The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

The Scissor Sisters

2012-01-09T23:30:00.000Z

If you'd asked me which band I would have caught in a live show more than once by now I definitely would not have expected to be able to answer "The Scissor Sisters." After all, I caught their show in London during my trip in December 2010 because I thought the band was one that would never, ever come to straight-laced, uptight little Singapore.

How wrong I was.

And oddly enough, this show was a better concert experience than the London one - despite the latter having a much longer (and representative) set and the famed crazy London crowds. Perhaps I was thrown by the mother-daughter pairings who were in the standing pit with me but the crowd at Fort Canning tonight - with leather-clad ladies, police caps and riding crops all making an appearance - lived up to my expectations of a Scissor Sister audience better. And I suspect the O2 is just too huge a venue to really appreciate this band's music in. This time, I was much closer to the stage, got the full blast of the live music in my ear and plenty of space to jump, sing and dance in.

Fort Canning really rocks as a concert venue.

Best songs of the night? Oddly enough the most memorable was an acoustic version of "Sex and Violence" off the Night Work album - because it was unexpected and acoustic versions always sound amazing live. "Invisible Light" also gets better with every live performance of it that I see, but given the short one and a half hour set it was a concert dominated by the usual and unsurprising suspects: crowd favourites like "I Don't Feel Like Dancing", "Filthy/Gorgeous", "Fire with Fire", "Paul McCartney", "Take Your Mama" et al. I do wish they had done "Skintight" instead of "Skin This Cat" and "Running Out" but otherwise a strong showing from the band - who claimed to all have been stricken down with a case of the Bali belly and vomiting before the show.

My only real request that night, I think, is more Scissor Sisters and less of the random DJ who was left mixing beats for an impatient crowd for more than 2 hours before the main act even began preparing to come on stage. Come on, LAMC - if the ticket says 8pm, don't start the show at 9.30pm. That's a bit much.

Elton John - The Fall Tour

2011-11-22T04:14:00.001Z

Elton John - a real, bona fide living, old school rock star. What's not to like? And despite tickets to his show being amongst the most expensive I have ever come across (I was making noise about Coldplay's top price tickets of $248 but seriously, Sir Elton had them beat at top range priced way above $500) I was determined to get my arse down to this show in the tightest dress I had and to hop and bop along to the Crocodile Rock.

Yeah, Suzie. You show 'em.

And was it a fantastic show. Sir Elton's a true pro and he never let up trying to get the crowd going and working on its feet. It took a while (it seemed like everyone was just there for Your Song and Daniel, which is kind of dumb - the man has plenty more in his discography and his slow songs aren't nearly his best) but by the time The Bitch Is Back came on people were on their feet dancing, crowding the front of the stage and getting everything from their t-shirts to their handbags (whoever had that handbag - I dare you to ever try washing or polishing the leather on that bag again. Ever.) signed by the man himself.

I particularly enjoyed hearing Philadelphia Freedom, Rocket Man, Don't Let The Sun (Go Down On Me) and Bennie and the Jets live at last. I was also so relieved when he played the Marilyn Monroe as opposed to the Princess Diana version of Candle in the Wind. The latter is just so much better than the self-inflicted rip-off that came later. The Disney medley of Can You Feel The Love Tonight and Circle of Life at the end of the encore was also a nice touch, given that his show had been brought in by Marina Bay Sands Entertainment (which was *cough* not so coincidentally also showing the musical The Lion King at their main Sands theatre at the time). But hey - pay your dues where they're due, huh?

It was a great night out and my friend and I had great seats for the relatively low price we paid (the benefits of jumping for tickets early). And there goes another classic rocker ticked off my list (so far it's just been Sir Elton and Eric Clapton). Who's next, I wonder? These days, I admit, Singapore just might surprise me with another great offering. The only question would be whether I can afford their next big act. Ugh.

Mosaic Music Festival - The National

2011-11-06T22:42:00.000Z

The National were actually supposed to have performed in Singapore in April of this year, but the tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster in Japan threw their entire tour schedule off and it wasn't until 7 months later that we finally got the band back in Singapore at long last.

This was probably the first concert that I've been to having done no homework at all and where I knew nearly none of the songs that were being played (except maybe Fake Empire - for some reason that song managed to lodge itself in my head enough to be familiar). It didn't stop me having a whale of a time though. The National are an excellent live act (and extremely disconcerting, given that the guitarists and drummer and bassist consisted of two different pairs of twins) and the lead singer Matt Berninger was just getting more and more drunk after having sneaked some sort of booze on-stage in a clear evian bottle that he used to keep his plastic cup full. And you can't help loving the lead singer of a rock band when he's got a rich baritone, a three-piece suit on, and decides to take a walk out into the audience (by stepping all over the Esplanade Theatre seats) in the midst of one of his encore songs.

It was also nice to realise that a concert can be enjoyed without frantic getting up in advance. I actually felt as if I were at some music festival encoutering the band and discovering their music for the first time: songs like Runaway and the very acoustic (look, Ma - no mikes!) singalong Vanderlyle Crybaby Geek have stuck in my head and now won't get out. The only problem, of course, was that I wasn't at a music festival and hadn't paid festival prices for a range of festival acts, so one wonders if a $100-plus ticket to discover new music is worth the price. For what it's worth, however, I did enjoy myself. And I was glad I went - and glad that they had returned after the last aborted attempt to play for us t last.

Equus

2011-08-27T23:57:00.001+01:00

Inspired by a real-life crime, Peter Shaffer’s 1973 piece is the playwright's own attempt to provide an answer to the question: what would cause a young man to blind six horses with a metal spike? His answer is this: a misbegotten mixture of misery, religiousity and misdirected sexuality.

Written from the perspective of the child psychiatrist assigned to the case of 17-year-old Alan Strang (Ethan Chia), the play unfolds like the plot of a mystery novel - except that it is not the who, but the why it was done that is the puzzle for the evening. The audience follows Martin Dysart (Brandon Fernandez) as he - reluctantly at first, then obsessedly - seeks to unravel the events and motivations leading up to Strang’s inexplicable and bloody crime. Along the way Dysart finds himself questioning the very nature of his art - his motives, the meaning of what he does, the impact that his actions are going to have on the future, the creative drive and passion of this young man. In the wake of the final "reveal" and as the play draws to its close, Fernandez's Dysart is left to address the audience with his chilling realisation that,

"... In an ultimate sense I cannot know what I do in this place - yet I do ultimate things. Essentially I cannot know what I do - yet I do essential things. Irreversible, terminal things. I stand in the dark with a pick in my hand, striking at heads!"

