NANYANG: THE MUSICAL by One Kind Theatre

“Where is the Nanyang?“

Reviewer: Isaac Lim
Performance: 6 August 2015

A musical based on the adventures of early Singapore artists, and entitled Nanyang: The Musical, seems like a perfect opening piece for the Singapore International Festival of Arts. And it is performed over the Golden Jubilee weekend nonetheless.

However, it is everything but.

Nanyang: The Musical is one confused/confusing journey, supposedly tracing the artistic explorations of “Nanyang artists” Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, Cheong Soo Pieng, Liu Kang and Georgette Chen. The lives of these artists inspired writer/director Alec Tok to create this “chamber-sized musical”, which is meant to be an intimate affair. These pioneering artists married Eastern and Western influences in their works, and some works were controversial for challenging the authorities during the war period of the 1940s.

Showing on stage is instead five lovelorn and love-torn individuals, who displayed next to zero artistic talents. The entire affair (all puns intended) is a sappy love story with predictable outcomes, peppered with musical ballads.

The drama starts in Shanghai, when Cheng Kang (played by Roy Huang) joins an artist group lead by senior Zhang Wen (Trev Neo), and chances upon Li Ying (an obvious Georgette Chen inspired character, played by Seong Hui Xuan, who incidentally played the same character in a musical on Georgette Chen by Ng Yisheng) with whom he instantly falls in love. One can see the love triangle from a country mile. Another pair of lovebirds comprising Ren Hao (Dennis Heng) and Yue Ping (Andrea Xing) gets thrown into the mix and the five proceed to travel the world, exploring art and life. They travel to Paris where Zhang successfully auctions off an artwork, before deciding to travel to Nanyang.

Here comes the hair-pulling part of the plot: Zhang decides to stop over at Bali, and the rest (less Li Ying, who continues to travel west) follows to “experience paradise”. In Bali, it is revealed he has a wife and young son (cue audience gasps). After spending some time learning Balinese dance, the crew of four conveniently develops an urge to visit Singapore (cue audience gasps again) to be reunited with Li Ying. Upon arrival, they find Singapore under Japanese attack, and Zhang eventually is killed due to his controversial artwork (cues audience gasps, louder this time).

Nanyang: The Musical could have explored so much more, especially with five inspiring artists serving as a springboard, providing history and art lessons to be dug out and presented on stage. Instead, it settles for ill-conceived and ill-fitting love stories.

With promising names such as Alec Tok teaming up with pop-music go-to dream team of Xiao Han, Eric Ng and Goh Kheng Long, Nanyang: The Musical may have worked if it has a better cast line-up. Other than Neo who shone in the demanding role of Zhang, the other leads are weak. Huang and Xing tend to over-act, and Seong and Heng struggle with their Mandarin, tripping over lines or delivering them with obvious discomfort.

With that said, the unabashedly pop element of the music seems to have saved the musical (pun-intended). This reviewer still has the tunes to the songs buzzing in his head hours after.