Full Frontal
was launched this year as part of the Singapore Arts Festival's
effort to support young directors. In the programme notes, Kok Heng
Leun, one of the two dramaturges acting as consultants to the project
(alongside Robin Loon) , says the idea was to provide these relatively
inexperienced directors with a platform upon which they could "work
on their vision [and] challenge and expand their body of work."
Such an agenda tends to lead to work that is audacious, experimental
and, dare I say it, self-indulgent, and these were my expectations going
in - especially when the plays were being presented under a title
like Full Frontal. To my surprise, neither Peter Sau (directing
Tan Tarn How's Machine) nor Li Xie (directing Kuo Pao
Kun's Little White Sailing Boat) took that route. Despite
some interesting directorial decisions that enabled the directors to
claim these restagings as their own, neither piece was particularly
innovative or groundbreaking.
Not that they needed to be. Machine (***) is an intricately
crafted script that is extremely engaging on its own terms, especially
when trimmed down and tightened as it was here. The play is an intense
psychological drama about the twisted relationships that are formed
between two young women (Mia Chee as Kim and Chermaine Ang as Lina)
and the strange men that appear at their door one day, ostensibly to
repair the washing machine in the women's flat. On the surface,
the two men could not be more different: Rex (Rodney Oliveiro), is flashy,
smooth, suave and dressed in corporate attire; the aptly named Mud (Mohamed
Fita Helmi), on the other hand, is dull, rough, barely articulate and
dressed in a workman's jumpsuit. Nothing is what it seems, however:
our impressions of the men twist and turn as they worm their way into
the home and lives and of the women, leaving a trail of abuse, lies
and broken hearts in their wake. Who are these two enigmatic men? Free-wheeling
malcontents intent on loving and leaving whomever they meet? Malevolent
forces on a mission to wreak havoc? Or are they angels helping (in their
own unique fashion) to repair the two women's broken souls? Machine
asks what it means to really fix something (or someone) and whether
abuse can be a form of remedy since whatever does not kill us makes
us stronger, and these questions haunt Kim, Lina and the audience.
The chilly tone of the dialogue and the way its rhythms slip and slide
as if floating on air gives the script an almost dreamlike quality and
makes it open to various interpretations for adaptation and staging.
With its witty one-liners and quips, Machine can be played
straight as a sharp situation comedy that eventually takes a turn into
darker territory. Alternatively, by playing up the metaphysical quality
of the two strangers, it can be a dark slice of magic realism. In fact,
with the high production values - the striking and imposing all-red-and-white
set design, the well-chosen lighting and sound effects to create the
feeling of the characters onstage as components of a machine - I thought
magic realism would be the route that Sau was taking. Instead, he rather
interestingly chose to play Machine as a broad comedy, going
for easy laughs: the actors played up the embarrassing sexual situations
the characters found themselves in with a nod and a wink to the audience;
Oliveiro pulled exaggerated, cartoon faces when trying to charm his
way into both Ang's and Chee's pants. Although the audience responded
warmly to this, I personally felt that the over-emphasis on comedy distracted
from the psychodrama inherent in the script. I admit I preferred the
clean thrust of the original
production by TheatreWorks in 2002: without forgoing comic touches,
it nonetheless brought out the eerie, almost supernatural quality of
the two men and the complexity of the emotions felt by the two women,
each torn apart by the mix of hate, fear and desire they feel, at different
times, for both of the men.
Sau's decision to mine the comic elements of the script also
meant that he needed to turn up the pace in his version. When I think
of the 2002 production, I think of a cool blue; here, the predominant
colour scheme was a thick red. In Sau's play, the machine is a
heart, pumping all the time. The actors talk as if trying to fill up
all the spaces between the words rather than simply letting the dialogue
breathe. Sau's version was punchy but it sacrificed the original's
airiness and atmosphere.
This directorial decision would have worked better, however, with actors
who could carry the verbosity and intense rhythms of the dialogue. Unfortunately,
Ang and Chee were not up to the task. Ang is actually a competent actress
and her ability to portray a variety of emotions and character beats
- a kittenish temptress, a woman battered into submission -
impressed as always. However, her poor vocal delivery of the English
text marred her performance. She mispronounced and stumbled over quite
a few words, making it difficult to take her as the confident, metropolitan,
yuppie character that she was clearly intended to be. Chee had similar
problems with her enunciation but, in her case, even her scenes without
dialogue failed to really convince: she had little chemistry with either
Helmi or Olivero and her performance struck me as immature - and
I mean that literally: often, she came across more as a petulant teenager
than an adult woman.
But if the women had been neither well-cast nor well-directed, at least
Sau did a good enough job with the men. Helmi's reining in of
his natural energy to play a reticent character worked nicely -
although he sometimes overplayed the character's inability to
speak lucidly. Olivero could similarly have done with less mugging to
the audience for comic effect but generally played his character with
the required charm and smarm.
In terms of the adaptation of the script by Sau, I thought he made
good choices in paring down the script. Sau's version captured
the essence of the plot and could also stand on its own. My only real
problem was his decision to have the actors mime some parts of their
conversations. This happened whenever all four actors were onstage but
having separate conversations in pairs. This is always very difficult
to pull off theatrically: it is very contrived when you can hear some
flashes of dialogue and not others and I'm convinced that only
the very best actors can look convincing miming dialogue in a naturalistic
mode, especially when they have to switch around and suddenly be audible
mid-dialogue. Of course, one can play the suspension of disbelief card
and I accept that my dislike of the approach may just be a pet peeve
but I feel that Sau should have found a way round this trite stage convention.