The most recent production of Equus was made infamous by its casting of Daniel Radcliffe (yes, he of Harry Potter fame) in the role of Alan Strang - a role which at one point of the play, demands complete nudity on stage. The fangirls, as you might have expected, were delighted. There appear to have been similar twitters of excitement in the audience tonight, judging by various comments I overheard before the start of the play; but the truth is that Equus offers its audience far more than just a chance to ogle a young actor’s privates in the dark. Shaffer’s text is suffuse with conflict, accusation and a choice - between dull, safe, plodding normality and the intense, passionate heights of creative worship:

Dysart: “Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship?”
Hesther: “Worship?”
Dysart: “Yes, that word again!”
Hesther: “Aren’t you being a little extreme?”
Dysart: “Extremity’s the point.”

That is the traditional interpretation of this play: that it is about the conflict between Apollonian (order, reason) and Dionysian (chaos, primordial passion) values. Dysart’s envy of Strang’s capacity for worship becomes, in this view, an envy of the creative and the passionate – the sublimity of experiencing and living out one’s passion, body and soul. Shaffer’s own stage directions heavily emphasise the connection between worship and passion. The setting is described as a rotating square of wood set on a circle of wood. The directions describe it as resembling railed boxing ring but audiences who first saw its staged at The National in 1973 recognised it for what it actually resembled: an altar of sacrifice.

Toy Factory Production’s staging, however, departs from Shaffer’s directions. For one, the seating of audience members upstage is abandoned and the audience is seated, as it is traditionally, below stage. More importantly, however, the presence of a wooden platform on the stage is entirely dispensed with. Instead, Goh Boon Teck’s set design features a protruding platform, thrust into the midst of the audience while the main on-stage adornment is not a circle of wood but a series of bamboo sticks forming the skeletons of roofs, houses and rooms receding into the back of the stage. The first layer is one that sits in front of the curtains framing the entire stage; a second features bamboo bookshelves stacked with files and folders - the tools of Dysart’s trade and adornments of his office walls. And further back are yet more layers approximating the outlines of rooms, barns and stable stalls. These mark out where Strang sits when he is banished to his ward and where the actors playing horses sit on stage for the duration of the entire play.

Thus, rather than being playing on the play’s extensive reference to religion, Goh and Rayann Condy’s production emphasizes that other art that is so central to this play but so often forgotten in its analysis: the art of psychology itself. The set, with its multiple layers and rooms within rooms, resemble more than anything the inside of a person’s mind. And as the play opens and unfolds it becomes clear that this is not just any person’s mind – but Dysart’s own. As he claims in his opening soliloquy:

“The doubts have been there for years, piling up steadily in this dreary place…”

These bamboo rooms hidden behind an image of his professional workplace: this is that dreary place that Dysart speaks of. Toy Factory Productions presents us with a setting that is Dysart’s own mind and thereby reminds us, in the strongest possible way, that this is Dysart’s story: his thoughts, his memories, and his narrative, which is inhabited by characters sitting dimly in the back shadows only to emerge when recalled and remembered by him. It alerts us to the fact that we as the audience are not watching events as they unfold, but as they unfolded in the mind of Dysart himself. The unraveling of Alan Strang’s mind – the dissection of his psychology – is being filtered through the psychology of the psychologist. Our understanding of Strang’s predicament is tainted by Dysart’s own. The opposition of passion and order, worship and the humdrum, Apollonian and Dionysian values – these are Dysart’s interpretation of the tensions faced by Strang. But there is nothing to say that Dysart’s analysis is right - and I for one found myself appreciating this reminder of Dysart’s fallibility and inherent unreliability as a narrator. Perhaps, fundamentally, I am less than convinced by the opposition Shaffer draws between passion, worship and fulfillment (both sexual and personal) on one side and order, normality and barrenness on the other. I find my sympathies with Hesther, the magistrate who referred Strang’s case to Dysart. She offers the much simpler – and for me, much truer – account of Strang’s behaviour: that he is simply a boy in pain and who has been in pain for most of his life.

Another change from Shaffer’s directions is in the costumes of the horses: the script states that the actors playing the horses should be clothed in track-suits of chestnut velvet and tough masks made of alternating bands of silver wire and leather. These directions are abandoned by costume designer Anthony Tan who, having apparently noted the play’s underlying themes of repressed desire and misguided sexuality, dresses the actors and actresses in pony-girl and pony-boy role-play outfits obtained from the nearest sex shop instead. Personally, I had a hard time visualizing these persons as horses. As someone who comes into regular contact with those animals, the sight of leather and hair-sprouting headpieces put me more in mind of ancient Roman armour than the beasts I know so well. The loss of realism, however, does not detract from the power of the play’s message; instead, its effect is to transform a play with strong religious motifs into one that is much more secular and intellectual. Toy Factory Productions is taking gamble in departing from the vision that Shaffer had for his play and on the whole I think they should be applauded for it.

However, Equus turns on more than just its setting and costume design. The play hinges on the performance of its two main protagonists: Dysart and Strang. And in this, Toy Factory Productions once again provides competent – but not amazing – quality. Ethan Chia’s Strang perfects the resentful and angsty glare of a teenager with a grudge against the world and a secret that he would rather give up than keep. But while his attitude is apt for the role, what he lacks is the ability to mesmerize through speech. Strang’s character doesn’t merely fascinate Dysart – there is a sense (potentially, if it is played up) in which he seduces Dysart as well. Chia’s good looks help with this effect, but his monologues are choppy and oftimes rushed. And because seduction is rarely ever achieved by looks alone but always a result of a combination between looks, voice and words, the impact that Chia’s Strang could have had suffers a little from his struggle to find a rhythm and flow that suits his accent and manner of speech. Fernandez, in contrast, is a master of speech: one finds it hard to tear one’s attention away from his monologues. With his manner, tone and delivery, he engages the audience’s attention and pushes the message behind Dysart’s monologues home. My only issue, however, is with the sense of detachment that Fernandez also conveys. Whether it is because of his skill or in spite of it, I came away with a sense that Fernandez was delivering rather than being Dysart and whilst Fernandez managed to convey Shaffer’s message competently, in some ways I felt that he had rather less success in conveying the man behind Shaffer’s character.

