“The Cemetery, Dawn“

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 19 September 2015, 5.30am

It Won’t Be Too Long, created by Drama Box, is one of twelve commissions by this year’s Singapore International Festival of the Arts. It is conceived in two parts – The Lesson and The Cemetery, within the latter a further division: Dawn and Dusk. I experienced only Dawn, so this is a review in response to a section of a much larger work.

It Won’t Be Too Long: The Cemetery, Dawn begins at 5.30am (yes! 5.30 in the morning!!) and moves through sunrise into the day. It is a site specific performance that happens in Bukit Brown Cemetery, Singapore’s first Chinese cemetery most recently in headlines when in 2012, the government proposed to build an 8 lane highway through part of the grounds. Many were outraged and the land was vocally contested, but ultimately (and frankly, unsurprisingly) plans went ahead. Over 3700 bodies have been exhumed, aluminum barriers erected and construction has begun. The contestation of space, a locally scarce resource, sits at the heart of this performance. The piece also confronts tensions between mythology and policy, and asks the extent of our responsibility towards our land and preserving physical traces of our history.

Though the staged piece of ensemble physical theatre happens at the site itself, for me the performance begins the minute I wake to go to Clementi MRT, where the company has arranged for transport to take us to the cemetery. It is dark outside and I am in a mini van with 5 other people heading to the site. It is an intimate affair so far and I’m thinking it’s going to stay that way until we arrive at the path before the Bukit Brown entrance. There are over 100 other people there! Audiences have either woken up especially for this or have come straight from the night before. Here we all are, in this most unusual of circumstances, drinking coffee and sharing biscuits that are also provided as part of our small breakfast pack. There is an unexpected solidarity in being together; a street lit warmth of a community. A charismatic production person conducts a briefing and communicates practical information (tips on the adjustment of our eyes to darkness), and puts us at ease. We are told the inspiration of the piece, a figurative “here are the gaps you fill”… I like that.

We walk in the dark till we come to the playing area. There are long backless benches (like the ones we used in primary school P.E) waiting for us across a gentle slope lined with candles. I meditate on the ember ends joss sticks in the earth near my feet. Then I hear the distinct grating of travelling wheels on gravel. I imagine a coffin being pushed up a hill, it is so dark I barely make out any detail: it is like a dream. A moving tableau of a small funeral procession travels slowly up the slope. A woman leads the way. The structure on wheels is parked; two bodies alight. These are the 6 performers who will be taking us through the next hour and a half. They prime us into the composition with the sound of flesh on flesh – the sound of mortality. The choreography is audible breaths and vocal vibration as much as it is physical exertion. They come together; they fall apart – playing the literal and the metaphorical in a dance of histories. The ensemble reconnects us with a fight, a movement and a spirit arguably more associated with the history of people in this country. They go through a trove of stories – like a culmination of all your grandparents’ memories dreamed into life.

The visual reveal comes gradually as the sun rises – how extraordinary to think of the sun as a collaborator! The mist and the haze, the wind and the trees are the scenographers. What I took to be a coffin is actually a piano, which is satisfyingly played, a song for the dead. There are tombs all around us. The birds and the humans sing the same phrase. The final sequence is one of hope, the ensemble sheds the skin of history and of time, they dance in the flesh, following the music from the radio of a passing cyclist.

It Won’t Be Too Long gifts us the time to think – to think about the relationship between heritage and progress, to think about the distinction between the concept of being land starved and the physical realities of negotiating space. What has to give?

This project is a vital contribution to the memory of Bukit Brown and this time in Singapore’s history. It marks the fact that we have not forgotten and we must continue not to forget. It reminds us that the people will change, but the land will stay the same. These stories and conversations must continue resurfacing if we want to keep our histories and our fleeting present alive.

“Lucy Prebble’s The Effect”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 8 September 2015

Here, in The Effect, we focus on Tristan (Johnson Chong) and Connie (Krissy Jesudason), two young subjects on a clinical trial for new anti-depressants that increase dopamine levels in the brain. But who is the control in this experiment? Who is on the placebo? As dosages increase, a parallel relationship between administering psychiatrist Lorna (Chio Su Ping) and her employer Toby (Prem John) reveals fundamentally opposing views on how and when to medicate mental illness.