Despite these and other reservations, there was also clearly quite
a bit to recommend about Machine. All in all, I felt that this staging
was a solid, if uninspired, presentation. Most importantly, I think
it succeeded in drawing attention to what is actually a very well-designed
and sharp script that is strangely overlooked when one talks about the
major works of local theatre.
The second piece of the evening did not seem to have any real connection
to the first, other than that it was another piece by a relatively new
director: in tone and shape, it was a completely different play. Where
Machine was edgy and contemporary, Li's staging of Boat (***1/2)
was more traditional in feel and approach.
The story revolves around a family conflict which ensues when a young
man, Li, decides to give up his family wealth to pursue his own path
as a socialist. This angers his grandfather, Lin, who casts him out
of the family home. This resonates with Li's father, Sun, who,
as a young man, had married into Lin's family in the 1940s even
though he knew that Lin had made his fortune as a Japanese spy. This
leads Sun to take a chance and forge his own path as well despite his
growing years.
The theme of the play is simple: live your life with integrity and
follow your dreams and ideals, no matter what the cost. The narrative
structure is, similarly, very straightforward: what we see are just
the bare bones of the main story. There isn't any deep characterization
or elaborate subplot other than what supports the main thrust of the
story. The actors were all strong but, to be fair, none had anything
particularly challenging to do (although I did wonder why the director
cast the relatively young Tay Kong Hui in the part of old man Lin).
What impressed me most about Boat was how Li Xie took such a simplistic
script and made it resonate powerfully for contemporary audiences. She
did this through the use of simple theatrical devices which drew on
the context within which the script was written to flesh out the theme
of the play. The clearest example of this was the use of voice-overs
which were recordings of interviews of people who lived through the
social upheavals in Singapore in the 1940s to 1970s. In their interviews,
which were accompanied by historical photographs, they described the
Singapore people's struggle for independence against the Japanese
the British and even the Singapore government. Kuo intended for Sun's
eventual decision to stand up for what he believes in to be a metaphor
for their struggle, but Li's directorial approach extends beyond
this by taking into account the playwright's own struggle. Boat
was, after all, staged in the early 1980s, only a few years after Kuo
had been detained without trial and had had his citizenship revoked
because of alleged anti-Singapore, communist activities. It was difficult
for Kuo to persevere as an artist and have his plays staged -
and yet persevere he did, eventually winning numerous national cultural
awards and having his citizenship reinstated before his passing in 2002.
His inspirational story, a topic discussed in the interviews, is used
here to add another level of poignancy to the piece and to remind us
that the battle for dignity and integrity can be fought on many fronts
- as a son, as a country, as an artist, as a citizen. The play
ends with the actors bowing before Sun's body and sending it off
on a funeral boat but there is a sense that it is Kuo who is really
being honoured.
Boat's clear narrative structure, recount of Singapore's
history and homage to a local hero make it an ideal play to be used
in school as part of the National Education curriculum. With due credit
to Li's confidence and sure hand as a director, the play rarely
veered off-course and engaged both the heart and head although some
theatre-goers may have felt it lacked the flair or sophistication to
be considered a truly great piece of theatre.
Unfortunately, in the talkback after the performance, one aspect of
Boat dominated the conversation and it was sad that this was what many
members of the audience would be taking away with them after watching
Full Frontal. The issue was that Boat had been advertised as being performed
in Mandarin with English surtitles, but in fact, word-for-word translations
were only done for the voice-overs; the rest was only surtitles with
a brief synopsis of each scene.
Li, Sau, Loon and Kok defended Li's decision, arguing that Li
as a director had the prerogative to not provide detailed surtitles.
They argued that this decision was valid for aesthetic and political
reasons. Aesthetically, Li felt felt that surtitles would get in the
way of the staging, and politically, she wanted to focus our attention
on the Chinese language because she felt that English was over-privileged
by audiences (I infer this from her retort in the talkback session that
no one had asked for Mandarin surtitles for Machine). Her decision was
in line with the theme of the play, but her retort also shows that she
misunderstands the issue at stake. Naturally the director is free to
present a play in any language and not surtitle it. However, the advertising
must be fair to paying audiences. A Caucasian lady next to me walked
out after five minutes; I assume because she could not understand Mandarin.
Similarly, the Chinese audience member next to me spent the whole performance
translating the story for his Indian friend. No one asked for Mandarin
surtitles for Machine because Machine did not purport to have surtitles.
Audiences need to know what to expect before putting down money and
going into a production. I am happy to attend a play in a language that
I do not understand and be confused if I am told this is the nature
of the play beforehand. Just as we need to respect the artist, the artist
must also respect the audience.
The artists' other argument was that you do not need to understand
every word of a performance to enjoy it - and they used Italian
opera as an example. Italian opera, however, is not analogous because
of its visual spectacle and musical elements; Boat, on the other hand,
is a talky, narrative-driven play that cannot sustain the attention
of most audiences who do not speak the language in which it is being
performed.
I hate to end this review on such a combative note, but that's
how I felt at the end of the evening, especially after the talkback.
I had not paid for my ticket and I speak Mandarin so, at the end of
the day, the issue was not a personal one for me; but listening to the
artists defend Li's choice not to have surtitles reminded me that
even when (as she advocates) we fight for what we believe in, we must
also think about how our choices and decisions affect others. |
"Despite some interesting directorial decisions that enabled the
directors to claim these restagings as their own, neither piece was
particularly innovative or groundbreaking. Not that they needed to be."
|
