“Cashing in”

Reviewer: Myle Yan Tay
Performance: 20 February 2019

For a farce to work, actors need to be continually bouncing a giant ball of energy. Every gag is a pass or lob, and without enough focus, the ball drops. The slightest error in timing and the ball misses its mark. And as the game progresses, the ball needs to get bigger and bigger to keep the audience engaged. This ball is ever-present in the Stage Club’s latest production, Cash on Delivery, written by Michael Cooney. Although there are funny and entertaining moments, more could have been done to make sure that ball stayed in the air throughout the show’s two-hour duration.

Cash on Delivery follows Eric Swann, a young man who has been cheating the state’s social security system. His life starts to unravel when a fraud inspector needs to verify Swann’s claims. In typical farce fashion, there are mistaken identities, physical comedy, drunken escapades, absurd characters, and plenty of wordplay. These provide plenty of comedic fodder for the first hour of the performance.

After intermission, however, the show starts to lurch. The performers do their best to keep the story alive but the script feels too long. Scenes start to become repetitive and formulaic, bordering on predictable. Before intermission, a clever turn-of-phrase could elicit a hearty laugh from the crowd. After, the banter becomes monotonous, lacking the same freshness from its first half. And with a two-hour running time, it becomes almost impossible to keep escalating the stakes without becoming tiresome.

Swann’s descent is elevated by Neal Thapar’s performance, full of wide-eyed panic and snappy transformations. Thapar is precise in his performance, and remains clear and controlled no matter what Swann is getting up to. Unfortunately, other performers struggle with this – when the character’s mania overwhelms the actor’s voice, line delivery often becomes incoherent.

On a similar note, there are multiple lines that could not be heard over the audience’s roaring laughter. Though this is a good problem to have, future productions would fare well to ride the audience’s laughter rather than attempting to fight it.

Another issue is that as this script was first staged in London in 1996, some of the humour feels dated, especially jokes pertaining to cross-dressing and gender. It is possible that Cooney meant to critique the characters’ limited perspectives, but without even discussing political correctness, the jokes fail to go beyond crudeness or shock value.

Cash on Delivery starts strong, and there’s plenty of laughs to be had as Swann’s web of lies grows and grows. But, at a point, the web becomes too big to even keep track of, and the team drops the ball. Coupled with the play’s lacklustre ending, this reviewer can’t help but feel that the Stage Club’s experience with farces could be put to better use on a snappier and sharper script.

“One Man, Two Guvnors”

Reviewer: Myle Yan Tay
Performance: 25 May 2017

Francis (played by Paul McCracken) asks the audience if they know that the play is based on a commedia dell’arte work from the 18^th century. Greeted by silence, he smiles, thankful that there aren’t any “dicks in the audience”. This irreverent and fast-paced spirit keeps the production vibrant and alive.

But when the production loses this energy and drags, it falters.

For commedia dell’arte to work, there needs to be a very sharp sense of timing. In this production, the dynamic shifts between complete doubt, full bravado, asides to the audience, and emotional outbursts vary in quality.  Alexander Clark, playing the bigoted and proud Stanley Stubbers, provides us with charm and bluntness. Neal Thapar is engaging as the quintessential thespian, ready to cry at the drop of a hat.

But there is room for more fine-tuning. Certain gags were clearly honed while others lack that same punch.

Paul McCracken sometimes falters as the dim-witted and accidentally duplicitous Francis. That said, he is onstage for almost the full two and a half hours, and when he is working the crowd or moving frenetically through a scene, he is exceptionally entertaining. One of the funniest sections of the play takes place when McCracken invites an audience member onstage, gives her an instruction, and then leaves. When given room to improvise, McCracken soars, adding the punch and keeping up the pace of a production that at times needs that guidance.

The physical comedy of the show gives an exciting spectacle of bodies thrown around the stage, but certain elements of the fight choreography can be refined:  certain moments looking stiff and rehearsed.

The Stage Club is an amateur theatre group whose membership is “drawn both from the ever-changing expatriate population and from Singaporeans”. As such, non-spoken roles in this production are cameos for members of the club. While this engages the community, these appearances stick out like odd thumbs.

One actor puts on a Jamaican accent, that is at times incoherent, and on the whole, alienating and bizarre. It is never clear if it is meant to be comedic, because the audience only laughs at Rahul Ghai’s comical physicality rather than the accent.

The musical interludes provide a nice break between scenes but many outstay their welcome. On the whole the performance is too long, and it puts a drag on the pace.