I'm On A Boat

2011-08-20T17:30:00.000+01:00

The last time I was on a boat, I was busy hauling and tying ropes, tacking, and trying to figure out which way the wind was coming from. That was Outward Bound School for you. This time, though, being on a boat was a thousand times more luxurious, more enjoyable, and more relaxing an experience. With wine, champagne, tequila, and even da Paolo's tiramisu on board: what else do you need to escape Singapore and the practice of law for an afternoon?

This was a great time, guys. We should definitely do it more often. And yes, CJ, get a boat instead of a flat for your bachelor pad. Trust me, the girls will just keep coming ;)

Cooling Off Day

2011-08-11T23:23:00.002+01:00

It is a pleasant surprise to find Alfian Sa’at departing from his usual style of playwrighting and attempting a piece of verbatim theatre. The format is not without its problems, however. Verbatim theatre is an excellent format with which to take a snapshot of the state of a nation – based as it is on real words, real events, real people, and real life. But the difficulty for any playwright lies in deciding whether to treat the intended piece of verbatim work as a piece of journalism or a work of drama – and the two can lead to very different results. The sad fact is that unless the material is particularly compelling or unexpected, the piece of verbatim work can come across as tedious and draggy.

Cooling Off Day gives off such vibes. The play rehashes arguments that have been beaten to death during the election period itself (Opposition for the sake of opposition? The aspirations of youth versus the caution of the old?), features voices from those who have had more than their say during the election period (opposition politician Vincent Wijeysingha, Teo Soh Lung, even mrbrown’s The Stall Next Door sketch was re-enacted in its entirety on stage), and plays on age-old stereotypes for the sake of a few laughs (the hokkien-spouting taxi driver, the gay man who can only talk about whether PM Lee is the second hottest leader in the world). Apart from a few truly unheard and usually silent voices (that of the male-to-female transvestite, the masseuse from China, the nurse whose family has found itself slipping from middle to lower class), there is little on offer that is new. The play holds up a mirror to show us Singaporean society during GE 2011, but there is little to be gained from staring at a precise mirror image of oneself after a while; and unless one is inclined towards narcissism the act of staring at one’s reflection gets tiresome as well.

Perhaps tediousness was the point of the play. I found myself asking, “What is the point of this play?” several times during its rather long 150 minute runtime, but perhaps the same could have been asked of GE 2011 itself. The final image deployed in Cooling Off Day is the laying out of rows of white and red chairs (to the remixed tune of Yam Ah Mee) representing the final result of the election. The image is a stark reminder that after all that talk and all the excitement of the election, the 5 red opposition chairs only make up a fraction of a corner in Parliament. The rest is a sea of 91 white PAP seats. In retrospect, many of the arguments, grievances and complaints that surfaced in GE 2011 were not new at all – and for all the hype that was generated, the reality is that so little was finally achieved. A watershed election – how real is that claim? Perhaps Sa’at means to imply that there are other things more real than our sudden hunger for opposition in Parliament: the divide between “Easties” and “Westies” and the strong communal identity of the former; or the desire to take a stance on specific issues such as the death penalty or gay rights. These are real; these are politics – the rest is as baseless as the inexplicable desire to use one’s Growth Package funds to help pay for the election deposits of an SDP team in Tanjong Pagar without knowing their names. And yes, we know how that fiasco played itself out.

Très Bien

2011-08-09T19:30:00.000+01:00

(NB: yes, this is severely overdue)
It'd been a while since I was on a holiday - the last trip had been all the way back in December and all attempts to try for a holiday in March before I changed jobs didn't quite work out (I'd blame Japan, but tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns aren't really under anyone's control so that would be severely unfair).

My friend who was working in Paris insisted, however, that I take advantage of his hospitality before his stint there ended, and in the end I managed to get my act together enough in May to book my flights. And despite a last-minute fainting fit that nearly sparked off a health scare, I managed to bundle myself onto the plane on 27 July for a 13-day jaunt around Paris, London and Alsace.

Paris was an interesting experience. Having long been warned about the snobbish-ness of Parisians and their refusal to speak to you if you used a word of English, I must say I found communicating perfectly alright. Admittedly I usually started out trying to read or say things with absolutely terrible pidgin French and I suspect that played a huge role in persuading just about every French person I met to switch immediately into English before this silly Chinese girl could mangle their beloved language any further. But the capital city itself was disconcerting even to my fairly well-travelled self: immaculately preserved and so unlike all the other (previously bombed-out; now rebuilt - and rebuilt terribly) European cities that I have been to. My first reaction to the city was to comment that there was no better confirmation of one's status as a cheese-eating surrender monkey than the immaculate preservation of one's capital city. That, rather than the famous image of Paris as the "City of Romance", was the real impression that I took away from my rather long sojourn in the place.

In terms of sights, I probably did most of the obvious ones (excluding the Louvre - because the queues were absolutely insane and I really, really was not that keen on seeing the Mona Lisa). My favourite were really the Musee d'Orsay and the Pantheon - the latter in particular because of the real life Foucault's Pendulum dangling from its centre. The gardens of Versailles were also marvellous and I shall treasure the memory of renting a bicycle and cycling all around its huge man-made lake for many years to come. The feeling of peace and freedom that came with the experience was simply wonderful.

I was more than a little disappointed to realise that much of Revolutionary France no longer existed in Paris. The Bastille, for one, no longer exists except as a silly monument; and the Tuileries gardens seem far too civilised to have been the centre of mass riots and protests as they were all those centuries ago. Indeed I had a very civilised time in Paris - brunch at Mariage Frères on a Sunday, epic amounts of chocolate mousse, more foie gras than I'd ever had before in my life, and far, far too much wine.

Indeed if wine consumption is the mark of a civilised nation then I had a very civilised time on this trip. My friend and I decided to take few days of the week out from Paris and headed into the heart of France's Alsace region for some serious wine tasting and gourmand delights. Capping off a day of castle-seeing, grape-picking, Riesling and Gerwurtztraminer-tasting, and village-hopping with a 7-course tasting menu at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the little town of Colmar made for quite a memorable vacation experience. And it was one that was not completely spoiled by our being rained out and being given poor directions the next day; and for the time being I can confidently say that I can identify a Gerwurtztraminer grape from a Riesling grape from grape colour and leave shape alone. Though I don't quite know how long this period of expert knowledge will last.