Couch Theatre has made a stunning choice of script to present. Lucy Prebble’s skilful four-hander serves up a compelling human narrative on a plate of fundamental questions about neuroscience, medicine, illness and life. What do we consider ‘real’ love and depression to be? Is the love experienced by the medicated mind, less legitimate? With more questions than answers, The Effect opens up discussions around mental health that is sorely lacking. We leave this performance thinking, reflecting and talking to each other. At what point does sadness become clinical depression? How useful is it to analyse our human experiences through chemical levels in the brain?

In this iteration, there tends to be more of a focus on the general picture rather than its finer details – the semi naturalistic set of white blocks coupled with largely conventional sound and lighting serves the physical rather than metaphorical aspects that the text affords. I feel that more ambition needs to be pursued here. The ensemble holds the text together with tactile chemistry and ease; this gives the entire performance a lovely charm. Ziyad Bin Ahmad Bagharib’s direction appears slightly insecure; the taut pacing needs to allow for more breathing space for the audience. It felt like I was being held on to tightly even though they were far from ever losing me. I want to place my hands on everyone’s shoulders and say, “relax, trust yourselves.”

There is no doubt that Couch Theatre is an intelligent company, working towards a practice more refined, innovative and confident. They’ve already made the excellent decision to tell great stories whilst cutting their teeth, all they need to do now is to throw themselves into the deep end and they may find something extra-ordinary. There is a lot of potential here… I’ll be watching this space with anticipation.

“Hearing Things: The Ghosts of The Substation”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 9 September 2015, 7pm

I sign an indemnity form – I understand they are not responsible if I lose something, I understand they are not responsible if I slip and hurt myself, I understand they are not responsible if I am frightened by paranormal activity and the baby in my womb decides to make a premature exit. Three company members lead me to my starting position, by the side of an alley: the entrance to the basement. “Here is a torch… I suggest not having it on all the time or it could ruin the atmosphere. You ready? Mind your head and remember to shut the doors behind you,” Soon enough, I am in darkness and it hits me – it is Hungry Ghost month and maybe I should have come with someone else.

Hearing Things is an experience that takes the form of a pre-recorded audio track designed to guide you on a journey through the Substation. Voices perform a weaving of stories, a cauldron of fact and fiction illuminating the warehouse converted theatre space through reported hauntings of its ghosts. Tania De Rozario, Terence Lau and Kamini Ramachandran have created an intricately crafted, gentle and effective stimuli for the imagination.

Attempted is a balance between the eerie portrayals of the spiritual world’s mystery with the harmlessness of the Substation’s resident ghosts. The visceral experience sharpens my awareness; there is a strong presence in negative space, be it paranormal or living. This tension in the atmosphere frightens and incites. As I proceed, I can feel a distinct drop in temperature as I walk from the basement into the backstage area, the tautness of yellow gaffa tape ascending the stairs reeks of human manipulation, I look at the creases on the sofa and I choose not to sit. There are little installations framing spaces, simple dressing, and isolated lights just out of sight. This is the beauty of site-specific work.

The audio track is composed with precision, it gives me space and time to look closer, it allows me the agency to move and focus my attention on what I choose. I oscillate between craving to see something I can’t explain to not wanting to witness anything at all. More than once I think about retracing my steps – not because I am afraid of what I can’t see, but because I am scared that there might be a human round the next corner. Isn’t it curious that at this point I am more afraid of other people than the eerie absence? The final act is gentle and we rest on a “silent thank you” to the space and its inhabitants.

A day on, I find myself watching the family dog bark at mid air, perhaps acknowledging the presence of my late granddad. Hearing Things has provided me the comfort I need to know that I am not alone.

