Think feather
boas, OTT props, disco lights, cheesy pop tunes and butoh dance moves.
The ominous makings of some tacky, 70s-inspired party? Nope, these are
actually the components of Cake Theatre's latest offering, Divine
Soap.
Behold Singapore's theatre rebel, Natalie Hennedige. Under her stylised
direction, Cake channels the weirdest and most cringeworthy elements
into some of the most subversive and powerful theatre I have seen. At
its best, Cake's eclectic blend of language, music and dance delivers
sharp visceral shocks that probe the mind and unsettle the soul.
Divine Soap pays homage to an ancient art form, Bangsawan
(Malay opera). In her director's statement, Hennedige professes a desire
to conflate Bangsawan's traditional elements with "a sense of re-invention".
However, given her tendency to overwhelm with wild
and surreal theatrics, would Divine Soap find a contemporary
voice for tradition and history - or would it devolve into a strident
mess of half-baked caricatures and bewildering antics? And would Haresh
Sharma's writing, which is capable of being tight
and charged with emotion, make any difference?
The results are decidedly mixed, but there is much method in Hennedige's
madness. Hennedige's clever layering illuminates the tension between
Bangsawan's re-alignment with modern tastes and its rootedness in traditional
artistic conventions. Despite its adoption of new media, such as the
radio, and foreign styles, such as popularised Latin American dance
rhythms, its use of traditional folk theatre elements like stock characters
(watak) and fantasy stories about kings and queens in heavens (kayangan)
is still inherent.
However, clashes between tradition and modernity are inevitable, and
can create unwitting farce. For example, in a 60s flashback, Divine
Soap comically re-enacts Bangsawan's dismal transition to radio.
Since the visual elements of Bangsawan are absent, the monotonous, uncannily
synthetic voices fail to properly transmit the Bangsawan plot. In articulating
the continuities modern art forms share with traditional ones, Divine
Soap also reveals how jarring this relationship between past and
present can be.
What both Sharma's writing and Hennedige direction do brilliantly is
to contextualise the tension Bangsawan's traditional-yet-modern nature
creates. For example, timeless hits like Billy Preston's With You
I'm Born Again and Whitney Houston's The Greatest Love of All
are used to illustrate Bangsawan's transition from folk to popular music.
In other sequences, the main Bangsawan story segues into a modern theatre
troupe's backstage quarrels, drawing stark parallels between the struggles
of old Bangsawan troupes and modern ones. When Hennedige's subversive
style is effectively employed, we see how Bangsawan's struggle for relevance
remains relevant in present times.
However, as my friend and fellow theatregoer put it, some of this production
is "far too clever". Divine Soap was bloated with too many
caricatures, subplots, sequences and layers squeezed into a running
time of little over ninety minutes. I felt more than a little dazed
after watching it. Vague transitions exacerbated the problem, rendering
some of the most colourful sequences dull. One minute you were watching
a modern theatre troupe rehearse their roles; the next you were transported
into a palace where a Bangsawan matriarch emphasizes the importance
of Bangsawan on the social calendar. And as if this wasn't messy enough,
the matriarch would abruptly transform into a frazzled theatre director
who screams "Cuuuuutttt!" - a cue for the cast to lapse into a bizarre
backstage argument.
Divine Soap was also awkwardly paced. In the end, I felt so
overwhelmed that the climax of the show - when the prince unknowingly
kills his deranged father before the queen resurrects him using her
special powers - didn't seem like a climax at all, merely another sequence
chockfull of the flamboyant theatrics to which I had become desensitised.
Also, certain questions were left unanswered. Midway through the 80s
flashbacks, the cast surrounding the queen ask in a sing-song voice,
"Who is our Queen?" She responds by reeling off an eerily familiar list
of things a queen should provide in order to succeed, like "telecommunications,
shipping... and community bondage". However, these allusions to social
engineering and Singapore's relentlessly economic preoccupations were
faint, and did not resonate throughout the sequence, let alone the rest
of the play. If properly sustained and explored, they would have conferred
a refreshing, socio-political dimension to Divine Soap.
However, therein lies the contradiction: if this play had crammed Singapore
society and politics into its already overwhelming repertoire, Divine
Soap would only have alienated the audience even further. So, my
suggestion to the makers is to tame this expressionistic beast with
moments of introspection, so that the play pauses long enough for the
audience to appreciate and embrace such imaginative sequences.
And Hennedige, despite her tendency to overwhelm, is capable of this.
It is no surprise then that the Divine masterstroke of this
Soap lies in its understated final sequence, where the cast
sits on the stage facing a projection screen and watches, along with
the audience, a movingly simple black-and-white short film tribute to
Bangsawan. It is such flashes of subtlety that enhance Hennedige's already
powerful craft.
Given the multiplicity and craziness of the play's roles, the cast
was admirably effective in conveying Sharma and Hennedige's vision.
However, I do have specific quibbles: in parts, Kumar and Peter Sau's
well-oiled comic routines degenerated into bland factual accounts of
Bangsawan that had already been elucidated in other scenes. And given
Fared Jainal's strength in body craft, several of his fight sequences
- especially the climactic duel with the king - were disappointingly
tepid. Thankfully, he did display his mastery over physical theatre
in other aspects of his performance, such as his hilarious facial contortions
in a scene where he played an overzealous actor aspiring to be the prince
sent the audience into fits of laughter.
Also, the pairing of Najib Soiman and Siti Khalijah as the macho king
and mysterious, but delightfully campy queen fuelled the slapstick momentum
of the production. In one of the funniest moments, Siti bats her eyelashes
and responds coyly to the king's eloquent praise of her beauty in typical
manja/ngada-ngada fashion, "Eh don't like that, lah".
However, it was the uniformly excellent Noorlinah Mohamed that stole
the show. Assuming a variety of personas from frazzled director to Bangsawan
matriarch to cool 60s hippie, she was the star of this ensemble. This
see-saw production demanded sudden and drastic transformations and showcased
her vocal and physical dexterity: her voice switched effortlessly from
raspy growl to 60s cool; and her body, initially slack as a put-upon
theatre director, tightened into the hunched, taut frame of an imposing
Bangsawan matriarch.
After watching Divine Soap, I cannot help but identify with
the parallels Hennedige draws between Cake and the Bangsawan troupe
in her director's statement. Like the Bangsawan artists, Hennedige and
company are agents of change embracing a stunning form of theatre that
"transports us all to another realm and provides a kind of balm for
our souls". However, in re-inventing theatre they must be constantly
aware of the fine line they tread between contemporary edginess and
ludicrous disarray. Nevertheless, as Divine Soap undoubtedly
reveals, Cake is well on their way to being a theatrical tour de force. |
"Hennedige and company are agents of change embracing a stunning
form of theatre"
Credits
Written by Haresh Sharma
Directed by Natalie Hennedige
Performed by Fared Jainal, Najib Soiman (bijaN), Noorlinah
Mohamed, Peter Sau, Siti Khalijah and Kumar
Live music performed by Philip Tan and Tiramisu
Lighting design by Suven Chan
Set design by Hella Chan
Created by Nicholas Chee, David Lee and Natalie Hennedige
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