I definitely do wish Gerwurtz grapes were sold for eating in the market though - if they were, I'd buy up the whole lot.

It was definitely a good trip - and a relaxing one. Even the two day trip to London for some theatre goodness and much-missed Yotam Ottolenghi and Marcus Wareing gourmet delights was - despite the rush and accompanying tiredness - worth the effort. I admit I was never in a hurry to visit Paris; and I certainly don't feel in a great hurry to return to the city again. But ah, Europe - where else would I go for some rest and relaxation if you didn't exist?

Grimm Tales

2011-07-23T22:43:00.004+01:00

Carol Ann Duffy's "Grimm Tales" was first dramatized in 1993 (and not, as the programme booklet claims, in 1998) by Tim Supple. The play takes some of the best (and some of the lesser) known Household Tales by the Brother's Grimm and dramatizes them to the narration of on-stage storytellers. As I watched it, it struck me that the play possesses all the classic hallmarks of a Young Vic production: a heavy emphasis on physical theatre, a sense of calculated rawness in the set design and production values, wide-ranging exploration of various theatrical forms, and a tremendous sense of playfulness and fun. I can hardly imagine a more suitable "graduation" play, therefore, for SRT's The Young Co. Duffy's play is a play for both the young and the old: for the old to rediscover the old household fairy tales of their childhood; and for the young to discover for themselves the magic that old tales and an old abandoned theatre space can offer.

This production is, of course, not perfect. The young actors deliver on physicality, energy and enthusiasm and there are some who will be worth watching in the coming years if they choose to go into theatre as a profession: in particular, Joshua Cao, who stood out with his performance as the Hare in "The Hedgehog and the Hare". The cast shares, however, in the perennial pitfall that is the tendency to shout and overplay their roles. Given the cast's youth, much of it will be due to first-performance nerves and to that extent the problem is probably entirely temporary and entirely forgivable.

But there is a more fundamental problem that manifests itself - and for this, I fear, there will be no quick or easy solution in the forseeable future. The young cast deliver physically; they fail, however, to deliver vocally. As the play wears on, it becomes amply clear that the production's weakest point is the quality of its narrators. Each member of the cast takes his or her turn at narrating one of the stories. Each and every one of them, however, either speak too quickly, swallow their words, or rush their lines. The disparity between the very promising quality of acting and the rough, rushed quality of narration is jarring.

I acknowledge that this criticism may be a little unfair. The truth is that Singaporeans as a whole are known for poor rhythm and faulty enunciation - one can hardly expect this young cast to overcome a problem that has been plaguing an entire nation for some time now. However, what this production of "Grimm Tales" does is to highlight once again the ways in which Singapore theatre has improved - and the ways in which it still falls short. Narrative is the heart and soul of Duffy's "Grimm Tales" - not physical acting. Our next generation of actors are learning very quickly to match their overseas counterparts in physical capacity, but acting does not merely employ the body - it relies heavily on the voice as well. And until existing and aspiring Singaporean thespians master the music, poetry and flow of the English language, the staging of many English language plays will sadly remain just slightly out of our reach.

Beyond these small concerns, however, the final verdict is simple: this offering by the Young Co. is no more and no less than an absolute delight. I love the very minimal production set consisting of just a few ladders, trunks, old clothes and fabrics. The lack of elaborate set pieces and designs strikes me as being in keeping with the spirit of the original Grimm stories themselves. One has to use the power of imagination to bring stories in a book to life; even if those selfsame stories are then dramatized, the viewer should still be asked to use his or her imagination to plug in some of the gaps. I also love the sheer variety of theatrical forms utilized: "The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage" is staged in the form of wayang-kulit-esque shadow puppetry and "The Golden Goose" plays out in the form of an elaborate masked dumbshow (with some of the most entertainingly expressive white face masks I have ever seen). Admittedly, some of the tales are better told - and better staged - than others. But the production as a whole never loses its upbeat pace nor its sense of infectious glee. The hilariously ridiculous image of furry hand gloves representing baby hedgehogs dancing from side to side singing "La la la la la, LA... La la la la la la, LA!" before being shushed with a long-drawn "Awwwwwww" is one that absolutely refuses to leave my mind - even long after the play has ended. Playing music over the scene changes also ensures that the play's pace never slows or drops - and I must add some kudos on the choice of music. I cannot remember what precisely is played but I remember it was good.

In the end what makes this production of "Grimm Tales" memorable is its sense of inventiveness and discovery; but what makes it unmissable is simply the enthusiasm of its young cast. They truly carry the day and the play, and I look forward to seeing more of them in the future.

Kylie Minogue: Aphrodite Live

2011-06-29T22:23:00.009+01:00

Talk about coincidences: CZM was doing his level best after our last outing for Maroon 5 together to get me to join him for Avril Lavinge and I refused by telling him there were only a handful of female solo artistes I would pay to watch and it would have to be people like Lady Gaga or Kylie Minogue. A couple of weeks later I receive an excited text screaming "OMG KYLIE IS COMING!" and so there I was tonight, banging the free green light-up noisemakers that had been tucked into our seats and screaming "Na na na" along with hundreds of others at the Indoor Stadium.

This was only my third pop concert ever (Mika and Scissor Sisters came before) and I must say that the pop experience in Singapore has been pretty good thus far. Last night's atmosphere was awesome. There were actually people dressed up in the crowd - a few at the front wearing Aphrodite wings on hairbands on their heads, and two crazed dudes dressed as a black and white angel respectively (Looking for an Angel? You betcha - though I was strangely reminded of Good Omens but perhaps that was just me) - and people were actually getting sloshed and up and dancing along to the music. Great crowd - great audience.

And the music was excellent. The great majority of songs came from off the new album, of course, but if you can open a concert with Aphrodite and close it off with Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love Tonight): why not? In fact quite a lot of the new songs sounded great played live with their bass lines pumped up: Cupid Boy and Get Outta My Way, in particular, were awesome live dance songs. The old favourites were not neglected either (Can't Get You Out Of My Head, On a Night Like This, Love at First Sight all got their fair share of the concert time); there was even an imaginative near-acoustic remix of Slow that was so different from the original I nearly didn't recognise the song at all.

