MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011 -- "Family Outing"

 I just got back from watching Family Outing. I must say, as the third show I've watched in the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011, this was a nice ending to the theatre fest.

The title Family Outing was I thought, very apt. A trip down memory lane to remember times spent with a loved one. And down that lane.... something different from what they remembered stood out, and all of a sudden, the family is seeing the same scenery and yet painting a different picture all at the same time.

Written by someone of the same age as I am, I could somehow relate to the characters of the story, no matter how foreign the topics discussed were to me. (I am neither a Christian nor am I gay, and I have few friends who are)

Family Outing poster

The play was considerably short, just over an hour. But as a script written for a play script module in school, I think this is as good as it gets. It isn't too complex, it isn't too deep, but it gnaws at you the way real life does, and I think that is the beauty of it.

The show discusses about religion and death and gay issues, all seemingly dark and angsty. But somehow, Joel Tan (the playwright) managed to combine all these elements into a heartwarming and humorous piece about acceptance and love.

Though it was hard to accept the way the Choo family behaved in the first scene, with all the celebration and popping of sparkling wine for the first year anniversary of a son's death, but I guess everyone deals with grief differently, so no judgement there.

In any case, it is a feat for someone this young.

I particularly liked the parents of this show. Karen Tan and Lim Kay Siu put up very commendable performances and brought the characters to life. I like the way the parents were being portrayed, and I loved how in the end Doris (the mother) came to terms that she had actually known that her son was gay all along (since 12!?!?) but instead chose to ignore it.

The awkward moment came during the "talk back session" when the playwright, director and performers were up on stage answering questions from the audience and the playwright's (ACTUAL) brother spoke up and said, "So why did you not tell us before and now choose to do this so publicly?"

Erm... AWKWARD.

So, it's sort of a "true" story, at least adapted from his own life story. No wonder it felt so real...

About "Family Outing" from the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival official website:

The Choos aren’t used to being sad, even with a death in the household. A year after their son Joseph dies, the family – HDB auntie Doris, civil servant Amos and their neurotic youngest son, Brandon – pops a bottle of bubbly in good Christian cheer to celebrate his life and times. But a knock at the door promises to change things forever. A young man called Daniel arrives to announce the truth of a Joseph the family had never known. 

What follows is intense family drama as the Choos and Daniel struggle to reconcile the facts of Christian life – hellfire and damnation – with the Joseph they’ve lost, want to remember and are already beginning to forget. Meanwhile, Joseph looks on and comes to terms with being dead, filling the loneliness of the grave with fond memories of his family.

Family Outing is both a playful romp and a moving biography of a family examining – with laughs along the way – some painful facts of life: the burdens of unconditional love and of saying goodbye.

The "Family Outing" trailer

Interviews with the real masterminds...

MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011: "Cooling Off Day"

They say that Singapore GE 2011 was the watershed for Singapore political history, or at least, for modern Singapore society.


Indeed, this was the first time Singaporeans were so psyched up about GE. And through the use of multi-media and social networking sites, the propaganda of different parties spread like wild fire.


It was exhilarating, even more so for a first-time voter like me. And I thought, I could feel the excitement all over again when I watched "Cooling Off Day"

Well, I must give credits to the playwright Alfian Sa'at for pulling together accounts, thoughts and opinions of people from different walks and races on GE 2011. It was interesting to hear the views of others, especially people from different parties (Opposition VS PAP) just to give it a balanced view.


Still, you could sense that the show was tilted. (towards the Opposition of course)


Was vaguely disappointed because this ain't really a play per se, but a recount of different voices put up on the same stage. Albeit the performers did a fantastic job memorizing all the lines and personas of different characters.


But that was just that.


Interesting. But perhaps miss-able.


Shared a laughter or two, and was especially tickled with the adaptation of Mr Brown's popular podcast of Bar Chor Mee VS Teochew Muay. 


I must say that I particularly liked the last scene of the entire play. It reflected the actual number of white seats (representing PAP) and red seats (representing Opposition) in the Parliament.


After all, if voices were not translated to actions, it would in the end only be, well, just voices. 


But then again, regardless the colors of seats in the Parliament, they represent our Nation.


And I think that's the take home point of the show. Or so I thought. 


Read sypnosis of "Cooling Off Day" below, taken from the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival official website:

Why do you vote?
What issues influenced you?
What does citizenship mean to you?

In the electrifying months leading up to the watershed 2011 General Elections, and in the tumultuous months after, playwright Alfian Sa’at interviewed Singaporeans to discover their responses to these searching questions. Boldly putting aside concerns about secrecy, the interviewees opened their hearts to share what they honestly felt and what they truly believe in.

Covering a wide social and political spectrum, the candid interviews capture the GE experience through the voices of individual Singaporeans – from election candidates to pro-establishment civil servants; from taxi-drivers to teachers; from diehard opposition supporters to young people casting their virgin votes. From the transcripts of these real-life interviews emerges a script that chronicles the momentous event that not only rocked the boat, but created startling ripples that are still widening even now.