One Man, Two Guvnors takes some time for the actors to get started but by the time they do in the second act, every gag is a hit. However, this production needs to sharpen the actors’ timing and overall pacing.

“Calendar Girls”

Reviewer: Casidhe Ng
Performance: 10 March 2017

The Stage Club is best known for its consistent track record of putting on notable English plays, but its latest offering sadly adds little more than unrealised potential to its repertoire.

Adapted from Tim Firth’s 2003 movie of the same name, Calendar Girls tells the story of Annie and a group of fellow women from the Knapely Women’s Institute in the UK. It follows their attempt to raise money for Leukemia Research by posing nude for a calendar after Annie’s husband passes away from leukemia.

The production’s greatest strength is undoubtedly the script’s wit and humour – which is especially evident in the first act – with banter and quips at each turn. The highlight is the photo-taking scene, where the cast slowly shed their robes and experiment with props, teasing the audience by treading that thin line between suggestion and seduction. The resulting photos are then projected onto a screen for the audience to savour.

It’s enjoyable to see The Stage Club experimenting with multimedia – whether it’s showcasing those photos or projecting a series of messages detailing the impact the calendar had on the women after its release. They add a tad of emotional impact to the mix, but they also end up occasionally filling in the gaps left by the actors themselves.

The performances of the six central females are serviceable but rarely exceptional. Elena Scherer (who plays Annie) lands a few well-timed emotional beats upon her husband’s death but leaves a sense of untapped potential, while Jane Grafton (who plays Annie’s best friend, Chris) sells her character’s need for attention but rarely ventures beyond that. Dee Allan and Marilyn White fare better in their respective roles as Ruth and Celia, and are evidently more comfortable in their portrayals.

Unfortunately, the fast-paced delivery of lines from the actors and issues with voice projection mean that some opportunities for character development are inevitably lost. The characters also show a lack of individuality in the second act. Atop that, several plot threads in the second act appear underdeveloped and rushed: the stress faced by Annie in the aftermath of the calendar’s release could have been far more impactful, while Ruth’s outburst from her pent-up rage seems unnecessarily restrained.

Nevertheless, the full house on this particular evening is evidence that The Stage Club has retained its audience with its niche plays and distinctive humour. Ultimately, the performance makes for an enjoyable (if forgettable) evening at the theatre.

“Love, Minus The Fluff”

Reviewer: Meera Nair
Performance: 27 February 2016

Sitting in the first row, I stare at empty bottles of Corona Extra and Asahi Dry Black on the stage. The stage floor is littered with peanut shells and cigarette butts. As the audience file in, two actors are already on stage, miserably drinking their problems away.

Directed by Kamil Haque, The Savage/Love Of Danny And The Deep Blue Sea combines two separate plays, Savage/Love by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, and Danny And The Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley, lending new meaning to each as they feed off each other. Both plays are thematically similar in exposing the jagged edges of that fluffy thing we call ‘love’.

Back in our dingy bar, which is the setting for Danny And The Deep Blue Sea, Savage/Love plays as filmed vignettes on the bar’s wall. The blue-green tinted film lends to the gritty atmosphere in the bar.

Savage/Love deals with moments in love. In this production, it is for the most part solemn, with exceptions being First Moment (sweet), Babble I, II and III (amusing), as well as Terms of Endearment (particularly touching as it is in sign language). Beggar is a key vignette here, as it marks the transition from Savage/Love into Danny And The Deep Blue Sea. Recited live in the bar by ‘Fred’ (Shivram Gopinath) as a drunken ode to a beer bottle, it is darkly amusing.

The transition is complete when Fred walks out and Danny (Ray Jones) walks in. Put this way, Danny And The Deep Blue Sea is treated as yet another vignette in Savage/Love. And savage it is. Both characters, Danny and Roberta (Marilyn White) are haunted by guilt and find redemption in each other. The violence is painful to watch. The sound of slaps makes me wince.

I found the choice of medium for these two plays to be appropriate. As a collection of moments and feelings, Savage/Love is applicable to many individual stories, and can find life across cultures, times and spaces. It is enduring in the sense that it can be revisited over and over again, even by the same person in the course of his or her life. It is like a film. In contrast, Danny And The Deep Blue Sea creates an individual story from a unique collection of moments. Like theatre, this particular story exists only for as long as it runs.

On the whole, The Savage/Love Of Danny And The Deep Blue Sea has been astute in its choice of plays. In combining existing material, it casts new light on these plays, giving us something new and different, and exposing that love isn’t that easy after all.