And oh my, the set. I thought Mika had an elaborate set and tons of gimmicks but Kylie blew all that away (aside: you could see what the high ticket prices went towards paying for). From an Athenian temple backdrop to aerial acrobats, fantastic projected graphics and rising everything (I count at least one Boticelli-inspired Venetian seashell, one Pegasus and one large head of a Greek statue rising out of the top of the stage tonight - not to mention the be-winged men flying up above the stage during Looking for an Angel) - the props just kept coming hard and fast as the tunes themselves. And as for costume changes: phew. I for one can't imagine how she managed as many elaborate costumes as she did. The heels she wore for the opening number, in particular, were killer.

But the best part of the night was really Kylie herself. It's a real treat to watch a true professional at work and Kylie a real pro. Her energy was coming off the stage in waves and she never stopped working either the crowd or her music - even when she was panting away from her prancing and dancing on stage. At one point, she was pouring her heart into singing If You Don't Love Me and cracking up from laughter when she realised that the audience were intent on undermining the song by screaming "We love you, Kylie!" every time she delivered the chorus, but she soldiered on even as her sides were stitching up. A real pro - no doubt about it.

She also knew her crowd - knew that they would want hear some of her really old work, and built short excerpts of them into the show as part of an "audience request" segment (which is how songs like Locomotion and Lucky got their airing). Her ability to connect with her audience was just amazing. She was cute, coy, endearing and enthusiastic all at once - the perfect stage personality. Proof of why, decades on, she's still acknowledged as one of the true queens of pop music. A real diva - no doubt about it.

You go, Kylie. May you go on and on and on.

Dressage Competition (Take Two)

2011-06-26T15:53:00.004+01:00

The aim? To do better than in my last dressage test.
The result? Very mixed. Lower scores overall (stricter marking, definitely), but placed first in the Level D1 test. D2 was still a disaster though - I seriously can't get the horse to canter when I need him to.

My riding still needs a lot of work, I guess. Oh, and on a side note - I nearly came off as well in the warm-up area. East Coast decided to bolt and I was clinging to his neck for dear life hoping against hope that he wouldn't suddenly halt and send me over his head as he was charging for the fence. Luckily, I survived; not so luckily, it meant my nerves were somewhat frayed when I entered the dressage arena and you do not want to be tense during a dressage test. Definitely not.

Thus, the resolution? More riding (and by the by, to ride better). Sounds easy; much harder than it appears.

Cirque Éloize iD

2011-06-11T14:49:00.009+01:00

Well, if running off to join the circus just isn't a viable option anymore, the next best thing is to book tickets to watch them, isn't it? I've always sort of regretted not catching any of the Cirque du Soleil shows when they came to Singapore (especially the first one - the ones that followed apaprently lacked the same "oomph" factor that the first did).

I suppose one could describe Cirque Éloize as Cirque du Soleil's smaller and younger cousin - less singularly huge, monolithic, and unfortunately, well-known. The relationship between the two is probably closer than I originally imagined: I saw a poster outside the theatre after the show claiming that this was brought to Singapore in conjunction with Cirque du Soleil so evidently the latter is providing some kind of support for the smaller outfit's world tour.

Where Cirque Éloize's show iD probably differs from Cirque du Soleil's heavy emphasis on flourescent costumes, incandescent light shows and dreamy music is in its feel. The constant theme running through iD is that of urban city life: a theme announced unmistakably at the start of the show as the curtains rise on the performers strolling up and down a stage dominated by a single street lamp to the sounds of cars honking and traffic going by. The transition into the first dance act is smooth, but the audience is never allowed to forget the city setting: stunts involving a yellow spandex-clad BMX biker add a bit of urban cool; while the juggling act takes place against the sights and sounds of a construction site (with bouncing green balls provided courtesy of helmet-wearing construction workers and their tin lunchboxes).

While the acts were fun to watch (I particularly loved the juggling and the acrobats doing the strength-based gymnastic stunts) the real stand-out elements of the show, however, were the set and the music. The set is a towering creation and entirely blank to allow it to serve as a screen for projected backdrops that play non-stop with graphic imagery, the audience's expectations and perspective. For instance, when one of the troupe's acrobats was building a tower of wooden chairs and ascending it, the projected perspective on the set changed from one looking from the ground straight at faraway buildings to one looking down from the top of a skyscraper - visually reinforcing the act's invocation of dizzying height. The trampoline act, too, was kicked off by one of the performers suddenly falling from the top of the set, while the projection appeared to burst into a million individual white boxes falling apart, before the next flash of light revealed that the performer was safe and well back where he had fallen from.

The music was also really good - grungy, urban, with the underlying sounds and beat of French underground R&B and hip-hop. I liked the music so much, I was bopping along to the beat even whilst seated and in the end, I bought the CD. There's endorsement for you.

All in all, it was a fantastically fun night out and a nice change from all the serious plays I've been catching in the last month or so. I did find myself wondering how a circus act could spark off a debate (The contortionist's act is disqualified from being classed as a "love story" because it's just freaky to chase and be chased by a body that twisted. Discuss), but perhaps it was just the company I was with. I enjoyed myself greatly though - and perhaps that had something to do with the company as well.

Best birthday gift, therefore. Ever.

The Conference of the Birds

2011-06-03T22:22:00.007+01:00

I was initially nervous about catching the Singapore Arts Festival's offering of Jean Claude Carriere and Peter Brook's adaptation of Farid ud-Din Attar's Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds. The play's plot is simple enough: a conference of birds is called by the hoopoe, who convinces her fellow birds to risk all with her in a life-threatening journey to seek out their true king, the Simorgh.

In keeping with the Festival's theme of "I want to remember", the production is literally one revived in remembrance of the late William Teo who directed the first Conference at what is now the DBS Arts Centre 20 years ago. Prior to watching the play, though, I was being haunted by my own "remembrance": at the 2010 Arts Festival, I sat through Brook's adaptation and production of 11 and 12 and found the piece to have been something of a damp squib. Based on that experience, I feared that Conference would be another work along the same lines - too meditative, still, and sparse to justify the label of a "live" staging.

But I love being proven wrong and Conference does this beautifully. From the moment of my arrival at the Festival Village and my walking up the purpose-built wooden gangway on stilts to the audience seats, I could not help but be charmed by the rough beauty of this bamboo and wood structure - beautiful, functional and unmistakably Asian at the same time.

And much like the stage and rough audience seating (I love how our places were marked out with simple scribbles on masking tape), the play works - and works surprisingly well.

