There are
plays I adore with a passion and plays I detest with a passion. It's
easy to write about either: when there's something I desperately
need to express, words just flow out of me whether they're redolent
of roses or vitriol.
Sadly, Mama's Wedding falls into neither category. There's
barely anything wrong with it, yet it just misses the mark, never eliciting
a strong emotional response from its viewers, never actually giving
me a reason to care about its characters and their problems. It's not
a disaster, but it sure as hell isn't a triumph either.
Mind you, I wanted this play to succeed. It's written by Marc
Beau de Silva, who's been advertised as "Malaysia's
hottest new playwright" - and whether or not that's
true, I'm in firm support of more work by both Malaysians and
young people being shown here. It's also billed as our first all-Eurasian
play, which is pretty cool, given that there's barely any examination
of genuine Eurasian culture in popular Singapore consciousness.
And y'know, it does succeed, sort of, kind of. The show's
structured around a phone call from Emily (Candice de Rozario) in Penang
to her sister Girlie (Carina Hales) who's moved to Singapore,
urging her to come back to attend their mother's second wedding.
With easy grace, it comes off as a remarkable portrait of middle-class
Eurasian life in Malaysia, painted in rich detail, from the gorgeously
naturalistic set to the mixed Malay/English dialogue to the multifarious
anecdotes about marrying Chinese men, pickling achar and conversing
with aunties who only speak Kristang. (The whole cast is pretty light-skinned,
so the "hitam manis" bits about the politics of skin colour
fall a little flat, but we can overlook that.)
Samantha Scott-Blackhall animates de Silva's casual, garrulous
dialogue by having her actors run through miniscule, quotidian chores
- folding clothes, applying facial masks, cutting paper to make
paper chains and so on - creating a comfortable state of intimacy
with the audience. It feels as if we're intruding not on the lives
of three unknown sisters, but on those of our siblings.
Yet that very sense of comfort is what frustrates the action of this
play. Emily isn't actually desperate for Girlie to come back.
Girlie isn't scandalised by her mother's remarriage either:
they're agreed that their biological father was a lousy philanderer,
and there's nothing objectionable about this second Chinese man
her mother's after. The only problem is that Mama hasn't
invited Girlie herself because she's pissed off that Girlie used
her as inspiration for a wicked witch character in a children's
book she's done.
There's no deep psychological scarring at the root of this, either;
no soap opera tales of rape or molest or abuse or secret adoption or
even excessive examination pressure. Mama just happens to have a very
strong personality, one that none of the girls can escape, even if they
relocate to other countries.
Where's the histrionics? Where's the melodrama? Where -
pardon my essentialism - is the drama? There's never a real
reason to want to weep or scream or slap a character in the face. (There
are ample occasions to laugh, though - the impressions of pointy-breasted
aunties singing in choir are very ticklesome. Way too many punning repetitions
of the word "bitch" for good taste, though.)
Minor altercations do occur in the play - Emily reveals how she's torn
up about wanting to break up with her girlfriend, and gets huffy at
one point when she finds out Girlie pre-emptively outed her to Mama
as a lesbian. And of course, there's the downtrodden Betty, who mooches
around in her Save the Animals T-shirt, dumbly suffering the teasing
of her big sisters. Elizabeth Tan plays this character to subtle, subdued
effect: it is a touching moment when she finally musters up the courage
to address Girlie directly on the phone, telling her that the sisters
must stick together. But if she's experiencing any real sadness, we're
not given a key to it: we don't empathise.
No drama. So what if Girlie doesn't attend the wedding? The stakes
are never high enough for me to care. The sisters don't even seem
to need the family terribly much - they could all survive if everything
were to break up tomorrow.
Of course, at the end of the show, Girlie conciliatorily agrees to
attend - even displays a little denouement of a monologue, then puts
down the phone and goes to bed. And we, the audience, finally walk out
of the theatre, amazed that it's only 9.15, because the show felt so
bloody long.
It occurs to me that de Silva might've been aiming for a Chekhovian
style of drama, where we watch the everyday follies of a group of average
people, rarely witnessing any show-stopping dramatic events onstage.
But even in Three Sisters, there's a hidden longing in everyone's hearts,
a profound discontent that haunts the play. Light and bubbly, Mama's
Wedding never plumbs the depths of human desire that a good play
should.
I haven't seen or read other plays by this playwright; I imagine I'll
eventually have the chance to, as long as he keeps at his craft. ACTION
Theatre, in the meantime, has to engage in a little more dramaturgical
winnowing and development when it comes to its scripts. This play was
entertaining and informative, but that's not enough. A play must also
speak to the heart. It must also move us.
First Impression
There's hardly anything that's obviously wrong with this production
- I appreciate the naturalism of the direction and set design, the casual,
garrulous flow of the dialogue, as well as the play's dedication to
presenting a slice of life from the middle-class Malaysian Eurasian
community. What bothers me is that I'm never given a real reason to
care about the characters' problems. The stakes just aren't high enough
for me to be heartbroken if Girlie doesn't attend her mother's second
wedding, or if Emily breaks up with her girlfriend, or if Betty can't
gain her sisters' approval. (As for the warm-up act, Sarong Party
Boy, perhaps the less said the better. Claudio Girardi would probably
be better off deriving comedy from actual experience, not some fictitious
conception of what Singapore women of the four major racial groups are
supposed to be like.)
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"So what if Girlie doesn’t attend the wedding? The stakes
are never high enough for me to care."
Credits
Director: Samantha Scott-Blackhall
Playwright: Marc Beau de Silva
Lighting Designer: Albert Wileo
Sound Designer: Philip Tan
Opening Act: Claudio Girardi
Cast: Carina Hales, Candice De Rozario, Elizabeth Tan
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