“The Physics of Being Physical”
Reviewer: Jeremiah Choy
Performance: 11 March 2016
Now Then Again, directed by Tan Shou Chen, brings a fresh look at that old love story. With very limited resources, this meticulously directed production manages to shoot past the past, rams into to the future and then back where it started again. And it does so in a very engaging manner.
Ginny (played with great timing and enthusiasm by Munah Bagharib) is a perky undergraduate working in a cutting edge quantum physics lab. Ginny is set for greatness – except all she wants to do is to settle down and get married to her childhood sweetheart. Then, there is Henry (Luke Kwek in played-down Neek[1] sexiness), a brilliant but socially inept scientist.
Enter an almost dying psychic janitor, Felix (by Choi Yik Heng).
Boy meets girl. Boy confuses Girl (and vice versa). Psychic tells the future. Physics brings in the physical. That’s the long and short of it.
Tan’s keen sense of space and very accurate grip on details keep the production real and manageable for the audience. Each playback (Rashomon style) has the audience believing in the alternative (or multi) universe that is being simultaneously created.
The nuances of the relationship between Ginny and Henry are kept in fine balance, changing with each possible time-space collision.
Honestly, the performance is brilliant up to the three-quarter mark. Then reality bites: the flash backs become tedious and add nothing more to the performance.
This show is somewhat marred by some affected student performances but Choi Yik Heng is delightful as Felix. As for the rest, less is definitely more. Nuance in text are not always about being loud and louder, or angry and angrier. But it lies in the meaning embedded in the script. Let the text speak. Trust it.
I enjoyed the minimalist set by Hay Teow Kwang (okay, we all know the budget constraints). The subtle multimedia (Koo Chia Meng, assisted by Khairul Kamsani) is apt and very well thought through. The soundscape designed by Benjamin Lim Yi and lights designed by Alberta Wileo complemented and completed the vision.
At the end of the day, whatever the laws of physics, whether the past determines the future or the future can change the past, we all want to get physical and fall in love again.
Love after all, like this production, is not about perfection, but taking chances.
[1] Neek = a cross between a nerd and a geek
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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
NOW THEN AGAIN by NUS Theatre Ensemble
11 – 12 March 2016
University Cultural Centre Theatre
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Jeremiah Choy is a trained lawyer who went full time into the arts in 1997. He believes that theatre is a place where one can suspend (even for a short while) reality through myth, mystery and magic making. While not directing, curating or producing a show, he enjoys penning his thoughts through Jereisms and Jeresop Fables.
