“Press Gang”

Reviewer: Liana Gurung
Performance: 11 July 2018

In Press Gang’s revolving set – of “musical chairs”, as associate editor Tang Soon (Rei Poh) puts it – a towering stack of newspapers is the eye of the storm. It is a reminder of the loftier and more noble ambitions of journalism even as the characters orbiting around it descend into petty politics and newsroom squabbles. Tan Tarn How’s long-awaited return to the stage leverages heavily on his career as a journalist, and provides privileged insights into the chaos of the newsroom.

Yet there are moments and scenes in this Wild Rice production where Tan’s commentary is almost heavy-handed, the curtain between playwright and artwork thinning to make the latter a mouthpiece for the former’s politics.

If the name “Press Gang” refers to faction lines, starkly drawn between those who champion press freedom and those who toe the line, then a similarly stark brush has been applied to its cast of characters. Bright and bland, Press Gang’s main character Chua Kin Jek (Benjamin Chow) is a blank page waiting to be written, with the play’s pursuance of ‘politics’ filtered through his journey as a nascent reporter. Each character he meets occupies a clearly defined space along a political spectrum that spans conservative to liberal, which renders the play curiously black and white when its subject matter is so (literally) grey.

Press Gang’s cast is energetic and loud, but devoid of nuance. Contrast and juxtaposition are most commonly used to bring out the play’s larger themes: Kin Jek’s ambivalence against Mariam’s (Yap Yi Kai) conviction; political desk editor Christopher’s (Shane Mardjuki) more conservative leanings to news desk editor Aminah’s (Oniatta Effendi) tempered liberalism. It is clear where the play’s sympathies lie, with much of its conflict tied to the struggle against censorship that undergirds so much of information sharing in Singapore.

What is captured with pinpoint accuracy is the dread and fear that comes with dealing with powerful figures in Singapore – and the apathy and resignation that is a product of being a soldier in the foregone conclusion. More interesting than Mariam’s crusade to publish sensitive material are the moments when we are given access to the more banal instances of journalistic disillusionment. These smaller, slower and more intimate moments stand out in a play that is otherwise filled with furious motion, playing gleefully with props and technology to bring out parallel conflicts between the worlds of digital and print.

Press Gang is quintessentially Singaporean, filled with references that demand local knowledge into the political scene to grasp and appreciate. Though at times a little glib and pert in its commentary, the questions it asks and the narratives it traces are important ones – ones that will reveal and remake the integrity of our newsrooms, our information channels, and the mechanisms that keep the powers in Singaporean society in check.