The script remains typical of Brook: the man cannot get away from his moths in the fire, it seems. It is a story he returns to in his later works and a familiar one to me following 11 and 12 last year. Yet, Teo's (now Jeremiah Choy's) production and staging of Conference is dynamic and lively in a way that 11 and 12 was decidedly not. It is also simply funnier. The production sparkles with an awareness of the humour lurking below Brook's script: in the various personalities that the birds are caricatures of, in the foolishness of the humans that people the stories and parables being told. I especially remember enjoying those moments of deliberate silliness - such as when the hoopoe is telling the story of the king who loved shooting an apple off his favourite slave's head and every time he successfully does so the entire cast on stage "celebrates" his skill with a little dance and chant ("la la woo!"). That willingness to indulge in silliness, to be alive to the potential humor in the script provides a necessary counterbalance to the suffuse of parables, morals and philosophies that dominate the story. The memory of that humour and silliness prevents the play from becoming stale and flat towards the end - as Brook's moralizing and "teaching" take centre stage.

Visually, too, there is nothing flat about this production at all. The large outdoor space provided by the Arts Festival Village allows Choy to experiment with breaking up the action of the play into different levels: the main stage is set on low stilts, but additional platforms are also built that become higher the further back from the audience they are. The effect is to layer the action and forestall any impression of "flatness" - much as silliness and humor did the same with the subject of the play itself. And a final "layer" is added by the city skyline itself looming above the action with its bright office lights and sky-scraping towers.

The natural tableau created by the outdoor setting is undoubtedly beautiful; but it is the production's more deliberate creations that impress me the most. The synchronised dancing of a 17-strong cast to represent the flight of the birds provides a compelling and powerful image - as does the liberal use of masks and puppets to represent demons, apparitions, and persons. But it is the use of colour that provides the most striking images in the play - and the colour it uses, naturally, is red.

Red is everywhere in this play. In the colours of the cloths draped around the actors that represent the birds' feathers; wrapped around the stumps of a martyred saint's hands and unravelled slowly to represent the blood pouring from his arms after his hands have been cut off; and rippling as a river of flames engulfing the phoenix as it dies and burning away the bodies and feathers of the birds on their journey, leaving them as pure spirits in search of their King, the Simorgh. It is hard to describe how deeply touching and beautiful these scenes are - they have to be seen to be known and to be understood.

The Conference of the Birds was one of several Western plays that William Teo sought to render Asian - and in so doing, to discover what "Asian theatre" might be if you didn't choose to stage locally-written plays. The result is a Western story told through an Asian aural and visual feast - and one that Choy's revival appears to do great justice to. If this was the kind of Asian theatre that Teo was seeking to bring to life, then we would probably do well to remember his vision more often.

The Juggler's Tale

2011-05-07T22:50:00.007+01:00

Traditions and Editions Theatre Circus's (TETC's) production of German playwright Michael Ende's The Juggler's Tale for the Esplanade's The Studios series features a multinational cast, the use of multiple languages (from Malay to Chinese dialect, English to Japanese), and the most extensive use of the Esplanade Theatre Studio's space that I have ever seen.

Having walked into the theatre expecting the usual seating arrangement where rows of tiered seats faced a single "black box" performance space, you can imagine my surprise to find that in this production the audience was going to be seated on three sides of the staging space. The effect created is that of a thrust stage - dimly lit by single, directed spotlights, surrounded by cloth-draped scaffolding and enveloped by musty darkness. The production makes the most of the potential for intimacy with the audience presented by the thrust element: the play's action unfolds not only on the stage itself but behind, around, and even above the audience's heads. Actors appear and descend from the scaffolding behind the audience's seats; hoops descend during a circus-like sequence from the rafters so that the denizens of Tomorrow-land may swing upon them; and multiple hands emerging from rips in a cloth just above the entrance to the stage make for a particularly nightmarish representation of a hissing and Hokkien-screeching spider-demon as it catches a spirit in its web.

TETC's production of German playwright Michael Ende's The Juggler's Tale for the Esplanade's The Studios series features a multinational cast, the use of multiple languages (from Malay to Chinese dialect, English to Japanese), and the most extensive use of the Esplanade Theatre Studio's space that I have ever seen. Having walked into the theatre expecting the usual seating arrangement where rows of tiered seats faced a single "black box" performance space, you can imagine my surprise to find that in this production the audience was going to be seated on three sides of the staging space. The effect created is that of a thrust stage - dimly lit by single, directed spotlights, surrounded by cloth-draped scaffolding and enveloped by musty darkness. The production makes the most of the potential for intimacy with the audience presented by the thrust element: the play's action unfolds not only on the stage itself but behind, around, and even above the audience's heads. Actors appear and descend from the scaffolding behind the audience's seats; hoops descend during a circus-like sequence from the rafters so that the denizens of Tomorrow-land may swing upon them; and multiple hands emerging from rips in a cloth just above the entrance to the stage make for a particularly nightmarish representation of a hissing and Hokkien-screeching spider-demon as it catches a spirit in its web.

The story of The Juggler's Tale itself dances a fine line between dreamscape and reality. The setting alternates between a fictional storyland and a harsh reality in which a small circus - bankrupt and without work - finds itself at risk of eviction from its premises. In the latter plot, the circus performers have been extended a lifeline: a chance to tour as part of an advertising campaign for the chemicals company that now owns the land they are squatting on. The catch, though, is that they must send Eli - an orphaned and mentally handicapped girl that they have adopted - to a home. As the circus members struggle with their dilemma, Eli entreats the clown, Jojo, to tell her a story. It is this second story that introduces an alternate reality - a plot revolving around a Prince, his Princess, and the spider-demon who takes over the Prince's realm and expels its rightful ruler. As the two "realities" begin to interweave and collide, I find myself strongly reminded of the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean film Mirrormask. More than one writer, it appears, has been inspired by the otherworldliness and whimsicality of the circus to write stories of love blossoming in thr midst of fantastical worlds.

