"We Are Not
Yet Free" is the last poem of Alfian Sa'at's critically-acclaimed anthology,
A History of Amnesia, and he expresses the same sentiment in
Homesick. Yet, while he implies that inhibitive social and
political boundaries still entrap society, he also rightly asserts that
society entraps itself within stereotypes which the government has imposed
and we have unquestioningly accepted.
And Homesick incisively picks apart the rubble of (self-)imposed
labels masquerading as "Singaporean" identities. Underneath the categories
of "stayers", "quitters", second-class citizens,
"bananas", PRCs, non-conformists, traditionalists and conservatives,
Alfian reveals the malaise that afflicts and oddly unites this society:
homesickness. As he adroitly points out, homesickness here is an unusually
virulent strain that transcends geography; it is despondency borne of
the unfulfilled need to belong, a yearning for a home that does not
aim to "live out one man's dream" of a country it will never be, but
accepts its imperfect people and the spectrum of thoughts, values and
beliefs they represent.
It is fitting then that Homesick's dysfunctional Koh family
only begins to ruminate on what it means to leave - or more accurately,
lose - their home when they are forced by the 2003 SARS crisis to live
together. At first, the devoted mother and wife Patricia (Neo Swee Lin),
coming-of-age Patrick (Hansel Tan), animal- and female-rights activist
Daphne (Serena Ho), snobby "banana" Herbert (Lim Kay Siu), cultural
purist Arthur (Nelson Chia) and interracial, transnational couple Marianne
and Manoj (Eleanor Tan and Remesh Panicker) are united only in their
refusal to accept each other's diversity. Slowly but surely, they confront
the rivalries, desertions and betrayals that have divided their family,
and they set the stage for Homesick to challenge ingrained
misconceptions of "quitters" as "fair-weather Singaporeans" too cowardly
to face harsher realities of life in Singapore. Instead, the play contends
that "quitting" is the response of citizens brave enough to
defy the call to conform, but also itching to seek real identities elsewhere.
This is classic Alfian perceptiveness, but Homesick's masterstroke
is that it focuses on staying as much as it does on quitting. As Patricia,
the mother hen of the family and its only "stayer", pores
through photo albums, and clucks and coos at her children as if they
were still babies, I can't help but wonder: are many of these "stayers"
staying because they are lost in nostalgia? Are "stayers" really staying
to stake their claim in the present, or have they been exiled to the
past?
Such questions both endow and burden Homesick with great ambition,
an ambition all the loftier because it relies on characters' interactions
to deliver the big answers such big questions need.
Sometimes, these interactions addressed the questions compellingly,
as was the case with the touching portrayal of Mr Koh's incredibly earnest
Chinese mistress, Cindy Leow (Chermaine Ang). If anything, she, a foreigner,
is the only true stayer in Homesick, challenging the inherent
nationalistic associations of staying as well as the conventional notions
of "family".
But at other times the interactions were hindered by a monotonous loudness.
There was a great deal of exasperated arm-flailing, huffing and puffing
in a rather desultory first act: Patrick overindulged in teen angst,
Daphne launched into feminist diatribes far too often and Marianne traded
verbal barbs with every other family member at the slightest provocation.
Thankfully, the refreshingly laidback Manoj diffused some of this excessive
melodrama. And curiously enough, some of the cleverest witticisms of
the play were delivered by Manoj - and not the other overblown characters.
In tune with Homesick's melodramatic rhythms was its penchant
for didacticism, which is surprising given Alfian's virtuosity with
the language. Where there could have been more meaningful dialogue,
at times characters devolved into mouthpieces feeding us Homesick's
intended messages. Perhaps the most glaring of these "show-and-tell"
scenes was Manoj's proclamation that Arthur is as rootless as Herbert
despite his painstaking efforts to recover his supposed "roots" in China.
While this is an astute point, the audience should have been left to
distill such truths from the dialogue, rather than have been told what
to think. In parts, this lack of subtlety ruined the dramatic potential
and fluency of the play, and the poignancy of the truths it intended
to convey.
In the face of such directionless melodrama, the context of Homesick
- the SARS crisis - was disappointingly relegated to the sidelines as
a mere plot function. It was abundant with metaphors that could have
been allied with the fears Singapore still grapples with today, revealing
a nation in perpetual crisis. Granted, there were fleeting instances
where the play brilliantly engaged its context: in a cruelly ironic
scene where Cindy meets Mrs Patricia Koh herself, the other members
of the family don masks and look on in silent horror as Patricia, masked
from the truth, unwittingly ushers Cindy into the house and, more starkly,
into her family. But the mandatory closed-circuit television (CCTV)
camera installed in the Koh family's living room could have been developed
into a metaphor for surveillance, exploring the climate of fear such
restrictive government scrutiny engenders. Instead, characters merely
took cheap potshots and hurled abuse at it.
Even if it does tend to stall sometimes, Homesick mines a
rich vein of drama. Under Jonathan Lim's accomplished direction, the
actors gradually break from their one-dimensionality and embrace the
nuances of their roles. At the beginning of the second act, the debate
between Patrick and Manoj about the repercussions of defaulting National
Service contrasts hopeless idealism with cold, hard pragmatism. By the
end of the scene, there is a sense of tortured solipsism about Patrick
that reflects the wider truth of Lim's production: staying or quitting
- just like conscription, civil liberties, history and culture - is
a conundrum as deeply personal as it is communal.
If the Koh family is a metaphor for the nation, each family member
represents the individual Singaporean embarking on his journey to rediscover
what home means. It is Patricia Koh's journey - tragic, solitary and
empowering - that makes the deepest impression. Neo Swee Lin delivers
a rousing performance, transforming from a mother too naïve, too
generous and too eager into a livid matriarch forced to confront reality
through her husband's infidelity. It is fitting that this loyal citizen
of both family and country chooses to "quit" - leaving is a necessary
transition in her rediscovery of home, a home she now finds so alienating.
I must finally applaud set designer Nicholas Li: while the Koh family
may slam the doors on each other, his cleverly elaborate dollhouse set
does not allow any one character to be completely isolated from another,
reinforcing the idea that each family member is inevitably part of another's
struggle. It is brilliance such as this that makes Homesick
a fine piece of work with a life of its own, regardless of its shortcomings.
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"Even if it does tend to stall sometimes, Homesick mines
a rich vein of drama"
Second Opinion
Full House
by Ng Yi-Sheng
Credits
Playwright: Alfian Sa'at
Director: Jonathan Lim
Cast: Chermaine Ang, Nelson Chia, Serena Ho, Lim Kay
Siu, Neo Swee Lin, Remesh Panicker, Eleanor Tan and Hansel Tan
Set Designer: Nicholas Li
Lighting Designer: Yo Shao Ann
Costume Designer: Mothar Kassim
Hair and Wigs: Ashley Lim
Music composer: Bang Wenfu
Production Manager: BB Koh
Stage Manager: Esther Teo
Technical Manager: Teo Kuang Han
Producer: Tony Trickett
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