“Imitation game”

Reviewer: Edward Eng
Performance: 15 March 2019

Little adds up in Edith Podesta’s staging of Complicite’s A Disappearing Number. Several ideas on mathematics and how it manifests in love, history and mortality are visited superficially but nothing more.

The play pulls together two stories: in 1913, English mathematician G. H. Hardy invites an Indian clerk named Srinivasa Ramanujan to work with him when he discovers Ramanujan has an eye for the mathematical sublime. Meanwhile, an American fund manager (Pavan Singh) falls in love with a university lecturer (Koh Wan Ching) after he attends her lecture on sequences and series in present-day Brunel University in the UK.

Fictional physicist Aninda Rao (Remesh Panicker) narrates. He draws links between the two stories, which at heart are both about love.

The interweaving narrative tinkers on rendering the invisible world through a kaleidoscope which, if handled well, would allow the burning core of the drama to shine. But Podesta’s version seems to squander most of her resources on unnecessary theatrical devices.

If it sounds complex, it sure is. Tabla drums – admittedly well-textured and often stirring – are played live (Nawaz Mirajkar) to set the scene. The good ensemble from NUS Stage, the sound samples (Teo Wee Boon) and lighting atmospherics (Suven Chan) further nudge the world into shape. Brian Gothong Tan’s projection adds something as well.

But the stagecraft is distracting to say the least. The various elements fight to say the same thing, and often end up sounding like odd imitations of each other.

It is also detrimental that the main characters are less interesting than the supporting cast from NUS Stage. This is partly because the main cast gives only serviceable performances.

I also enjoyed the little riffs on how numbers surface in everyday interactions. In one recurring scene where the fund manager talks to a BT mobile call centre staffer, for instance, numbers unravel across time, space and social condition. Scenes like this actually end up being much more fascinating than the main storyline.

They remind me of a similar story about how people see beauty in the abstract: Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises breathes life into warplane designer Jiro Horikoshi using moments that do not explicitly further the plot. The difference is that The Wind Rises folds all its dramatic elements into each other seamlessly.

Podesta’s direction, on the other hand, leaves bits and bolts sticking out. There are these huge screens that go up and down, and their sheer size makes the device clunky. Accents and intentions are also oddly chosen: some of the cast feel like they want to be Indian and they want to like maths. That disappointed me the most.

“(Blast) to the Past”

Reviewer: Casidhe Ng
Performance: 22 March 2015, 3pm

Part of the National University of Singapore’s Arts Festival 2015 (the theme being “Spirit of the Times”), Chair is a dramatized reading of three original plays written by students. The scripts used Desmond Sim’s The Chair as inspiration and a springboard. Set in specific locations within the nostalgic and well-conserved Peranakan home “Baba House”, the three plays are joined by overarching themes of distance, loss, familial times and change, as well as the inevitable erosion of the past.

“Moving” by Vanessa Ronald invites us into a dysfunctional family trapped between the past and the future. The rebellious eldest daughter (played remarkably well by Zhou Yutong) is determined to pursue an education overseas against her parents’ wishes, as the family faces the possibility of losing their home due to housing redevelopments. Due to the brisk reading of the lines some nuances of the text are lost, and the pacing could have been better in ensuring a build-up to the climax.

Jenny Ganeshrays’s duologue “Hungry at Midnight” utilizes the space and atmosphere of the Baba House to its fullest, and also features wonderful chemistry between its two lead actors, making this the highlight of the three. A small issue is the shocking revelation of Vicki’s (Vanessa Ronald) lifestyle overseas, which introduced an element of unexpected melodrama. This throws the piece out of the reality it has constructed.

“Tok Panjang” by Goh Koon Hui is an ambitious non-linear play that spans several generations, tracing the lineage of two Peranakan families whose pasts are littered with unfortunate occurrences surrounding homosexual tendencies. Despite the students’ best efforts to brand the various characters with physical differences such as the wearing of a T-shirt, the characters remain indistinct and inconsistent. Due to the lack of clarity of scenes that occur in different time periods, the play loses an overall flow, becoming simply a collation of vignettes that appear to revolve around the cyclical nature of history. The references to homosexuality and possible incest possesses little sensitivity to either matter. After two particularly well-crafted and well-executed plays, it seemed rather disappointing that the last came across as under-rehearsed and messy despite its apparent potential.

In spite of everything, Desmond Sim and his students have managed to craft a remarkable experience, which at its heart, is simply the act of being in midst the incredible interior of the Baba House. What a way to spend the Sunday afternoon: soaking up history, watching contemporary stories play out in a traditional setting, and to plainly enjoy the sheer element of storytelling.

“Furthest North, Deepest South”

Reviewer: Casidhe Ng
Performance: 22 March 2015

First staged by The Finger Players in 2004, Furthest North, Deepest South tells the story of the eunuch Cheng Ho, and his tumultuous brotherly relationship with Emperor Zhu Di as well as his eventual mission to sail the world in search of new lands.

Entering the performance space, one would immediately notice the unconventional staging. With a minimal amount of sets used, the audience was situated at four ends of a cubic space, a rather peculiar directorial choice that limited the playing space for the actors but allowing intimacy.

This new, abridged staging of the original script written by Chong Tze Chien instead showcases a plethora of symbolic references that ultimately lacks a fixed sense of direction. This causes the play to come across as incoherent and conflicting. Emperor Zhu Di (Jessica Lee Xin) is referenced to and played as a male, despite the fact that the character is played by a female sporting a red dress and platform shoes. “His” mannerisms are similarly and largely feminine, and it is later depicted that he rapes a concubine in anger, leaving this audience member confused and stunned. The other elements of the play, such as costumes and multimedia, do not cohere. The advisors are dressed in apparent contemporary outfits; the crew that sails with Cheng Ho is clad in construction uniforms.

There is a lack of clarity in the time and space in which the production unfolds. There are short scenes of a Miss Universe pageant interspersed in the narratives, leading up to the rather straightforward point that the Emperor wants the universe for himself. While it is fine to confound time and space in the first few scenes, the overall performance eventually becomes a conglomerate of underdeveloped symbols with disparate meanings and distant references with no real indication of purpose.

Notwithstanding the opaque symbolism, Furthest North, Deepest South’s technical aspects manage to contribute effectively to the play’s overall pacing and ideas. There are sparse moments of abstract beauty provided by the multimedia and the soundscapes that created much needed atmosphere and mood in the piece.

Finally, the play would be nothing without powerful performances from its cast, leading with an exceptional portrayal of Cheng Ho by Shannen Tan that echoes Fanny Kee’s original performance of the role. Seah Wenqian and Nur Sofiha similarly offset the unbalanced tragedy of the play with their comedic personas as the cheerful crew, who accompany Cheng Ho on his journey.

Despite its apparent flaws, the Year 3 Theatre Students of the National University of Singapore have provided us with a refreshing and nuanced interpretation of Chong’s original script, one that is booming with potential and possibility for these young and capable actors.