“The LKY Musical”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 2 August 2015

Metropolitan Productions spins the compelling story of Singapore’s founding prime minister’s political coming-of-age into a disinfected piece of kinetic museum diorama. Verily, the LKY Musical will probably receive top marks as a piece of national education but it falls short as a piece of art. Sorely lacking in heart, the production is safe, efficient, well-funded and technically competent, perpetuating the dated “all hardware, no software” myth frequently projected onto Singapore itself.

In the midst of the crowded platform of contemporary tributes and collective nostalgia guided by the SG50 campaign, the mediocrity that is the LKY Musical begs us to consider the quality of legacy we want to receive and construct. It is slightly more measured a historical narrative than a 90’s primary school social studies textbook – Lim Chin Siong is mentioned for starters and not entirely vilified – the question still remains: why retell the national narrative via a musical based on Lee Kuan Yew’s life? Why not a Lim Chin Siong musical? Or a Kwa Geok Choo musical?

Certainly, there is no lack of public record or documentation of Mr Lee’s life. He was passionate, uncompromising, determined and ambitious. He was emotional; the love he shared with his wife was clear; he cried on live television for his country. And yet his biopic-musical is strangely unmoving and emotionally un-engaging. The business-like treatment of pace, broad stroked depictions of events and thinly written characters make for bad storytelling. Takis’ set is beautiful but used with little imagination.

The fundamental problem lies not with the actors. They do all right considering what they are given. Pang executes an impressive impersonation of LKY but Sharon Au struggles as Kwa Geok Choo. Dick Lee’s score, congested with musical tropes, adds little other than commercial appeal to a larger audience. I suspect the monolingual depiction of a multilingual society was a decision made with similar intent – apart from the odd opening line, the entire production is performed in English. One of the more compelling characters Koh Teong Koo (the trishaw man) played by Sebastian Tan, is a popular highlight not only because of his comedic timing, but also because he manages to capture a colloquialism in his dialect that is so identifiably Singaporean. Perhaps expanding that colloquial quality throughout the piece may have elicited more direct access and add richness to the work.

What this production fails to realise is that regurgitating the happy-clappy party line is not the way to create fondness, affection and unity. There is more to the Singapore spirit than clean walls and slick transitions. Dim Sum Dollies and their History of Singapore series as well as Sonny Liew’s graphic novel The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye both show that it is possible to conceive thought-provoking and nuanced work that celebrates a spirit of Singapore founded in its community, its rhythm and its humour – warts and all.

Theatre can be empowering without being expositional, it can be moving without being sentimental, it can be urgent without being pedantic. We can celebrate this country as what it is just as well as we celebrate what it should be. The LKY Musical was a missed opportunity; a luxury we cannot afford.

“Decimal Points [Infinity]”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 22 May 2015

We walk into the playing space, drinks in hand. The space has informal floor seating around a three-dimensional set. A large red machine, reminiscent of a lighthouse, towers in center of the performance space. There are bodies on stage , two robed, at rest on mutual desks, and one playing the electric guitar whilst hanging upside down from a skeletal cube.

The amplified noise vibrates and courses through my body. I can smell turpentine and paint. The audience immerses into this visceral environment and this sets the tone of how the following ritual is experienced: through the senses first. From on the onset, CAKE challenges the conventional expectation of accessing and reading theatre.

Decimal Points [infinity] feels like a fable about the industrial revolution. It examines linear progression, the human machine and the chaos, mindless conventions and its inevitable destruction. There are some fierce performances, urgent sequences, a mirror, a portal, a god with a shopping cart, progress through repetition. This performance is cut from a complex fabric, there is always more than one focal point, activating the agency of the audience: choose where you look. It is easy to suspend one’s senses as the sound pulses through our lungs. It is interesting how much can be said without the use of conventional speech and text: the work exists in a language fluently non-verbal.

Decimal Points [infinity] is comfortingly experimental, plural and open to interpretation. It demands we engage with its phenomenology through a baser intellect (way of knowing). It stays with me in the days that follow; arguably what the best performances do.

“The Tempest”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 1 May 2015

The stage is a fold in a giant’s book, a map, a country, a magic island upon which this dream-like tale takes place. The primarily imported English ensemble is pickled with Singapore-based actors from the repertory theatre, a hybrid that is also translated into its production team. What emerges from this international collaboration is a strong, solid and crisp performance of one Shakespeare’s last plays.