The private clashes behind the public debates... the personal convictions behind the party politics... even that unforgettable moment as they finally stood alone in the polling booth with pen in hand, poised to make their mark. These interviews – some hopeful, some fearful, some hilariously frank, some achingly honest – form a portrait of Singaporeans confronting the real meaning of democracy and rediscovering their role in shaping the country’s future.

An ensemble of our most versatile actors, playing characters aged 17 to 70, takes on these Singaporean voices – in a playful and poignant piece of testimony theatre that proves how political views are not just the hot air of coffeeshop talk.

And more videos of it, below:

(Cooling Off Day trailer)

             (Cooling Off Day - Interview with Alfian Sa'at and Ivan Heng)

MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011 -- "Charged"

This was the first play I watched in part of the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011.

(Official poster for MAN Singapore Theatre Festival 2011)

"Charged" is very much a Singapore production. It talks about National Service, the different races in our society, about Racial Harmony Day. It uses lingo, catchphrases and context which are familiar to the eyes and ears of Singaporeans. It injects humour which sometimes only locals understand.

However, behind the snide remarks and humor of this show, it deals with serious and thought provoking issues which have a gravity not only for Singapore, but also for other globalized societies as well.

Below, quoted from the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival website, is a sypnosis of what "Charged" is all about:

It’s Chinese New Year and the only soldiers in camp on guard duty are Malay or Indian. That is, until Corporal Russell Lim turns up. Things start turning ugly when the insults start flying and all that’s taboo becomes fair game. By the end of the night, a Chinese and a Malay soldier are found dead.

Enter Investigating Officer Victor de Souza, who needs to uncover the chain of events that have led to the tragedy. 

The stakes are high because the incident has led to an eruption of tension between the Malay and Chinese communities in Singapore. Yet with each interview that he conducts, he plunges deeper into a labyrinth of slippery half-truths and sly omissions.

Can Officer de Souza arrive at the truth? Or will he be confronted with something so terrible that there is no other choice but a cover up?

Set in the claustrophobic confines of the army, Chong Tze Chien’s Charged interrogates the thorny issue of race with brutal honesty and a refreshing lack of political correctness. 

 Born and bred in Singapore, living in a multi-racial society has always been part and parcel of my life. I've never thought much about complexities of living with so many different ethnicity, race and religion, and probably never will if not for this show.

The show led me thinking: Is Singapore really a society in which different races are living harmoniously with each other? Is racial harmony equivalent to racial tolerance? I know that in order to have harmony, you must first learn to tolerate the differences, and from there understand and appreciate.

So is that what we are? A harmonious society? Or are we just being tolerable?

I've never thought about the differences between the different races, simply because we are not taught to. People of different races grow up in the same community, we study in the same school, we watch the same TV channel(s) (It's actually only just Channel 5), and we have the same bunch of friends.

So really, I am ignorant of the seriousness of the differences between different races, religions and beliefs.

I think this is a problem when you are in the "majority" group. Majority of Singaporeans are Chinese, and when you think about it, the same set of differences you see when you are in a big group seemed smaller. In retrospect, the same set of differences you see when you are in a small group gets amplified.

Through the eyes of different people, issues get tainted, sometimes magnified. And that's when you get friction.

I think this is what essentially this play is about. 

The show is presented by a refreshing set of casts (finally no Adrian Pang), and I like how the play was directed. Same scene, different interpretations. It's something like the movie Vantage Point, just that you don't need to bear through watching the same scene from different angles seven times.

I have to say that the mothers of the show did a great job. I like Serene Chen, who portrayed the character of Russel's mother. You can almost sense her helplessness and disbelief, when she heard news of her son murdering a fellow soldier and then committing suicide. Especially touching was the scene which showed two mothers and their (dead) sons, and when they knelt before their mothers to apologize, it was heart wrenching.

 It's been some time since I last watched a show which not only can I relate to, but also made me think further.

"Charged", I heard, was one of the MAN Singapore Theatre Festival productions which was a sell out the earliest, and it is not difficult to see why.

CHARGED trailer

Hear DA MAN speak. Writer of CHARGED: Chong Tze Chien

"Into the Woods"

 It was a musical which my friend was dying to watch, and as an "artsy fartsy" friend who had nothing else better to do, I decided to watch the musical with her.

It burnt a big hole through my pocket and I was squinting my eyes to even make out the expressions of the performers because we sat so far back.

Surprisingly for a musical, the story plot held itself quite well. I didn't know it was originally a broadway musical and even won itself a couple of Tonys only until the interval break. The characters were funny enough and you could see that they put in lots of effort with all the lyrics and lines and dance steps.

The songs however weren't as catchy as I thought they would be. Most of them even sounded "tuneless" to me, or maybe I was tone deaf, or maybe the performers weren't doing such a great job.

The few who impressed me were definitely the witch (imagine the witch doing rap and dang can she sing!) Little did I know that she's actually some "dua pai" (big shot) from broadway itself, no wonder she was a few levels above the rest of the performers. But the other two characters who caught my attention were the princes. They were unanimously the funniest characters in the show, and their songs were catchy too!

