Buttons In The Bread

Event: “Confusions” by Alan Ayckbourn
Venue: DBS Arts Centre
Run: 13th Oct – 16th Oct 2010

This is one of those occasions where Ilkosa and I wander into the theatre absolutely clueless as to what to expect.

All we know is that it is a play called “Confusions”, to be staged at the DBS Arts Centre.

We’ve not heard of Alan Ayckbourn before, nor do we know anything about The Stage Club…and neither do we have any idea as to what the play is going to be about.

No matter.

We came out of the theatre 2 hours later being that much more enlightened.

Believe it or not, The Stage Club was founded as early as 1945, and is Singapore’s oldest theatre company.

It is a not-for-profit community theatre group, and has put up an average of 5 productions a year for the last 65 years!

Impressive track record indeed.

They have done a range of productions, including many classic Shakespeare plays as well.

The play “Confusions” is structurally very interesting.

It comprises four mini-plays of roughly 25 mins each, and even though the four premises are completely unrelated, there is always one character from the previous mini-play that will spill over to the next mini-play.

That’s the device which the playwright used to faintly link the four segments together.

In terms of cast, every new character in each segment was played by a different actor, which made things really fresh as we got to see about 15 different actors throughout the production.

I thought the first play “Mother Figure” was interesting.

It depicted a housewife who, perhaps due to her preoccupation with raising her baby, behaves in an unnaturally “motherly” manner towards her neighbour couple.

“Motherly” in the sense that she treats her visitors like absolute children by forcing them to sit down and drink their milk and such.

But the fascinating thing is that the visiting couple somehow, on their own accord, behave like children in the way they start a fight in front of the housewife, so perhaps she is not out-of-order in treating them like children after all.

The second play “Drinking Companion” exposed the sheer ugliness of the male species when being faced with a beautiful woman in a bar setting.

The play got really draggy at one point when all that seemed to be happening was that the guy was trying his best to come on to the girl but she was having none of it.

There wasn’t much tension to speak of to keen the audience engaged, and it was more of a case of dread to the point of being disgusted by his behaviour.

I didn’t enjoy this segment at all.

It was almost unbearable to watch, the way the scene was dragged out at length.

The third segment “Between Mouthfuls” was rather enjoyable, especially in the way the focus shifted from table to table.

One moment we’re hearing this couple on the left having their conversation, and the next moment they drop their volume and the couple on the right side start speaking audibly.

It was a very clever way to shift seamlessly between the two parties.

The last segment “Gosforth’s Fete” was more like a farce in the way it relied heavily on physical humour.

It was definitely funny, although at times it seemed like the play just went on and on without a definite sense of story or plot.

My favourite bit was the part when Gosforth and Milly were discussing their affair in hushed tones, but unbeknownst to them there was a nearby mic that was picking up everything they said and broadcasting it to a whole mass of townsfolk.

If there was a common thread between each of the four mini-plays, I would say that it was the lack of true communication between people.

Yes, they were often speaking with one another, but were they truly listening?

I think this is a theme which hits home with a lot of people.

How many people do you know who are truly interested in listening to what you have to say?

Lastly, a good word has to be put in for the beautiful directing by Susan Penrice Tyrie.

My favourite element of the directing was the decision to have a “colour theme” for each of the four segments – orange, red, blue and green (in that order).

You could see that there was a conscious effort to colour-coordinate not only the apparel, but the props and sets as well for each individual segment.

Beautiful stuff.

I liked that very much.

Event: “Metamorphoses” by COLLAB Theatre Ensemble
Venue: Substation Theatre
Run: 7th Oct – 10th Oct 2010

The first thing that greets you as you enter the Substation Theatre would be the fairly large round pool (yes, a pool filled with water) that has been installed right smack in the centre of the stage.

This would be the centrepiece, as well as the selling point, of “Metamorphoses”, the maiden production put up by COLLAB Theatre Ensemble, an ensemble of 8 professional actors – Isabella Chiam, Hang Qian Chou, Jasmine Koh, Ghazali Muzakir, Judy Ngo, Daphne Ong, Eleanor Tan, and Tan Shou Chen…who were part of the first batch of Wild Rice’s Young & Wild training programme.

