance: 29 November 2019

A Dream of a Dream by Thereabouts Theatre questions the idea of freedom, and proclaims to provide a space where we can “emancipate [ourselves] from the dire realities of our modern world”. But when we are given absolute freedom, how do we navigate it? How do we conduct ourselves?

The show starts at the entrance of The Substation’s SAD Bar. Ong Yi Xuan stands outside the door, interrogating each visitor about their “streetwear”, the dress code stated in the event page. When it is my turn, Ong glances at me from head to toe, scanning my “streetwear” with a vague look of disapproval. I had clean forgotten about the dress code, and came as I would normally dress. I scramble to justify my choice of clothing and accessories. And then she notices my undercut and just like that, I gain entry. I go through a small, low door. Loud dancing music blares into a neon blue lit room. A lone microphone stands in front of crates repurposed as chairs.

At the bar, Fatin Syahirah invites me to have a “drink”. I choose from a range of items: a half drunk mineral water cup, scissors, clear tape, an almost empty water bottle, a square piece of grey paper that says “rules of engagement” and the word “FINE” in block letters. I pick up the small grey piece of paper and move towards the crate-chairs. A few audience members take a seat behind me, and we wait. It is now 8.20pm, 20 minutes past the stipulated start time. The soundtrack loops distortion and heavy beats fill the air. I readjust my sitting position, try to make myself comfortable. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I look around my surroundings, try to take in as much as possible. I feel myself getting increasingly fidgety. Impatient.

After a long while, Elizabeth Kow walks towards the microphone and starts a mic check. She invites us to check the mic, and an audience member inherits the mic and starts singing his rendition of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ by Frank Sinatra. In the next hour or so, we are led to gestures such as sweeping the floor, exploring backrooms and roaming about the SAD Bar. The entire experience left me confused, as I struggle to figure out what is expected of me, and how I can honour and participate in the piece. The “freedom” that Thereabouts Theatre tries to create left me paralysed.

A Dream of a Dream asks good questions: What comes after emancipation? How do we begin to know a place/space beyond its stipulated usage and meanings? But wandering through SAD Bar, I find myself lacking the tools to answer these questions, to navigate or understand the space, or to relish in a freedom that I have been so haphazardly given. In the post-show dialogue, Kow shares that they had wanted to imbue meaning and scaffold significance into the SAD Bar. But even as I scour for meaning in the space, I only find vague comfort in seeing how the other audience members are equally confused and that we are all figuring it out together.

Rather than emancipating ourselves “from the dire realities of our modern world”, I leave SAD Bar feeling the inescapable chains of socialised behaviour, the encoded norms that we impose upon ourselves despite no clear markers or need to do so.

“It’s a Neverlanding Spectacle”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 17 December 2019

Children soar over the stage this yuletide season as Wild Rice returns with its annual Christmas pantomime. This year it’s Peter Pan of Serangoon Gardens, a local take on J.M Barrie’s beloved children’s story.

The ageless boy Peter Pan flies into the home of three Singaporean siblings just as academic pressures and parental expectations threaten to smother their childhood. Emblematic of escapism and youthful innocence, Peter offers them a ticket to carefree adventure and perpetual youth in Neverland, to which they readily accept.

Akin to Wild Rice’s pantomimes of Christmases past, this one brims with spectacle from start to finish.

Characters take flight on stage, somersaulting in the air with the support of safety harnesses. Fight scenes between Peter and his nemesis Captain Hook resemble a stereotypical good-versus-evil showdown, complete with swashbuckling action and fancy footwork. Meanwhile, cross-dressing mystical creatures exude an air of ridiculous flamboyance. Clad in luscious wigs and glittering scales, a pair of drag mermaids flutter their false lashes and coo in falsettos in one scene, vying for Peter’s attention. In a separate scene, Peter’s overgrown fairy TingTong Bell prances around stage wearing a tight pink tutu and a sassy attitude; she showers the pre-flight children with fairy-dust as she goes, speaking in Pig Latin to mask her “itchy-bay omments-cay”.