The entire ensemble speaks the shakespearean text with a familiar tongue, and we follow. There is a gentle feeling of community in Fort Canning Park as we surrender ourselves to the elements. The rain put us all, actors, crew and audience alike, in the same boat, hoping the show will go on regardless – this adds a rather exciting dimension to the work. There are some stellar performances from Shane Mardjuki, Ann Lek, Daniel Jenkins and their British counterparts Theo Ogundipe and Simon Robson. The Tempest is well directed with clear aesthetic and vision. The Asian horror-inspired spirits are a charming addition to the production. I hope to see more international collaborations such as this extend into the alternative, more experimental fields of Singapore theatre.

If you enjoy some solid Shakespeare or are curious about what Shakespeare feels like live, go to this.

An enjoyable production and a great night out!

“Public Enemy”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 25 April 2015

I will declare this at the onset: I am a jaded viewer. What frustrates me most about productions like Public Enemy is weak acting. Frankly I didn’t believe many of the characters; I was not moved at all. I spend much of the performance trying to look past unedited fidgets, synthetic sentiment posing as realism, and lazy performances.

Public Enemy is a commentary on socio-political opposition in Singapore through David Harrower’s rewrite of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. The new narrative feels compressed, too quick to arrive at convenient truisms. Our protagonist here is named Dr. Thomas Chee, a not-so-subtle allusion to the leader of a local opposition party. W!ld Rice cannot have known but in view of recent public spats and trials, this is all so perfectly timed. But bar a couple of soft prods, the production does not go as far as it could to facilitate fruitful discussion. And it is this half full glass that makes Public Enemy commendable in ambition but mediocre in realization.

The most intriguing and disappointing part of Public Enemy is the point when the lights come up onto the audience. Dr. Chee stands in front of the microphone and addresses us, the public; the theatre is transformed into a conference auditorium. There are a lot of interesting questions espoused into the packed hall, about politicians, the model of practiced democracy and consensus, but before we have any time to take them in, the questions are swiftly hijacked by an ensemble of actors in the audience hall boo-ing or cheering. The actual audience is literally silenced. With questions like “Does anyone have anything good to say about politicians?”, I imagine, some people might have wanted to say “yes!”. But the signs are conflicting and we never really know if the questions are addressed to us. The audience ends up being talked to as we are uncertain if we have the right to respond.

Overall, it felt like a half extended handshake or a slouched call to arms; strangely timid or perhaps just not brave enough. I can only speculate as to what has happened in the making of this work, but either way the possibilities of theatre and arguably of the chosen text are grossly stunted in its presentation. And that unexplored potential leaves Public Enemy on the safe side of provocative, which may not be enough to change anything outside of the theatre.

“Goldilocks and the Three Bears (in Mandarin)”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 15 March 2015

Impatience and anticipation in the foyer mounts as the minute hand strikes five past two. The doors open late; there is a palpable rush into the theatre – what satisfying enthusiasm!

The design of the production is impressive and well-conceived – a towering wood magically transforms into the interior of the bears’ house with light and sound dancing harmoniously through the musical. Francis O’Conner’s set is ingenious, ergonomic, mechanically swift. Gabriel Chan’s lighting was inspired and Jeffrey Yue’s sound work, intuitive. The costumes, especially those of the bears, had a life of their own.

The story can be distinctly split into three parts: World 1: The Bear Family, World 2: The Human Family and World 3: The collision of both. Poignant parallels of cautionary tales against “the unknown other” (for the bears, the humans and for the humans, the bears) are drawn through distinct musical and choreographic motifs.

The moral of the story? Talk to each other to figure things out. Don’t be frightened of the unknown. A suitably contemporary one to take from such an old tale.

The three bears played by Oliver Pang (Father Bear), Celine Rosa Tan (Mother Bear) and Sugie Phua (Baby Bear) bore delightful chemistry. Rosa Tan in particular was very strong. Goldilocks, played by Vanessa Phang, struggled a little with her songs, but had a youthful, impassioned stage presence, which suited her character.