The second thing that greets you would be the extremely cramped seating arrangement which leaves me with absolutely no leg room whatsoever.

The Substation Theatre has the crampiest seats I’ve ever experienced, and I left the theatre 105 minutes later with not a few aches after being stuck in that cramped position for so long…but that is a story for another day.

“Metamorphoses”, written by Mary Zimmerman, is a collection of eight vignettes based on well-known Greek myths, and is directed by Christina Sergeant.

While my experience at “Someday, Samsara” (also directed by Sergeant) left me a little disappointed, I would have to say that the directing for “Metamorphoses” far exceeded my expectations.

Overall, even though I entered the Substation with almost no expectations (I mean, the prospect of a night of Greek mythology theatre by a rookie ensemble wasn’t exactly setting my heart alight), I left being highly impressed and satisfied by the entire production.

I thought the material itself was very strong to begin with.

There is always a certain sense beauty, depth and pathos in greek mythology tales, which is seldom found anywhere else.

Tales which spoke of eternal themes such as love, lust, longing, greed, kindness, and so on.

It was also going to be a play which would suit the ensemble very well, since it offered many avenues for each of them to take lead turns.

Then there was the clever and inventive directing by Christina Sergeant.

My favourite part was when they raised one end of a long piece of rope and it immediately resembled a large galleon.

I can’t really describe how it looks in words, but that was a beautiful sight.

The acting was largely even throughout, with all eight actors exhibiting a certain sense of chemistry and familiarity with one another, as would be expected of an ensemble which has been working together for some time now.

Back to the pool.

They found a way to somehow get the pool involved in almost every facet of the play, some more pertinent than others, but overall I really loved how they came up with the whole concept of the pool being the centrepiece.

I thought it was a masterstroke.

Just that those sitting in the first few rows might have been made to be slightly wetter than they had imagined.

But good fun nonetheless.

In conclusion, I’m very pleased to see a new theatre ensemble taking the plunge and getting its feet wet in the local professional theatre scene, and even though they might perhaps have been a little wet behind the ears, it was not apparent to me at all and I wish COLLAB Theatre Ensemble and its deep pool of talent all the best in their future endeavours.

(I think I just went overboard with the “water” puns in the above paragraph.)

It’s always encouraging to see new theatre companies putting things up, and I think things look promising for COLLAB Theatre Ensemble and I look forward to catching more of their future productions.

…

You can read this article for more background information on the production.

The show opened with a rather dysfunctional group of “friends” who were essentially taking cruel digs at each other. The atmosphere is tense, menacing and upsetting. One might attribute it to the bitterness of the terminally ill Jo (Grace Soo) but it seems the characters had always been so, probably hating each other.

It took a rather strange (and supernatural) dramatic turn at midpoint, which I at first recognised as angels of death, or so I thought, but not likely because they asked “are we too late”? Maybe angels of comfort since they closed with a comforting picture to Sam? Truth? Somehow though, I had the impression that maybe it’s making reference to some mythical personalities like from Greek mythology. It could have been due to the reference to Roman legends made earlier. They seem to be set to confuse everyone; their appearance stirred up mess, yet catapulting the play into its climax of “reality”, friendships and the like.

It was all very strange to me and not sure if I was missing something, I went in search for more info on the original play, Lady from Dubuque on wikipedia, which didn’t help much. So here I am, trying to make sense of this whole course of events.

Maybe I should look at the structure. Starting each act, the play addresses the identity question “who am I” or “who are you”. And in the end, the identities of the Lady of Dubuque aka Elizabeth (Yin Mei JJ Lenden-Hitchcock) and Oscar (Faizal Abdullah), her companion, were still vague. And she left the stage with the words “I thought you knew”. Maybe in his heart, Sam (Johannes Hadi) knew, but didn’t want to face the truth. Yet, what started as a game in the first act, turned to a loss in the 2nd. No one believed Sam except Carol, Jo didn’t help dispute Elizabeth (who claimed to be her mother) by running into her arms. Chaos. So was it about identity?