The aerial tricks, melodrama and absurdity line-up one after another, garnering a chock full of laughter from the audience. It’s hard to tear my gaze away from the stage; I admit I’m enthralled.

But while Peter Pan can’t grow old, two straight hours of pure spectacle can. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a greater message or sociocultural issue waiting to be highlighted through all of this.

If anything, there is a brief attempt to provoke the audience into critically considering the effects Singapore’s education system has on our children. The jaunty overture that opens the production, “Time For A Story”, carries a conundrum in its cheery melody that hits very close to home. A chorus of sleepwear-clad children break into synchronised choreography on stage whilst belting in unison their desire to be read a bedtime story, desperate to drift off into a dream-like world of fantasy and adventure before the realities of school-life resurface at dawn. The sonorous voices emanating from the adult ensemble, however, adamantly oppose. Their reasons and rationale are delivered sternly, rhythmically shutting down the children’s pleas. And these stay in my head long after the last note ends:

“PSLE coming soon! Finished your revision? Think about your future first. No time to be a child!”

The life of an average Singaporean child is amplified in these lyrics for all to scrutinise. The perennial question concerning Singapore’s education system resurfaces: Is it robbing our children of their childhood? They’ll excel, but at what cost?

But as the play proceeds, the little focus that this sociocultural issue gains unfortunately tapers off, lost amidst the fantasy, larger-than-life characters and fast-moving plot.

Nonetheless, Wild Rice’s proclivity for revising classical tales for a Singaporean audience once again creates an epic theatre experience for the young and young at heart.

It’ll whisk you away to a magical land where you won’t need to think too hard.

“A Fiend’s Dairy”

Reviewer: Amanda Leong
Performance: 27 October 2019

A Fiend’s Diary by The Finger Players is a monologue depicting the inner world of a socially-isolated man (played by Oliver Chong). This man lives in an apartment alone, with only the frenzied words of his diary and the intermittent sounds (created by Darren Ng) of his body bumping against furniture to keep him company. Through the narrations in his diary, we come to understand how he sees the people that make up his social world.

The walls, floor, table of the protagonist’s room is covered with the text from the script. The orderly lines in which the words are written obscure the inherent chaos of the content. The man has just begun to reflect and grieve the passing of his closest kin – his mother. However, ‘grieving’ is an illusory word in this context, as this man does not exhibit or articulate his feelings of loss toward his mother in a way that may be recognisable as grieve. Or perhaps, this man is not grieving at all, as he spends the day of his mother’s funeral smoking and drinking with the funeral director. Over the course of the play, we see him in a range of situations that become increasingly absurd and questionable, from agreeing to marry a girl he does not care for, to ultimately a horrendous crime.

Despite how morally unredeemable the protagonist is, however, Chong’s performance still makes me feel sympathy towards him. At the court scene where the man is put on trial, I find myself taking both the side of the jury – who are horrified by his action and apathy – as well as the man, who is indignant that his defence is not truly taken into account because of the jury’s assumptions about him.

The radical empathy that this self-reflective play forces us to take on makes us question our own assumptions of morality.

“Here’s Another (Nearly) Immersive Performance”

Reviewer: Cordelia Lee
Performance: 17 November 2019

Teaspoons clink against the interior of glass mugs, producing the signature soundscape of a kopitiam – Singapore’s no-frills coffeeshops. Chatter pervades the air, delivered in multiple languages. The shuffling of slippers precedes yet another drink order, hollered in dialect for immediate processing. Chairs shift, plates clatter, and an Asian koel cries intermittently, contributing to the cacophony. Save for the air-conditioning in the space, The Second Breakfast Company’s immersive theatre production, The Hawker, is a laudable simulation of a kopitiam.

The cast joins us around circular tables littered with dirty dishes and half-filled mugs. We watch up-close as their interactions unearth the stories and relationships that coalesce in this fictional eating joint.

Five vignettes concurrently play out in the space, rotating among the tables in a round-robin manner. A chance encounter between ex-army buddies gets heated at one table, while a married couple grapples with difficult decisions at another. Elsewhere, social inequality and peer pressure sway schoolgirls towards a questionable choice, a foreign worker makes an important call home, and religious differences jeopardise a blossoming relationship.