There is much innovation and playfulness in the fabric of this work, reflected directly in the animated responses of its audience of children and families – “not too hot, not too cold”, a superb balance between education and fun.

“Hossan-ah! Safe and Secure in His Leong Arms”

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 28 January 2015

This is a ‘feel good’ show that actually felt good. Hossan Leong knows his audience: he speaks to them, and they speak back. This piece is pretty much everything it tries to be. It was well-intentioned and well positioned – an achievement in itself. Leong states clearly at the start that this evening is “a paying forward” through celebration and recollection of “who we (Singapore) are” and “where we come from”. The evening is punctuated with music and laughter. It’s a very self-assured set up with echoes of Dim Sum Dollies.

Bar a couple of missed beats and sections that requires editing, the performance hits the mark. Leong has an endearing stage persona and the audience loves him. With his occasional accompanist Elaine Chan (what a woman!), they rearrange local classics “Chan Mali Chan” and “Geylang Sipaku Geylang”, and international hits like Elton John’s “Your Song”.

I am not so sure about the bit where he sings about religion. It isn’t unbearably heavy handed, so I let that pass.

My favorite bit of the show is the contest between selected audiences to see who can translate “Queen’s English” into Kopitiam “Auntie speak”. The first few audience members haven’t a clue (they are self-confessed Starbucks patrons) so, unprovoked, the rest of the auditorium chimed in: “KOPI-O SIEW DAI!!” for “coffee with no milk and less sugar”. This was a solidarity moment that is uniquely Singapore.

This show is a testimony of Leong’s ability to connect to his Singaporean audience.

“Grand Singe“

Reviewer: Jemima Yong
Performance: 22 January 2015

Two bodies move; a man and a woman; repeating, then embellishing physical motifs. Sometimes, they move together; most times they are ships passing in the night.

This score of pedestrian choreography is structurally musical.

On several levels, the piece feels like a transplant. Firstly, there is an unnatural chasm between the performers and their movement material. The performances appear ‘on the surface’, as if the dancers were taking on movements organically created by other bodies.

A Q&A with the company later confirmed that this was indeed the case.

In addition, this reviewer notes a distinct disconnect between Grand Singe and the attending audience. Choreographer Nicolas Cantin likens the process of making the piece to reattaching fragments of a shattered porcelain cup that has broken in pieces. The notion of dance being able to transcend the boundaries of language falters here, as the piece interrogates culturally idiosyncratic milieu. No doubt, the company tries to connect; the performers greet us in Mandarin, they speak in English instead of French.

But sadly, this is just not enough.

I spend part of the performance trying to imagine: what if I were watching Grand Singe in another country – in Germany, the UK, France? I imagine more laughter from the audience, more acknowledged playfulness in place of the apparent confusion. What ways can a work like this be re-contextualised to better engage a distant audience (in every sense of the word)?

There were moments, where the audience and dancer saw eye to eye. Notably, the sequence with a pink balloon:

A dancer blows up a pink balloon until it bursts – We jump. We laugh – He pulls out another pink balloon from his pocket – Oh no, here we go again – He begins blowing into this one, but this time, holds off just before the balloon hits maximum capacity, letting some air out every time he takes a breath – He teases us for a while, plays with our anticipation before the second balloon bursts – Collectively, we jump, again.

Grand Singe plays quite a lot with presumed expectation of the audience. But at this showing, much of that anticipated expectation wasn’t there. This audience relates to bodies; our bodies and the bodies of others differently, we relate to abstraction differently, we relate to nudity differently. Grand Singe feels more incomplete than intended.

Most of this experience was a garbled monologue; not quite a conversation.

I leave the theatre speculating on the moments (or so I’ve heard) that have been taken out (perhaps by censors, perhaps by the artist, it is unclear). I wonder what those moments were, and how they might have influenced my experience if left intact. At the end of the day, it is difficult to evaluate Grand Singe knowing that it was, in fact, incomplete.