Perhaps it is this strong resemblence to the Gaiman/McKean effort that nevertheless leaves me inclined to be generous towards TETC's production. For, in all honesty, this is not an easy play to get to grips with. At 2 hours and 15 minutes long, the production is probably just a tad too long for a Studios "black box" production. Ende's play is also written originally in his native German tongue; TETC chose, however, to adapt the play into English not from the original source but from its Japanese adaptation. The resulting dialogue carries a Racine/Mishima-like artifice and abstraction that I have not seen since I watched a production of Mishima's Madame de Sade 2 years ago. In The Juggler's Tale, characters pontificate and wax lyrical about beauty, love and freedom; yet, it feels more like they are talking at rather than to one another. As a result it does feel like they are talking at and not to their audience as well. Other problematic features of the production include the quality of the singing. Music and song plays a large part in TETC's production; both the music and singing, however, was strained and often atonal - music being used for the sake of being used, rather than having any melody or tune worth listening to. It was also a pity that most of the cast simply could not sing well enough to carry the tuneless tunes - as a result, instead of adding interest to otherwise long portions of narrative, the musical elements of the production ended up being just a tad painful to sit through.

Yet as I mention above, for all the production's very real weaknesses I still found myself inexplicably charmed by its very rough and ready feel - and in particular by the genuine enthusiasm that the cast brought to thrir performances and conveyed in welcoming the audience to the show and interacting with the audience during the interval. The biggest highlight was probably the very innovative stage lighting design, where the combination of spotlights and mirrors held by the performers created wonderfully lit images that linger in the mind long after the play ends. On the whole, therefore, TETC's The Juggler's Tale could probably have done with more work; however, it did not fail to delight and in the end is that not all that a story really has to do?

Macbeth

2011-04-29T23:19:00.004+01:00

As anyone who reads my reviews can probably tell, I never pass up a chance to watch a Shakespeare when I can - and this is doubly true in Shakespeare-starved Singapore where stagings of the Bard's plays are few and far between. So when I heard that the Singapore Repertory Theatre's 2011 Shakespeare in the Park offering was to be Macbeth, my curiosity was piqued. 2009's Much Ado About Nothing proved a passable production and one well suited to an outdoor staging - but that was comedy. Would one of the tragedies fare as well?

Sadly, it does not - but not from want of atmosphere. Indeed the clouds were gathering as I was walking up the hill towards Fort Canning Park and for a moment I was bemoaning the possibility that Scottish weather had come (rather inconveniently) to grace the Scottish play that I was reviewing. Dark and stormy skies may suit this particular play to a "T", but personally I am less than enthused about the idea of getting rained on (and consequently, rained out).

The subtitle of this production promises "Mystery, madness, murder and mayhem." In other words, it promised much; the delivery, however, is somewhat mixed. Atmosphere and staging are this production's strongest suit; both are sadly let down, however, by the patchy quality of the acting.

That being said, the staging itself is so stunning you might almost be tempted to forgive the production its other weaknesses. Outdoor performances of Shakespeare's plays have an understandable tendency to feature either the comedies or the pastorals. To stage one of the tragedies outdoors struck me (even before I saw the show) as a stroke of hubristic daring. However, Morgan Large's stark-white, double-storeyed set very nearly makes it work. It allows the action to take place on more than one plane - an apt image for a play rife with spells, magic, spirits and hauntings (some more real than others). The witches, therefore, first confront Macbeth not from the same plane of existence he stands upon but from above; and in the banquet scene, the bloodied spirit of Banquo prowls the balconies above the grand dinner hosted by his murderer and cynically applauds Macbeth's every attempt to speak to his gathered Thanes. Large's construction also serves as a more potent reminder of other themes within the play. The turretted and often be-flagged set strongly resembles the outer walls of a fort and conveys a powerful image of a Scotland under siege. The same image of a defensive wall also brings to mind the walls of a prison as well and by that token, Large's set becomes a visual reminder that our choices make prisoners of us all - Macbeth most of all.

I also have to admit that I was particularly taken by the decision to introduce a front stage exit extending far out into the heart of the audience and out the back. With this single stroke, the makeshift stage in Fort Canning Park is transformed into a thrust stage - a kind rarely seen in Singapore - and the outdoor space is at once rendered a far more intimate space as a result of the action being quite literally taken into the audience's midst.

Set aside, the director, Nikolai Foster, must also be commended for innovation. Macbeth is a play filled with talk of light and dark/black and white - a pattern that was more than picked up on in the famous Trevor Nunn/Ian McKellen/Judi Dench production from the 1970s. Foster, too, plays with the contrast between black and white in this production; however, besides the monochrome he also indulges in other colour contrasts. The blue of Duncan's court stands in sharp contrast with the red that characterizes Macbeth's own court. From the use of red flags to blood red lighting bathing the banquet following Banquo's murder, Foster seems keen to reinforce - in the most colourful way possible - the fact that Macbeth's reign in one steeped in blood.

As always, however, the most fascinating directorial choice is that of the depiction of the three witches. Nunn's version fell on the traditional image of the Wyrd Sisters: a hag, a woman and a girl. In 2007, Rupert Goold's Chichester/West End production starring Patrick Stewart shunned the obvious and transformed the three witches into three indistinguishable women in nuns' habits. The result was electrifying.

In this production, Foster's vision of the three witches as pale Harlequinade-esque Victorian Goths digging skulls out of a grave at the play's start is clearly a depiction that put a similar twist on tradition. His witches convey an air of eerie whimsicality that only heightens in the second act when they re-appear with a wind-up musical box atop a bicycle instead of a cauldron. Even more eerie, though, is their re-appearance at the end of the play on the second story of Large's set to repeat their opening line

"When shall we three meet again?"

as a tape recording of speeches made by tyrants of more recent memory (Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc) plays in the background and gathers in volume. What it reinforces - in a unique way - is the never-ending cycle of violence and struggle for power that the plot of Macbeth has come to stand for. Order is not restored at the end of the play; instead, disorder and tyranny are patterns that repeat themselves time and time again in history.

Unfortunately for Large and Foster, though, their set and directorial vision is let down by the - quite frankly - patchy acting on the part of the leads, Adrian Pang (Macbeth) and Patricia Toh (Lady Macbeth).

There can be no doubt: Pang is a competent verse-speaker. And to be honest that already puts him miles ahead of much of the competition in Singapore. Not to mention that he is a competent enough actor too. But competence is not enough for what is regarded as one of Shakespeare's "great" roles. Pang did a pretty good job as Benedick in the SRT's last Shakespeare in the Park offering that was Much Ado About Nothing. The role catered to his comedic talents and he filled the character out very nicely indeed. However, Macbeth is no Benedick: the title role of one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies cannot be approached without some personal conception of who Macbeth is, why he does what he does, and what ultimately makes him a worthy tragic figure.