Given the performance set-up, it’s a miracle that the cast’s lines do not amalgamate into an incomprehensible whole.

Sure, my gaze periodically flits to a performer slamming the neighbouring table, and at times I overhear someone pacifying his mother over the phone. But these moments are conscientiously coordinated, executed at a volume loud enough to jointly recreate the aural ambience of a busy coffeeshop without overpowering individual vignettes. Despite overlaying sounds and the white noise of conversation, the atmosphere at my table remains largely undisturbed. Each visiting vignette is hence able to unravel organically, exuding a distinctive flavour that rivets my attention.

The Hawker’s physical environment enthrals, its character’s plights provoke empathy, and I’m undeniably invested in the scenes that collectively present the humble coffeeshop as a microcosm of Singaporean society.

But something is amiss about this immersive work. We, the audience, are invisible and uninvolved.

Physically, the performance space and auditorium have merged; yet an impenetrable fourth wall remains to encircle the cast wherever they go, enclosing them in a fictional realm that we see and feel but are unable to independently interact with or explore.

I acknowledge that having an all-knowing audience, one privy to every development in the fictional world, necessitates this performance convention. Its existence, however, limits a truly immersive experience, re-establishing instead the conventional theatrical expectation of passive spectatorship.

Yes, immersive theatre is a performance genre that prioritises spatial design, where tactile and sensual environments contain visceral stimuli. The Hawker nails this part.

But equally important in immersive theatre is making the audience central to the action, privileging them with a purpose and sense of agency throughout. Immersive works need an audience to exist.

It’s a shame The Hawker feels that it doesn’t, promising an “immersive” experience that isn’t quite so.

“Affections”

Reviewer: Liana Gurung
Performance: 6 December 2019

Inspired by Chuck Mee’s Big Love and Limonade Tous les Jours, The Assembly Point’s debut show Affections is an exploration of the many facets of love. Told through three interwoven narratives, the show delves deeper into the common tropes that accompany romance. As the show’s synopsis puts it:

Another love song tops the charts.

Another fling in a foreign land.

Another bout of cold feet.

To this end, the script and characters strike a balance between the comedic triviality and poignancy of love. The initial tone of the production weighs more heavily on the former. The play opens explosively, with pop star “V” (Tia Guttensohn) strutting down a runway-cum-stage, lip-syncing passionately to a medley of love songs. It is clear that the play’s foremost intention is to delight its audience, cemented when Yaya (Fatin Syahirah) and Andrew (Jeramy Lim) rush into the room, trailing clothes.

A sparse and modest production lavish only in the smorgasbord of balloons at the room’s head, it is still clearly a labour of love, well-rehearsed and carefully produced. Cues are executed perfectly and in very narrow windows of time, as actors emerged from different doors in impressive costume changes with nary a hair out of place.

Certain narratives are more compelling than others. With V’s monologues, and the force of her own bubbly, idealistic character, the audience becomes invested; with the “cold feet” narrative, we become reminded of our own hesitations and anxiety when it comes to the uncertainty of loving and being loved back. The latter is bolstered also by a pair of riotous bridesmaids who are a perfect and comedic chorus to the waxing bride, played by Jelaine Ng.

However, the “fling in Bali” storyline seems slightly contrived. Tokenistic attributions and the temptation to saturate the characters with other symbolism – such as the implication of class on gender roles or the divide between lovers from “modern” versus “provincial” backgrounds – muddy an otherwise elegant argument about the temporal nature of love.

But even with the core threads of the narratives, it is the play’s explorations of other non-romantic strands of love, or “affection”, that are more compelling to me. The audience enjoyed particularly the loud, frank sisterhood shared by bride and bridesmaids, speaking openly of exes and bad choices. Another timely and more cerebral “affection” explored is the damaging aspects of fan culture – when affection turns to obsession – that V suffers as a result of her meteoric popularity. Love is, at every turn, in every form, a double-edged sword that brings as much pain as joy.

