THE HAWKER by The Second Breakfast Company

“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.