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>>>>>LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE
Marius von
Mayenburg belongs to the new wave of young German playwrights known as
the 'Blood and Sperm' movement. There is certainly plenty of both substances
in what the press release worryingly describes as a piece of "on-your-face"
theatre - his 1998 play FIREFACE, a darkly comic look at modern family
life, containing enough bleeding and ejaculation to fill a small bathtub.
In von Mayenburg's view, the nuclear family comes surrounded by a haze
of nuclear fallout.
At first
glance the family in question seems typical enough - engineer father in
blue overalls housewife mother in a fifties Stepford wife-type frock.
The children are slightly odder; daughter Ada is obsessed with losing
her virginity despite being flat-chested, while son Kurt sets things on
fire - dead birds, clothes, local buildings - but his parents put this
down, optimistically, to his grappling with the problems of puberty.
Von Mayenburg is unsettlingly good at portraying how family relationships
can stifle and cloy. Father would rather read about dead prostitutes than
sleep with his wife. Kurt and Ada do more than sleep in their shared bed,
while their mother habitually strips off and showers in front of Kurt.
"Being my mother isn't enough for you," he complains. "You
want to be a woman as well."
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>>' FIREFACE is the sort of theatre Singapore needs more of - high
octane yet highly intelligent.'
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Things get more complicated when Ada acquires a motorcycle-riding boyfriend,
Paul (Kevin Murphy). Distracted by jealousy, Kurt accidentally burns his
own face in a classroom arson incident. Now wearing a rather sinister
white mask, he begins acting more and more like a cartoon villain, increasing
his dark influence over Ada.
All five
cast members are talented physical performers, with Karen Tan
standing out as the skittish mother. She is like Lucille Ball on speed,
a
model housewife who can't understand why her family doesn't fit into the
normal pattern. Murphy and Christian Huber provide fine support as grunting
macho men, while Ian Tan shines as Kurt, the ultimate problem child. The
weak link here is Pat Toh as Ada - she has a compelling stage presence,
but her diction leaves a lot to be desired, and she never quite grasps
the ambivalence of her character, both drawn to Kurt and damaged by him.
Beatrice Chia's
direction is both effective and stylish. Her scenes segue
into each other so smoothly the transitions are barely noticeable, and
she integrates sound and lighting seamlessly with the action (helped by
Mark Richmond's excellent sound design). There are many witty touches
scattered through the production - when the mother talks about menstruation,
a red taffeta slip peeps out from beneath her black dress; the walls are
lined with portraits of people with their faces missing.
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If there is a fault here, it is Chia's fondness for shock tactics. The
frequent clothes-shedding and bump 'n' grind moments on stage are all
of a piece with those oh-so-controversial banned advertising images. This
is in
keeping with the spirit of the play, yes, but the nth time the giant plastic
dildo makes its appearance, or that Ada slips her hand down her brother's
shorts, the novelty does start to pall.
Fortunately
the production gains focus as it nears its gruesome denouement. Without
going into too much detail about this, suffice it to say the most chilling
scene you will witness in the theatre this year takes place in total blackout,
punctuated only by screams of terror. FIREFACE is the sort of theatre
Singapore needs more of - high octane yet highly intelligent.
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