With an organisational ethos of anchoring their theatre practice on the power of collaboration, the actors indeed shine brightest when they could play off each other. Hinging on the cast’s effervescent energy, the play is a champagne fizz delight, and the fluidity of the actors within make it a joy to watch.

“Home is where you fight and sleep”

Reviewer: Teo Xiao Ting
Performance: 22 November 2019

Brimming with raucous arguments and tender gestures, Rumah Dayak by Rupa co.lab tells a story of a safehouse wherein six Malay youths seek shelter. The safehouse, brought to existence by Kak Julia (Farah Lola) and Abang Nahar (Al-Matin Yatim), gives troubled Malay youths who do not have anywhere to go a place to sleep, to rest – a home.

Over 90 minutes, the definition of a safehouse yawns and stretches. I find myself loving all six kids by the time I walk out of the theatre. The safehouse, borne out of desire and imagination, does not exist in Singapore. Yet, the institutional challenges it faces – such as lack of sufficient funding and imminent state interference – are rooted in reality. As an imagination of futurity, Rumah Dayak calls for a humanised acknowledgement and acceptance of those who have been marginalised and fell through the cracks. In this case, the matrep and minahrep who are often regarded with derision as mere troublemakers. While culturally different, as someone who was called an ah lian in my youth, I resonate with the struggles these youths contend with. It strikes more than a chord to witness the cast embody and expand the stereotype typically imposed on “wayward youths”. Nessa Anwar’s rendition of these characters is fiercely loving and flawed. Which is to say, they are bursting with life.

Through fully fleshed out characters who endear themselves endlessly to me, portraits of youths who have been dealt the short end of the stick reveal the emotional distress and trauma, as well as societal conditions, that have led the youths to scour for ways to survive. But it is important to note that they do so with dignity and a code of honour. When confronted with a possible drug-related offence that Shah (Uddyn J) has committed, Ella (Rusydina Afiqah) tries her best to address the issue while keeping true to her principle of “not [being] a snitch”. These youths have little when it comes to material resources, but they have much when it comes to dignity and love. When Dash (Yamin Yusof) is fretting over culinary school fees, Shah forks out $600 without hesitation.

When Rumah Dayak reaches a climax as the kids are faced with the safehouse’s imminent closure, they band together and try and figure out a solution. Ella, initially foul-mouthed and caustic, stands up for Julia as Amira demands for an explanation as to why this is happening to them: ”They gave us a roof when we needed it. If Kak Julia says the safehouse needs to close, we say ‘thank you’ and fuck off’”.

There are many scenes where the kids’ innocence and stubborn loyalty is presented with sharp realism, bringing me to laughter and tears. With all that, what hits me most is how they each unapologetically and fearlessly take on whatever life throws at them. The situation is unfair, and makes me itch with anger that Singapore, with all its social infrastructure in place, is still lacking so much. The mats and minahs are still here, living and loving, struggling to survive and strive towards building a life for themselves. In an especially heart-aching conversation between Dash and Julia, he confesses: “I thought you’ve forgotten about me.” She answers, soft and kind: “As soon as anyone walks in through these doors, we’ll never forget about you.” And I wish this for Singapore, that we never forget those who live among us, who are continuously trying and failing to seek a place to call home.

“Lie”

Reviewer: Yong Yoke Kay
Performance: 9 November 2019 

Lie with Me is presented by the graduating students of Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI). Written by Kaite O’Reilly and directed by Phillip Zarrilli, the piece explores the complex dynamics of modern-day relationships.

The characters in this work come from various backgrounds, including a migrant worker struggling to find employment, a high-ranking boss, a struggling artist, and a cleaner. This serves not only to display a variety of perspectives, it also highlights the universality of relationship dynamics explored in the play. None of us, regardless of sexual orientation, can avoid navigating the labyrinthine world of modern relationships.

The play opens with a movement phrase where the cast, dressed in nondescript jeans and t-shirts, lurch and stagger across the stage, seemingly devoid of feelings and consciousness. The bodies are numb and zombified, as if they are capable of only sleepwalking through life.