Or is the focus on relationships? Relationships between each couple and between friends. Each couple faced with their choices, but who all seem to really love their spouses (or girlfriend). Between friends, all the pent-up grievances, jealousy, selfishness and hypocrisy were unleashed at the end. Years of grinding each other finally took its toil. The truth behind the facade as “revealed” by the 2 strangers (was a spell cast?). Strangely, the only true friend that arose was someone who proclaimed that she was not a friend, and kinder than most (Carol).

But I must say that the Lucinda character (Grace Khoo) really got on my nerves (probably intended since every character didn’t like her), and she seemed the real bimbo as compared to the perceived bimbo of the group, Carol (Elizabeth Loh).

What puzzles me is the show title “Unlike Some People”…with reference to?

~~~~~~~

So maybe in response to the director’s message – “I might not be ready for Albee yet.”

Event: Unlike Some People
Venue: Drama Centre Black Box
Run: 22nd Sept – 26th Sept 2010

A great background interview with the director Jonathan Lim can be found (here).

…

Many many years ago, when I was still struggling desperately with my piano lessons as a weak pianist (I still am a weak pianist, it’s just that I don’t take lessons anymore), I would occasionally have to face the insurmountable challenge of preparing a Beethoven piano sonata for my yearly exam.

Now the thirty-two Beethoven Piano Sonatas might perhaps be hailed as one of Western classical music’s greatest achievements, and rightly so due to the sheer complexity of Beethoven’s music and his complete mastery of the sonata form.

But to me, Beethoven’s sonatas were just some seemingly random compositions in three movements, with each movement taking on a slightly distinct mood from the other, and with the occasional motif being used and improvised upon ad nauseam.

That was what it was all about, as far as I was concerned.

At least Chopin’s Etudes seemed like they had a more definite melodic idea.

Beethoven’s sonata pieces just seemed very disparate to me and I just didn’t have the ability to make out what the big picture was.

I played the notes, but they didn’t really seem to make all that much sense to me from a holistic standpoint, even though I made very sure to play loud at ff and soft at pp, as and when the dynamics called for it.

And you know what my piano teacher said?

He said “You’re just playing the notes and following the dynamics blindly. You do not understand this piece at all.”

And he was completely right.

I had no idea what the piece was all about.

It was beyond my grasp.

And that’s basically the analogy I would make for “Unlike Some People”, the play put up by “Young & Wild”, a youth division of Wild Rice, and directed by Jonathan Lim of “Chestnuts” fame.

The play is written by Edward Albee, and the original title of the play is “The Lady from Dubuque”.

From the onset it felt to me like many of the actors were out of their depth and just weren’t able to bring out the full complexity of the script, either because they did not fully understand it, or because they just did not have the technical ability to reflect all the subtle nuances in the play.

As with all good plays, this was a play that had strong and complex characterisation, which called for character portrayals to be multi-dimensional.

There were instances where the actors were able to show violent emotion as was called for, but to me it felt like they did it in a vacuum and there didn’t seem to be a holistic coherence in their characterisation throughout the play, in the sense that they did not take a big-picture view of character portrayal.

My friend said that I am, as always, a very fussy and picky person, always having very precise notions of what things should be like…and I think he may be right.

I am fully aware that this is a “Young & Wild” production, and the cast are relative newbies to theatre, and thus expectations should be managed.

But I’m just expressing my honest views, that’s all.

I really do not mean to discourage or put down any of the cast members, but I honestly felt that this particular play might have been a little bit out of reach for them, and perhaps a slightly less ambitious or less complex script could have been chosen instead.

As for the play itself, I certainly thought it very strange.

Bizarre, even.

(Yes, it doesn’t take very much to stump me.)

I cannot reveal anything about the plot, as it would give away the whole “surprise” element that is so crucial to the play.

However, I was just wondering what the main focus of the play was.

Was it a) the relationship between the six friends, or b) the relationship between Sam and Jo, or c) the strange relationship between Jo and the lady from Dubuque?

Anyways, the play is certainly a very demanding one, with plenty of character complexities, and thus requiring a great deal of ability to pull off.

The closing lines had all the makings of a classic theatre moment, but for some reason I just didn’t get it.

Lastly, I felt the original title of “The Lady from Dubuque” would have been more apt, but perhaps it was the director’s intention to have the play focus more on the relationship between Sam and Jo, rather than the curious incident involving the lady from Dubuque.