I was pleasantly surprised that Adrian Pang can actually sing (yes he is in the show -- again.) But still, he pales in comparison to the rest of the performers.

All in all I wasn't too thrilled with the performance, taking into consideration of the price tag which came along with it. (I sat three levels above the stage and my ticket cost a hefty 61 bucks)

(Behind the scenes of "Into the Woods")

(Behind the scenes of their TVC shoot)

("Into the Woods" TVC)

"Macbeth"

Went with a couple of friends to catch "Shakespeare in the Park", simply because the idea of watching a play in the park is too cool to resist. And what show better to enjoy in a park than "Macbeth"?

I am kidding.

I've not read Macbeth before, so I have no idea what I got myself into. It's been almost three months since I watched the show (it was sometime in May, can't remember when), and the only thing I can remember out of it was that my friend and I were enjoying sushi and drinking sparkling wine while watching some play which we "caught no balls". Oh yes, and that I remembered myself almost dozing off to sleep midway through the show.

Maybe I'm not "cultured" enough. I simply could not get any of the jokes which other people seem to be laughing at.

Firstly, we were at the disadvantage because we did not read the novel before this.

Secondly, the play did not help our understanding because the performers were reading out their lines in old English. ("Art thou shall not, thee shall do what art thou" --- you get the idea)

Thirdly, OH ENOUGH OF ADRIAN PANG ALREADY. It almost looked like we were stalking him. I could not fathom why he is appearing in almost all the shows I'm watching. Are there seriously no one else there who can act? SERIOUSLY?!

So, none of the above helped the situation and during the interval, my friend asked the best question of the day, "So... who is Macbeth ah?"

So now can you understand why we were dozing off and the only things we enjoyed out of this were our sushi and wine?

(EVEN THE PICTURE IS NOT HELPING!)

《她的故事》 HERstory

久违了，朋友们！距离上一次所看的最后一部舞台剧其实不算太久，只是时间久了就慢慢开始变得怠慢，人的本性，实在难改。

Anyway，今天不知怎么来了一个“神来笔”，所以决定重新开始记载看完每一部剧后的心得。在《881》之后接下来看的另一部舞台剧叫做《她的故事》"HERstory"。距离那时跟现在其实已经有将近3个月之久（５月２８日看的），故事情节也有一些淡忘了，非常遗憾。BUT，好的剧场演出，无论是多久以前的剧，当时的震撼还是会遗留在体内。（就像"POOP"一样）

 （剧中母亲的角色有个绰号叫作“黑牡丹”）

《她的故事》故事内容：

While history often celebrates men, HERstory is a tribute to Singapore’s forgotten women in the 50s and 60s. Inspired by the women of that generation, Otto Fong tells the story of a tenacious woman with an unfulfi lled dream.

She was a young girl with a beautiful voice and a love for singing. Embroiled in the politics of that era, this young woman was forced to give up the chance to pursue her love in choral singing, while struggling to keep her family together during the years of turmoil. When the 21st century arrived and she thought she could fi nally lead a normal life, she found herself in the thick of a changing world, along with changing values, ethos and beliefs.

(excerpt from http://www.singaporeartsfest.com/126)

依稀记得故事讲的是关于新加坡争取独立时的那一段历史。在学校历史书上写的是一回事，但在舞台上扮演的却是我们不曾耳闻过但确实发生过的事实。写出这部剧的Otto Fong，父母就亲身经历过那一段不安定的日子，而故事里歌颂的，就是这群被历史书遗弃，被遗忘的斗士，勇者。

 （剧中采用了许多“剪影”，是想告诉我们这些都是一些人们常“看不到”的事吗？）

故事内容有点沉重。当然，有哪一个建国故事是不沉重的？剧里描述了人家避而不谈的忌讳ISA (Internal Security Act)，更加准确来说就是“冷藏行动”（Operation Coldstore）。不知道的朋友们Ｇｏｏｇｌｅ一下就知道了。

 （很特别的场景，报纸布满了整个舞台，好像是要代表那个年代所“真正”发生的“事实”）

里头叙述了笔者父母亲所经历过的那一段日子。父母曾因“冷藏行动”而无故地被关了其来。虽然母亲被释放了，但手无寸铁地带着一个儿子，活在当时带着有色眼光的社会里，所面对的艰辛和挣扎，是我们这一代所有远不能体会及了解的。

 （李邪扮演了“黑牡丹”一角，扣人心弦）

记得在看着一部剧时，有小滴几滴眼泪，尤其是到了尾声，儿子长大了，跟母亲之间的交流，更加感伤。儿子不理解母亲那时过的事什么样子的一个生活。在柔佛的家被翻箱倒柜之后却不敢报警；在新加坡有了家之后却还一直回去，并且到老了才追寻自己唱歌的梦想。那个时代的女性，就只有两个字形容：“伟大！”

这部剧，是向Ｏｔｔｏ的母亲致敬，是向像他母亲一样的女性致敬。

(Pictures credit from http://blog.omy.sg/dramabox/archives/575)