IT TAKES ALL KINDS by The Necessary Stage’s Theatre for Seniors

“It takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”

Reviewer: Idelle Yee
Performance: 2 March 2019

At first glance, The Necessary Stage’s (TNS) Theatre for Seniors (TFS) may sound like an extension of some active ageing policy. But it’s much more than that. Over the last ten years, TNS has been working with a dedicated group of senior theatre-makers, rigorously training them to take on roles both onstage and offstage such as playwriting, directing, technical work, and even facilitating improvisation workshops. It is, in the words of TNS’ artistic director Alvin Tan, “a form of discipline”.

TFS’ latest production is titled It Takes All Kinds, but rather than performing pre-written scripts, the group is taking a different approach. This time, the team collaborated with Japan’s Setagaya Public Theatre to devise a work drawn from the seniors’ stories. The result is a lovingly assembled exhibition of the lives of those who have walked a little further.

The piece takes a non-linear approach. This allows for individual cast members to tell stories in short vignettes to capture a single moment, thought, or emotion, fleshing out in sometimes painfully intimate detail the experience of growing old. A particularly affecting story is enacted by Michael Tan and Padma Sagaram, who play out a juncture in life that is rarely spotlighted in performances featuring seniors. They walk slowly towards each other from opposite ends of the stage, smiling; a soft, gentle song sung by a young girl plays in the background. It is young love. And the audience remembers that the old among us, too, once had hot blood coursing through their veins, and knew the quickening of heartbeat.

This makes it especially crushing when we hear Sagaram confess that she and her husband had drifted apart over the years. In a way that perhaps only those who have lived whole lives together in love, anger or even hatred can understand, she questions the point of clinging on to him, even as she clings on tighter: “Why am I unable to touch him?” And yet, the theatre is silent.

There are moments when the piece meanders, or fails to find its footing. For instance, the actors would repeatedly strive to link their stories back to the central themes of control, communication, and unconditional love. This is not necessary; the stories shine on their own, and perhaps the production team could have put more faith in them. There is also a panel discussion segment on what it means to be a parent in Singapore. This is an interesting experiment, but it had no clear direction and could do with a bit more focus.

Nonetheless, when the stories are left to tell themselves, the cast carry it well and their resonance with the dialogue shows. And these are stories that we need to hear, for does it not take all kinds for us to be?