Buttons In The Bread

Event: Everything But The Brain by Sightlines Productions
Run: 10-21 August 2013
Venue: DBS Arts Centre
Written by: Jean Tay
Directed by: Derrick Chew
Main Cast:  Gerald Chew, Koh Wan Ching, Edward Choy

Who would have thought physics theories like Newton’s Laws and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity could be such fodder for a play? Besides a revision on physics, the play was also informative in its attempt to create an awareness of the effects and symptoms of strokes.

The play tells the story of Elaine, a Physics teacher who takes a year off work to look after her stroke-afflicted father. In between, she meets the young doctor in charge of her father’s case, but…to a much awkward ending.

As educational/serious as the topic sounds (of strokes and physics), the play was quite accessible with its humour and rather interesting text. Well, some of the relativity theory parts went over my head but it didn’t affect the plot and occurred at points that related to Elaine’s cluelessness about physics when the theories were explained to her (in the form of a 3 Bears theory). Maybe I should study Einstein’s theory to get some context and reference. haha! However, even amid the laughter, the play rather moved me near the end when her father inevitably dies. You knew there was a strong bond between the two underneath all that bickering. And as the story goes, even though it is titled “everything but the brain”, it is everything about the brain. The way the brain works, the ‘genius’ we try to preserve, the strokes which affect the brain and the causes, the dreams and memories we have…

Personally, I felt one thing that stood out was the constant theme on Time. You have Elaine, single and growing older each year. Then you have her father, who gets ill as a result of old age, and then the reference to the past and lost time, the desire to turn back time. And eventually, you find that time is really relative isn’t it? Whether you find it too long or short, or you realise that you don’t seem to have enough time to deal with what matters or recover lost time, the meaning of time is relative, even though it is absolute with its minutes and seconds. The only constant and reality is that time will not wait for you.
However, one thing that was a bit disruptive to me was what I felt to be rather sudden “time zone shifts” at some points of the play, when I briefly needed to get my bearings again of which time period was being referred to. It could be a transitional issue or just me lah.

I think one thing about Jean Tay’s plays is the way she creates a story with such resources like physics and previously, weaving folk tales with crime stories. The research she puts in shows and makes for interesting material and layers.

Event: “Cook A Pot of Curry” (as part of W!ld Rice’s “Alfian Sa’at – In The Spotlight”)
Venue: The Singapore Airlines Theatre @ LASALLE College of the Arts
Run: 3rd – 20th July 2013

Simmer and Stir

Back in August 2011, W!ld Rice struck theatrical paydirt with the staging of “Cooling Off Day” as part of the Man Singapore Theatre Festival, which proved to be such a hit that it was promptly restaged at the SOTA Drama Theatre the following February.

It was a refreshing exercise in verbatim theatre, whereby playwright Alfian Sa’at attempted to piece together on stage actual interviews conducted with Singaporeans from all walks of life, which resulted a powerful and incisive piece of theatre capturing the politcally-charged pulse of a nation in the days and weeks leading up to the watershed 2011 General Elections.

Fast forward to July 2013, and W!ld Rice and Alfian Sa’at return once again with “Cook a Pot of Curry”, which is essentially a follow-up to “Cooling Off Day”.

It’s almost impossible to view “Cook a Pot of Curry” in a vacuum without having to first draw comparisons with “Cooling Off Day”, simply because the look, feel and presentation style of the two plays are so eerily similar.

The title of this play is a reference to the curious incident reported back in 2011 (the actual incident apparently took place seven years before that) whereby a local Indian family had agreed to stop cooking curry whenever their mainland Chinese neighbours were at home as the smell had caused discomfort to the neighbours.

And although it is only the opening scene which touches on this curry incident, it forms the bedrock on which the rest of the play bases itself on, and that is the growing issues of overcrowding and xenophobia rearing their ugly heads in Singapore, oftentimes the two being inextricably linked and stemming from the same tree.

The six actors take turns portraying various real-life characters such as popular actress Daisy Irani, who hails from India, Gilbert Goh, who organised the Hong Lim Park event protesting the 6.9 million Population White Paper, a PRC scholar who has been living in Singapore for a number of years, a local Singaporean varsity student, a yoga instructor, taxi drivers, and so on.

Nelson Chia flexes considerable comedic muscle in this production, and was one of my favourite performers.

Najib Soiman once again does not disappoint in his portrayal of the various indigenous characters, while Judee Tan remains a riot as always whenever she takes to the stage, not to mention demonstrating an impressive set of pipes in the song and dance segments.