Subsequent movement phrases appear between each scene, setting the tone and serving as effective transitions. The music plays a major role, shaping the mood and delineating the trajectory.

The main storyline is divided into multiple dialogues, a daisy chain of interactions between eight characters that slowly reveal the ways in which their lives are intertwined. This structure highlights the actors’ nuanced portrayal of each character’s personality, and this reviewer is touched by the raw emotions bravely bared on stage. Particularly poignant is Wendy Toh’s character asking to be held by her lover (Jin Chen).

One major thread running throughout is the tendency of people to be selective with the stories they tell, much like how we curate our social media (or dating app!) profile. The precariousness of the self in modern society is examined closely, as characters get trapped in a swirling morass of truth and lies, twisted by the gravity of societal expectations, and pieced together with convoluted fragments of tales told to oneself and others.

Another universal theme explored is the human desire for touch and affection, and the various ways in which people satisfy this desire. Every character yearns to be caressed, not only by physical skin, but also by sweet words of seduction, by imagined happy endings, by hope. Confused between love and lust, they grasp at one another, caught up in a game where they push emotions and intimacy around like pieces on a board – sometimes manipulative, sometimes cynical, sometimes desperate.

One walks away from this production feeling overwhelmed, but strangely comforted by the fact that we are not alone in the struggles and trials of the complex world of relationships.

“The Journey Continues“

Reviewer: Jocelyn Chng
Performance: 8 November 2019

As I sit down to draft my review of Journey to a Dream, I am stumped. How do I even begin to review a work that sits within a festival that purports to defy conventional understandings of a festival? Journey to a Dream is the Festival Production of the third Southernmost, organised annually by theatre company Emergency Stairs. Every year, the Festival Production is created by the participating artists through a process premised on dialogue and exchange between the artists and their different art forms.

The artists, many of whom have participated in previous editions of Southernmost, are clearly highly proficient in their respective forms, and arresting to watch. Near the start of the performance, I am mesmerised by dancer Makoto Matsushima’s slow walk up the stairs, across the stage, and out the opposite door. Kunqu opera performer Shen Yili’s voice fills the black box and almost spills out of it – I appreciate being so close and witnessing her performance in such an enclosed space, because for the first time I feel like I can hear the personality through what to me is a distant, unfathomable technique of Chinese opera singing.

There is a moment when performer Amin Farid sings with Shen a well-known Malay song in Singapore, Dayung Sampan. Hearing it sung by Shen is a strangely beautiful experience. It is a straightforward exchange between the artists, but something about that simplicity touches me powerfully and I cannot quite explain why.

However, despite there being captivating moments such as the above, I nevertheless feel like an “outsider”. Not belonging to the world of any traditional Asian performance form, I feel like I can only appreciate the movements and physicality on a visceral level, but I lack some of the knowledge and language to fully appreciate the intricate layers of interaction between the numerous forms.

Apart from form and physical movement, Journey does respond to a theme – the idea of “centre/decentring” comes across strongly in the text that is both narrated in a voiceover and visually projected. A repeated image is that of a white 17^th century French dress with wide panniers, worn by several of the performers – what I read as the team’s response to the obsession that King Louis XIV’s court had with chinoiserie and Chinese costumes. It is no accident that classical Javanese dancer Didik Nini Thowok, who specialises in cross-gender performance, spends a good amount of time centre stage in that dress.

But in the midst of the many bodies and images on stage are several concepts that could do with clearer unravelling. Is this a “de-centring” or a “re-centring”? Or a “re-claiming”? And of what? Culture? Gender? Power? All of the above? We are also told by the voiceover and projected text, “thank you for your cooperation” several times throughout the performance. I wonder what I am meant to be “cooperating” with. I leave this performance with more questions than answers; but perhaps this is an intended effect.

