Centre 42 » Versus https://centre42.sg Thu, 16 Dec 2021 10:08:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.30 VERSUS by Cake Theatrical Productions https://centre42.sg/versus-by-cake-theatrical-productions-2/ https://centre42.sg/versus-by-cake-theatrical-productions-2/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2015 09:07:18 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=3235

“Theatre vs theatre”

Reviewer: Walter Chan
Performance: 20 August 2015

Conflictual obligation languishes in confusion.

Production Poster. Credit: Cake Theatrical Productions

Production Poster. Credit: Cake Theatrical Productions

It should be said, right off the bat, that you’re watching a Cake Theatricals production. So yes, re-tune your logic, withhold your skepticism and abandon all reason.

Versus is commissioned as part of this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). It explores the festival’s theme of Post-Empires, with the repeated refrain of “this world is not our home”. As with any Cake production, the characters run the gamut of eclectic: from a Mao-like power-hungry dictator to a know-it-all woolly mammoth.

Within the first fifteen minutes, the tone for this show is set: abrupt amalgamations of characters, dressed in different shades of alienation, deliberated on the dilemma of being “post-”; a discombobulated ensemble locked in eternal conflict, with each other and; collectively with the present and the past.

But, the performers tackle their roles with gusto, always coursing in motion. Halfway into the show, I can see Rizman Putra’s naked torso gleaming with sweat as he clambers up and down vertical structures. (The echoes of his impeccable Lady of Soul performance three months back is worth at least a silent chuckle.) The performers’ stylized movements are backed by a throbbing soundtrack (that verged on being too loud at times) and garish multimedia visuals (photosensitive epilepsy warning!) – to call it a sensory overload is a massive understatement.

But right as the mood is sinking into Sarah Kane-depressed levels, an unexpected comedic segue brings the show back to life. Special mention must go to Edith Podesta for carrying the comedic weight of this segment, with little slapstick moments that actually feel spontaneous and inspired. Alas, this segment ends way too soon (with an appropriately comedic ending), and we are right back in depression territory.

The stream-of-consciousness text revels in its disconnected, disjunctive imagery. Words and movements juxtapose opposite meanings against each other, like when the spoken line “to live” is accompanied with a finger drawn across the throat. The plot, if it barely exists, loosely strings together themes of dictatorship, female identity, and war trauma, amidst a post-lapsarian landscape. There are glimpses of past Cake productions: ideas that resurface, and a post-modern treatment of the text, most noticeably in the recitation of a portion of the script backwards – word for word.

Post-lapsarian, post-modern, post-Empires. Anyone get the links yet? (Me neither.)

Don’t bother making sense of it all. There is no grand point to be made here – and I suspect that this is Versus’ biggest flaw: giving you all of the avant-garde, but none of the theatre.

 

Do you have an opinion or comment about this post? Email us at info@centre42.sg.

 

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

VERSUS by Cake Theatrical Productions
20 – 22 August 2015
SOTA Drama Theatre

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Walter Chan has recently starting dabbling in play-writing, most usually writing ‘for fun, but hopes to develop his hobby into something more substantial in the future.

 

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VERSUS by Cake Theatrical Productions https://centre42.sg/versus-by-cake-theatrical-productions/ https://centre42.sg/versus-by-cake-theatrical-productions/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2015 05:48:18 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=3227

“What is the Point of Confrontation?”

Reviewer: Isaac Tan
Performance: 21 August 2015

What goes into a Cake production?

An episodic structure, edgy music, video projections, big masks or headgear, and jarring dances. In the context of Versus, these elements are employed to explore various facets of personal and national struggles against the backdrop of the rise and fall of empires.

In the midst of it all, various characters ask various existential questions. Two women named Mary (Edith Podesta and Andrea Ang) — one of them possibly imaginary — struggle with identity and perception. A soldier (Thomas Pang) questions the point of fighting and war; a dictator (Julius Foo) questions any challenge to his power, and pseudo-mythical beings of creation and destruction (Goh Guat Kian and Julius Foo) perform their respective acts of creation and destruction responsible for all the questions in the first place.

Throw in a parodic interlude of Land Before Time meets Wizard of Oz where pre-historic animals are in search of the truth from a “surrealistic artist” and you get an acid trip sans damage to your physical health.

Amidst the torrent of questions, I have one of my own: what is the point of Versus’ confrontation?

The dense text, written by Michelle Tan, contains catchy existential phrases (“Some days are harder than others. All days come to an end”). The text is, however, complicated by the flurry of contradictory hand gestures by the actors as they deliver their lines. To top it all off, the audience is bludgeoned with video sequences, sound effects, and trippy songs sung by angels perched on ladder-like structures. All this appears to be different layers of meanings to be decoded, but the audience has no starting point or a chance to find their bearings.

The play is not interested in intellectualization or drawing its audience in emotionally. It conflates the personal and universal but hovers above dualisms. Questions are asked but it seems uninterested in getting an answer.

Such all-out confrontations may well reflect the complex post-modern condition. But do it repeatedly and it only becomes an on-stage kaleidoscope; an intriguing toy in which the audience marvel at stage pictures and continuously return merely to see how off-kilter the dramaturgy can get.

Director Natalie Hennedige mentions in the show notes that Cake’s productions are “defined by [their] own rules of play.” This reviewer is all for pushing the envelope. But to devise a game without telling the audience the rules is another thing altogether.

 

Do you have an opinion or comment about this post? Email us at info@centre42.sg.

 

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

VERSUS by Cake Theatrical Productions
20 – 22 August 2015
SOTA Drama Theatre

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Isaac Tan is a current contributor to The Kent Ridge Common, an NUS publication, and an aspiring poet whose poems have appeared in Symbal, Eunoia Review, Eastlit, and Malaise Journal.

 

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