Roman
Tam & The 3 Bears was a double-bill directed by Krishen Jit,
beginning with Between Chinas, written by Pek Siok Lian, and
followed by Everything But The Brain, written by Jean Tay.
Between Chinas begins promisingly, in a park in Hong Kong
where an old man is in the midst of his t'ai chi routine when his morning
reverie is rudely interrupted by a young American-Born Chinese tourist
with issues. They get into a debate on the statue of King George VI
in the park and the Hong Kong authorities' decision to replace the statue
with one of Sun Yat-sen. The American thinks Sun a suitably democratic
hero for the Chinese people and by extension, an appropriate national
symbol for Hong Kong. The old man, amusingly enough, thinks the Cantopop
singer Roman Tam is a more appropriate icon.
With such a strong dash of irony inherent in the plot, it is a curious
thing that this play fails to deliver. This could have been a genuinely
intelligent commentary on the complexities of the Chinese identity and
the cultural biases that influence our perceptions of what makes an
icon. But like the feeling of nausea that surfaces midway through a
ferry ride to Bintan, one starts to sense as the play progresses that
the main reason it fails to reach the heights of its ambition is that
the writing is just not very good.
The characters never ripen beyond the two dimensions we know of them
at the very outset of the play. The American is typically American,
and the old man typically obstinate. The characters become mouthpieces
of the playwright in a kind of Socratic dialogue, rather than people
in their own right.
There are occasional moments of wit in the play - the line "you
can't take the Hong Kong out of a Cantonese" is milked for all
it's worth. But when the lights dim and the characters launch into what
appears to be a serious tribute to the diaspora of Chinese emigrants
that "launched a thousand ships and spawned a thousand restaurants",
the attempt at pseudo-philosophy is jarring and discomforting.
The actors cannot save the script. Brendon Fernandez is a gifted performer,
but his American accent is a little strange round the edges, and it
is just odd that ACTION Theatre could not muster up an American Chinese
to play his part given how many of them there are in this country. Gerald
Chew does a better Hong Kong accent, but I would have thought his character
needed a paunch and less hair.
It is also disappointing that this play has almost nothing of an ending
with the characters shaking hands and seeming to just come round to
each other's perspective - a resolution that packs about
as much punch as barley water.
Jean Tay's Everything But The Brain is a whole island apart;
an oasis of intelligence. The plot is deceptively simple. Elaine Lim
is a Physics teacher, much-loved by her students, single at 36, with
a father whose health deteriorates as a result of a succession of strokes.
But the beauty of the play is in the writing, and the writing soars
above the banality of a Hallmark Channel tear jerker, through a clever
use of the metaphor of time.
Just as "time speeds up, slows down, stands still and collapses",
so too vignettes of Elaine's life dash back and forth, rewinding and
fast-forwarding in quick succession. The 10 months and 29 days that
it takes for her father to die from the onset of his first stroke are
compressed into an hour and a half on stage. Papa Bear, Mama Bear and
Baby Bear surface from her subconscious and become a kind of Greek chorus
helping Elaine to narrate the events of her life. The dots connect later
in the play when we learn that the three bears were used by her father
to explain the theory of relativity when she was a wee tot while they
were on a train ride to Malacca to meet Elaine's mother, and it was
this tale that gripped her imagination and made her grow up to love
Physics.
The play is jam packed with feisty humour. When the three bears come
out in full jester's gear, Elaine declares: "If you expect me to
don a wig, and call me Goldilocks, think again." Elaine's insecurities
at being single for too long are explained by comparing women to wine:
"They get older with age, but if you wait too long, they turn into
vinegar." And Elaine's discovery that the young doctor she has
a crush on is nine years younger than herself, and worse, one of her
former students, is tragicomedy at its best.
Pam Oei as Elaine is magic on stage. Her role requires her, within
moments, to sweep from playing a single woman with a crush on the young
doctor looking after her father to a disgruntled little girl throwing
a tantrum. She does this effortlessly, and has that rare quality only
the best actors have, to make you feel as if she were performing just
for you. Gerald Chew who plays Elaine's father puts in a moving speech
on the debilitating effects of disease and old age, but generally lacks
the gravitas of more able performers like Lim Kay Tong. Brendon Fernandez
carries his lover boy role well, as do the three Bears who are a riot
of fun and never allow the pace of the play to sag.
Overall Jean Tay's play brims with all of the infectious, high-octane energy
of a Haresh Sharma classic, but with a tighter control of form and an exceptional
mastery of language. Einstein once said: "Put your hand on a hot stove
for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour,
and it seems like a minute. That's relativity." The same could be said,
one thinks, about watching a bad play and a good play, respectively. |
"Jean Tay's play brims with all of the infectious, high-octane
energy of a Haresh Sharma classic, but with a tighter control of form
and an exceptional mastery of language"
Second Opinion
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