Paul Rae
is a brave man. Time and again, he and his wife Kaylene Tan have tested
the limits of theatre with their experimental group spell#7, and never
in the bigwig, razzamatazz manner of Theatreworks's Flying Circus Project,
either - their pieces have always had a distinctly humble, domestic
touch to them, paring down the theatrical experience to its core.
Usually, this strategy has worked, earning spell#7 a substantial and
devoted fan base. Occasionally it doesn't, as in the case of Duets
2.
The first Duets,
performed last year, was terribly successful - Substation director
Lee Weng Choy called it his theatrical experience of the year. Already,
it was based on a pretty bold premise, as an autobiographical show to
be performed annually, based on true household interactions between
Paul and Kaylene, musing on the clashes and odd harmonies of their relationship.
But with Kaylene on sabbatical this year, Paul's taken the incongruous
step of performing Duets 2 as a one-man show. In another daring
act of bravado, he's even avoided performing multiple roles, in
favour of the honesty of singular self-presentation.
This disarming simplicity actually works at the play's opening
- as Paul just sits there, in a set that's been minimalistically
arranged to duplicate the verandah of his house, speaking in a voice
that sounds neither careless nor declamatory, but somehow nonchalantly
rehearsed. He tells a charming, bizarre story of a Thai maid he's
met, who nibbles the toes of his baby daughter while he puzzles over
whether it's hygienic, then meanders onward to a proposal to invite
ex-Prime Minister Thaksin to the house. We laugh, and we're entertained,
as much by the sense of being a houseguest as an audience member.
But Paul isn't content with simply regaling us with anecdotes.
He's also embarking on investigations of space and semiotics.
This is fine when he's playing with props and cunning set design,
common staples of interesting theatre: pointing out the one area on
his verandah where a candleflame will not blow out, shifting the bamboo
galas pegged with laundry hanging above his dining table. It's
less entertaining when he waxes philosophical, discoursing at length
on the unlimited love of children or Magritte's This is not
a pipe. As a lone man onstage, largely stripped of dramatic tools
and gimmicks, Paul can't quite sustain these prolonged flights
into the abstract, which soon become boring. Having pared drama down
to its bones, it becomes difficult for him to make it carry great ideas.
And even on occasions when Paul does resort to dramatic devices, there's
little profit. When he speechifies on the nature of age and putting
on roots, pretending to be pompous, it's barely demarcated as
a different personality. When he uses folded laundry to create a live
videographic puppet-show of a child in bed- a profoundly original
medium of play - it only holds our attention for a while before
becoming tedious. The banality of non-theatricality catches up with
him, and pulls down the show with its weight.
Thematically, the play's also troubled by a lack of focus. Duets
2 appears to have been initially conceived as two separate acts,
Enfold and XO, presumably discussing life with baby
and dinner with Thaksin respectively. The blending of these two disparate
halves, though amusing for its juxtaposed contrasts, makes it extremely
difficult to grasp a holistic vision of the piece, a unifying idea behind
the themes. Moreover, it shortened the piece to just over an hour, disappointing
even hardcore spell#7 fans, let out early while missing a sense of resolution
and closure.
It's truly a waste that Paul's remarkable theatrical imagination's
loses its way in this production. People were certainly awed at the
end of the show, with his beautiful gesture of revealing a glowing garden
of potted plants hidden beneath the Guinness Theatre floorboards. I've
a feeling that his new status as director, writer and solo actor of
the piece (though aided by others in the credits) made it difficult
for him to critically judge what could and couldn't work in his
performance.
I'm not saying Paul should have called it off for the sake of
his wife's non-participation - this has been a step in an
ongoing experiment of dissolving the barrier between life and theatre
that's bound to yield some great shows in the future, as well
as some duds. I'm simply hoping that in the future, whether solo
or accompanied, the actors focus on the bilateral dynamic of the duet,
avoiding the obsessive focus on a single voice that can lose the audience
when it reaches too far in its explorations.
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"As a lone man onstage, largely stripped of dramatic tools and
gimmicks, Paul can't quite sustain these prolonged flights into
the abstract, which soon become boring"
Credits
Writer/Performer: Paul Rae
Additional Texts by: Kaylene Tan
Directorial Assistance: Claire Wong, Ben Salter, Tan Beng Tian
Production Manager: Yap Seok Hui
Production Assistant: Carol Chan
Lighting Designer: Ken Ikeda
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