Southernmost is Emergency Stairs’ response to the question “How do you create an arts festival for the future?” I keep coming back to this as I try to respond to Journey. Unfortunately, my thoughts on this are rather bleak. Journey, and Southernmost on the whole, do clearly reject the traditional funding and production structures associated with the international festival circuit, and encourage exchange and process-development amongst the artists involved. However, from the perspective of an audience member, Journey, with its end-stage configuration and clear performance framing, does little to challenge conventional ideas of spectatorship and the relationship between performer and audience. As an interested and involved member of the arts scene – part of an “in-group” that inherently supports Emergency Stairs and the kind of work it is doing – I am all too aware that the work likely appeals to precisely this in-group. But I question to what extent performances like Journey can really, in our product-oriented culture, change the way the arts are understood and experienced, not just produced and consumed.

“Sifting Through Seas and Soils”

Reviewer: Teo Xiao Ting
Performance: 16 October 2019

A shadow emerges from the drain covers in front of the Malay Heritage Centre, doused in a gentle blue light. An invocation to call upon histories of this land we stand on, histories that we have obscured and neglected, voluntarily or not. A few other figures emerge, their heads and backs affixed with dark feelers and antlers, masquerading as creatures. Thus begins Tanah, the first part of Tanah•Air水•土：A Play In Two Parts by Drama Box.

Through the Bicentennial programming this year, we see many stories excavated and obscured to different degrees. Tanah•Air is one of the few that excavates, makes clear the murky narratives of Singapore through meticulous and tender storytelling methods. Though I struggle to find synergy between the play in their respective two parts, the importance of Tanah and Air is undeniable.

Right after the evening prayer call, in the open air, I witness the script that Neo Hai Bin adapted from Isa Kamari’s Duka Tuan Bertakhta. As Koh Wan Ching narrates the heart wrenching tale of Marmah and Ramli, a cloud of performers cloaked in black dances across the ground of the Malay Heritage Centre. Are they spectres of the history lost in the soil of the sacred golden hill described in the tale? Or are they spirits raging on behalf of the histories we failed to honour?

Each word that emerges from Koh’s mouth cuts through the slight wind surrounding Kampong Gelam, and I can feel the weight of Marmah’s struggle between her loyalty towards the sick as a practising healer and her adoptive father. As Marmah is faced with an imminent rebellion, the black figures drape themselves in red, manifesting the bloodshed that is about to happen. Tanah ends with a wedding procession, and I almost mistake it for a neighbouring celebration that someone is hosting elsewhere. The line between fiction and reality blurs.

The story is mesmerising, but it’s a shame that Tanah excludes those who cannot afford to tear their eyes away from the surtitles due to language barriers.

After a short intermission, we enter the auditorium for Air, a piece of verbatim theatre that stitches together lived experiences of the Orang Seletar. The floor is covered with chalk drawings of geographical names, mutable and ephemeral. Leiti, played by Dalifah Shahril, tells of the excruciating experience of losing her child to the sea she loves deeply. She tries, desperately, to revive her child with ilmu (sacred knowledge) to no avail. When she sends her child to the clinic, he had passed on. As she crumbles at the corner of the stage, the rest of the characters narrate on, compassionate yet insistent that their stories be heard.

One line that stays with me is when Roslan Kemat’s character confesses to his son (Farez Najid) that he “no longer knows how to love [him]; [he] has become too different”. As the Orang Seletar, adaptable and capable as they are, are faced with the region’s ceaseless hunger for “development”, what is lost and what can be retained? In a sequence that follows, Farez pulls a string to a grey box overhead, and a stream of thin white sand starts falling. Is he praying for forgiveness, for divine assistance, or is he simply trying to invoke the spirits that have kept the Orang Seletar safe on the sea for decades? The cloud of white covers his face, then his shoulders, eventually forming a small hill at his feet.

At the end, a stack of court documents is laid to our feet, and I lean forward to read the impersonal legal language in which they are written. The coldness of how laws, constructed to protect and serve its people, can fail, invoked a surge of anger in my chest. After witnessing the deeply personal stories told to me over 90 minutes, these documents are achingly lacking. As I leave the theatre, the cast remain standing on one foot, struggling to maintain balance. A continuous balancing act that bleeds beyond this short run of Tanah•Air.