Although attempts to spice up the show were made in the form of the occasional musical numbers such as Mr Brown’s “Curry Curry Night” and a cleverly re-worded version of “Home”, after awhile things started to get a tad bit tiresome as things did not seem to be building to any discernible form of climax, and you got the feeling that the show was merely beating the same drum albeit in slightly differing rhythms.

Apart from the current hot-button issues of overcrowding and xenophobia, “Cook a Pot of Curry” didn’t seem to cover that much else, and often came across as merely an on-stage representation of the current-day gripes and frustrations of the average man on the street.

Which isn’t to say that it is a weak play by any stretch, but “Cook a Pot of Curry” just simply wasn’t able to elevate itself to the rousing and inspiring heights that “Cooling Off Day” was able to, because “Cooling Off Day” came at a time which was just three months after what was commonly hailed as our “watershed” elections in 2011, and perfectly captured the emotional and political zeitgeist of a nation in both a powerful and succinct manner.

But as a stand-alone play, “Cook a Pot of Curry” fares perfectly well, and is both a thought-provoking and entertaining experience at the theatre, with enough hard truths to poke at your conscience, but also with enough comedy to keep things fairly palatable.

And in a non-election year, this is probably as close as you can get to an engaging piece of politically and socially-tinged theatre.

Event: The Book of Living and Dying (part of Esplanade’s The Studios series)
Run: 4-7 July 2013
Venue: Esplanade Theatre Studio
Directed by: Chong Tze Chien
Written by: Chong Tze Chien, Antonio Ianniello, Nambi E. Kelly, Oliver Chong
Actors: Antonio Ianniello (Martina), Nambi E. Kelly (Eve), Oliver Chong (Cat/Dr. Chong/Priest/Monk)

In a cyclical globe of whirling lights, we are sucked into the story of past lives and present. That’s how it begins for this re-staging of Chong Tze Chien’s The Book of Living and Dying.

The play is based on the ”Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”, which is, as Tze Chien puts it, a ”manual” on how to conduct your life, in preparation for your death with respect to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, emphasising on karma and reincarnation. Staged first at last year’s Singapore Arts Fest (where tickets were swiped clean within 10 minutes), it was a show set to take the stage again, this time in more optimal settings in the space of Esplanade’s Theatre Studio. Interestingly, this play was a coming back to the theme used in Poop, one of my favourite plays, which was Tze Chien’s initial outcome from the Book.

The story tells of a transvestite, Martina, who ”adopts” a daughter, Eve. It turns out that they were linked through a number of past lives, starting from the time when one of Martina’s past lives stole a temple goblet/lamp which resulted in the death of his unborn baby (eventually Eve) as retribution. Many lives passed with the article following them but never returned, and in this life all finally come together, including the cat that failed to guard the article in the beginning and was tasked to retrieve it as punishment.

Camping on the theme of karma and consequence, Eve never meant to be Martina’s, from the beginning when she wasn’t meant to be his child since the theft, and Martina always tried to pursue possession of her whether through theft or restraint. It was like a cat & mouse pursuit (maybe that’s why a cat was involved?). As Tze Chien points out, we can choose our actions but not the consequences, and our actions often outlive us in generations to come. It was also a play about dealing with death at home as Martina had cancer.

The performance was in 3 languages – English, Italian and Mandarin, which didn’t pose any problem with the cast in understanding each other. It added to the trans-boundaries feel of the play, whether it was trans-generation, dimensional or even supernatural. The whole stage design complemented this concept with the almost bare stage except the impermanence nature of the sets (chalk-drawn), and shadow play. I felt myself constantly embedded in the cyclical and transient nature of the scenes, which well expressed the essence of the play. It keeps you engaged and ”in the play”, As if you were part of it, though still watching from the outside.

Incidentally, as one of the audience astutely pointed out, the play seemed mainly about what was going on in Martina’s mind and the rest of the characters were just part of the story in his mind. I felt that this reflected the myriad of happenings that were the consequence of Martina’s past actions. The outcome or feel might be very different if taken from Eve’s or even the cat’s perspective. But as the show was on 因果报应 (retribution), so maybe it was thus so, although we were told that last year’s staging didn’t have that much of a direct interaction between characters partly due to the stage orientation.

Each actor was adept in their roles and natural in interacting with each other, and the whole flow of the show was seamless, including the appearance of the chalk-painters/puppeteers/supporting cast played by Ong Kian Sin, Ang Hui Bin and Tan Wan Sze.

A reflective piece for the audience to ponder about, Tze Chien once again impresses me with his thought processes and concepts as well as his vision for his plays.