The difficulties
of raising AIDS awareness are cruelly ironic. The alarming prevalence
of HIV means that it is crucial constantly to dispel the myths and proselytise
the truths about the virus - but unfortunately it is precisely the constant
drumming-in that is the problem: the onslaught of strident and often
repetitive campaigns means that people become desensitised to these
messages.
So The Seven-Month Itch was certainly a clever concept - using
forum theatre to give an edge to the old but vital message of HIV prevention.
It comprised thirty minutes of scripted drama (which set the context
and presented a provocative situation to the audience) and this was
followed by a hotseating session (where the audience interrogated the
characters) and finally by the audience suggesting alternatives to the
characters' actions and playing the roles themselves.
But this interactive play fell severely short of its noble intentions.
The playlet was a minefield of clichés. Jason (Timothy Nga) and
Daniel (Danny Yeo) have been in a relationship for seven months; one
day, Jason meets a stranger, Nick (also played by Yeo), at a club and
has (surprise, surprise) unprotected sex with him. Although he regrets
his actions, it is, alas, far too late. In the spirit of all things
melodramatic, he may have been infected. To be fair, this scenario may
be trite, but it is hardly contrived. The fact that it has become a
cliché is nothing to be flippant about: its frequent occurrence
reveals the disturbingly cavalier attitudes we have towards the risks
of unprotected sex and HIV.
However, theatre is never meant to "tell", but to "show" or "suggest".
Very broadly, good theatre should be probing, asking difficult questions
about the human condition and unsettling the audience. The Seven-Month
Itch chose to blandly regurgitate a situation that was all too
familiar; worse still, it was marred by sloppy performances, ungainly
language and, above all else, an overdose of didacticism.
And this is especially surprising, considering that playwright Haresh
Sharma had just come from one of his finest, most layered examples of
socially conscious theatre, Fundamentally
Happy. The main problem, I think, is that The Seven-Month
Itch was first and foremost an AIDS awareness campaign, and theatre
was merely a vehicle for the HIV prevention message. Therein lies this
production's crucial error - the point of the event was the message
you took away from it rather than the characters or plot; the tragic
consequences of AIDS were far more important than the tragedy itself.
Thus the characters often devolved into loudhailers disseminating instructive
messages against infidelity and unprotected sex, thinly and predictably
veiled with anger, desperation or regret.
Later on in the hotseating segment, Sharma and director Alvin Tan acted
as facilitators to encourage the audience to join in, and they called
on Action for Aids (AfA) volunteers at opportune moments to surreptitiously
slip in bite-sized bits of information about HIV and AIDS. Admittedly,
some of it was interesting: for example, I gleaned that there is a thirteen-week
incubation period before HIV can be detected, and using two condoms
simultaneously is ineffective because friction would cause the condoms
to rip. Nevertheless, these randomly scattered facts only affirmed my
initial reaction to The Seven-Month Itch - I felt like a reluctant
student waiting for the lunch bell to ring in AIDS awareness 101, instead
of a theatregoer engaging with the cast and audience.
What also really irked me was the awkward language that issued inorganically
out of the characters' mouths, and which inevitably drew uniformly poor
performances from the cast. Again, this is surprising, given that Sharma
has written some of the most emotionally evocative scripts in Singapore
theatre. Nga was certainly pretty to look at, but his performance was
flat as a worn-out cover of Men's Health. And who can blame
him, when he is made to mouth tacky one-liners ("I love one-syllable
names, there is something sexy about them") and reiterate the painfully
obvious ("We had sex... unprotected sex")?
Danny Yeo was mediocre as Daniel, Jason's boyfriend, and corny as Nick,
the lecherous clubber who eventually seduces Jason into having unprotected
sex with him. The mediocrity of Yeo's portrayals was in no small part
due to the unrealistic natures of his characters. As Daniel, his visceral
reaction to Jason's indiscretions was petty and maudlin: he erased pictures
of daniel and himself, along with all Daniel's SMSes, from his cell
phone in an incredulous hissy fit. Nick, on the other hand, was a lesson
in What You Should Never Do on a Date rather than a saucy, mysterious
stud. With pick up lines like "I love your eyes" accompanied by supposedly
flirtatious tugs of Jason's T-shirt, there were cringes aplenty.
Peter Sau was the best and worst actor of the night. He delivered the
most engaging (even if slightly OTT) performance as Kim, Jason's clubbing
sister. The twinkle in his eye sold him as the delightfully campy "safe
slut" he was supposed to be. However, as Jason's best friend, he inexplicably
transformed into a curiously angry and sententious Hock Seng. Besides
being subjected to a perplexing plot twist (at the testing clinic with
Jason, Hock Seng abruptly reveals that he has AIDS) what really butchered
his performance was, again, unwieldy language. He seemed to have an
angst-ridden explanation for everything ("It used to be the seven-year
itch... now it's just seven months!"), and also delivered the most ignominious
one-liner of the play, the classy "Ignorance is bliss!".
The dreadful acting and language was a real pity, given that Aidli
"Alin" Mosbit's confident and textured direction provided
a slew of opportunities for this play to sparkle. The tongue-in-cheek
role reversals played on many levels of irony, while the transitions
from clubbing scene to HIV testing clinic were seamless; but all this
was ultimately lost on characters that had the personalities of cardboard
cutouts.
Fortunately, the difficult adjustments and nifty improvisations the
actors made in the forum segment of the play redeemed it to some extent.
In forum theatre, it is difficult to expect the unexpected: the audience
can throw curve balls at the actors that the latter can neither pre-empt
nor prepare for. So even if some of the audience's questions and the
actors' responses were befuddling, the cast managed to successfully
cajole an initially (and understandably) tepid audience into interaction.
Also, the efforts of facilitators Sharma and Tan were admirable. Even
if the forum segment hobbled on for too long, they managed to sustain
an even exchange of ideas and opinions on topics ranging from positive
peer pressure to forging contracts of commitment in relationships.
The Seven-Month Itch, like any other HIV awareness event,
did rekindle some sort of spark in HIV awareness. It attracted a sizeable
audience on the second-last night when I saw it, and who is to say that
it did not sufficiently pique the crowd to "think again", as the slogan
for AfA's latest campaign goes?
Sadly, the positives end there. Where it could have been emotionally
and intellectually probing, it was a tired tale that played to the least
sophisticated of the groundlings. For example, Yeo's character, Nick,
could have transcended his one-dimensional role as a plot function -
it would have been disquieting to see how Nick's recklessness, and the
vulnerabilities that surely lurk under his cocksure cover, unravel.
I was left wanting something more unsettling, powerful and evocative
- a dull, unsatisfied itch that this production could barely scratch.
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"The Seven-Month Itch chose to blandly regurgitate a situation
that was all too familiar; worse still, it was marred by sloppy performances,
ungainly language and, above all else, an overdose of didacticism"
Credits
Director: Aidli "Alin" Mosbit
Playwright: Haresh Sharma
Cast: Timothy Nga, Danny Yeo and Peter Sau
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