There are, admittedly, some nice touches to Pang's portrayal: the fact that he spends the rest of the play after Duncan's death walking around with and caressing the knife he used to carry out the dastardly deed; the fact that he keeps taking pills and throws up when he imagines Banquo taking his place at the banqueting table; and the interesting take on the killing of Macduff's family that sees Macbeth himself (dressed in a hoodie - a hoodie! As if one did not have enough modern-day references in the play already) carrying out the slaughter with his pistol.

Yet in spite of all these subtle touches, Pang's conception of Macbeth still comes across as a little lacking. It is a Macbeth who grows increasingly manic the more steeped in blood that he becomes; his portrayal says very little, unfortunately, about what makes this bloody character a tragic figure worthy of the audience's sympathy or admiration. Ultimately, therefore, the best that one can say is that it is a competent Macbeth - no more.

If Pang's Macbeth is competent but disappointing, then Toh's Lady Macbeth simply does not work at all. Even leaving aside any criticism of her very jarring Singaporean accent and odd inflections and stresses that have her mangling the natural rhythms of Shakespeare's verse, I have to take issue with any depiction of Lady Macbeth that comes across as over-excited and hyper-hysterical. There is - quite simply - just too much screaming, too much shrieking, and too much melodrama. As my friend noted after watching her stage-slap Pang, "I feel like I'm watching a Channel 8 drama." It is a shame to say so, but he is right. Sitting through Toh's Lady Macbeth is a test of one's sanguinity and patience - and had the Malcolm scene not been cut almost in its entirety I believe my patience may have been rubbed entirely raw by the end of the play.

So, the verdict? This is a good try by the SRT to bring "serious" Shakespeare to its audience. But until we find the acting talent to match the roles, however, the flesh of such productions may be willing but the spirit will remain too weak to support it.

Maroon 5

2011-04-25T23:35:00.002+01:00

Maroon 5 are not my favourite band; nevertheless I enjoyed the direction their latest two albums had taken (less whining, more rocking, in my view) and so when it became clear on SISTIC that they were coming to Singapore to promote their latest album "Hands All Over", I grabbed my trusty and reliable rock concert mates and booked us a couple of tickets for the gig.

I have to say that I was in better seats this time than I have ever been in for a rock concert (not counting Muse of course - Pit A is Pit A. You don't get better than that) before. Somehow, though, the show felt less loud, less powerful and less big than I've got used to. I suspect this came down to the fact that Maroon 5 - unusually for a touring rock band - had absolutely no props with them. There was no fancy backdrop, no use of balls/balloons/confetti, minimal variation on the lighting, and - rather noticeably - no screens onto which the onstage action was projected for the benefit of those sitting at the far ends of the Indoor Stadium. If you were stuck in the back seats, therefore, tough - this was not a gig that was very forgiving on those who went for the cheap seats.

This is not to say that the music wasn't good or that the band didn't have chemistry. Lead singer Adam Levine's voice works wonderfully live and he had good stage energy. The songs, too, came out well - though it was quite obvious that the best songs of the night were actually songs off their first album. Harder to Breathe, an acoustic version of She Will Be Loved, This Love and Sunday Morning were the best performances of the night, while Secret was the song that they were most adventurous with - even splicing it with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean at one point. I rather wish that they had been more adventurous with the songs off the latest album as well: there's a good acoustic version of Misery sitting on my laptop and it would have been nice to hear it live. The newer songs were played to radio-perfection though and more's the pity.

All in all I have to say that it was a good night out, but that the lack of special effects 'oomph' factor and special 'live only' songs gave me the impression that the band weren't really putting in much effort into this gig. Perhaps that had something to do with the crowd - it was a pretty pathetic crowd down on the stadium floor as far as I could see. Don't think they even stood up and started dancing till This Love started playing and how sad is that?

Prisoner of Mumbai Mansion

2011-04-22T23:18:00.005+01:00

HuM Theatre burst onto the local theatre scene last year with their staging of the British-Asian play Rafta, Rafta (All in Good Time). The result was a resounding success and the decision to add a local and multiracial element to Ayub Khan-Din's domestic comedy about mis-matched love, secrets (old and new) and misunderstandings arising from lack of communication proved an inspired one.

It's latest offering consists of another theatrical adaptation. Prisoner of Mumbai Mansion takes Neil Simon's distinctly American and award-winning dramatic diatribe against urban stress and city sprawl from its setting in 1970s New York and transplants it to present-day Mumbai. The South Asian setting is a marked departure from the local flavour of last year's production, but judging from the reactions of the opening night audience the choice is neither amiss nor unpopular.

If there is one thing about the production that surprises me it is how easy the adaptation is. Simon's script actually proves itself to be eminently transferable from one setting to another. Beyond obvious changes in names and some explicit scattering of Indian-language phrases (I think they were in Hindi, but I might be wrong), there seems to have been no substantial changes to the original script at all - a fact attested to by my opening night companion, who had recently caught the Old Vic's production of Simon's original Prisoner in London.

Perhaps it was the superficial ease of transplanting the entire of Simon's script verbatim into its Mumbai setting that lulled director Dinkar Jani and actors Subin Subaiah and Daisy Irani into a false sense of security. For while the play translates well from one setting to another, it is not a play that translates its concerns and ideas well to a modern audience. Themes touching on the feeling of isolation in the midst of a crowded urban jungle, or alienation from one's environment, should resonate strongly with the urban inhabitants of Singapore's city state; yet, somehow, Simon's script still manages to feel tired and dated. It plods along at a pace more suited to a play set in the rural countryside than one set in a great metropolis, while the almost-exclusive focus on the internal struggles of just two characters leaves the audience feeling as narrowly closeted and choked as the characters feel by the walls of their apartment and the psychic grasp of the city outside. If, as the script appears to allege, a claustrophobic environment has the effect of alienating its inhabitants and slowly driving them mad with stress, then I fear a scripted claustrophobic environ is likely to have very little success in generating the opposite effect. It becomes, quite simply, harder to empathize or sympathize with the two protagonists the more cooped up the audience is with them and them alone. It also does not help that their dream of escaping Mumbai to set up a cricket school come across as foolishly naive. Halfway through the second Act of the play, I found myself feeling the same restless impatience that Subaiah's character evinced as he paced around his flat wearing nothing but his pajamas and carrying a cricket bat. Prisoner is supposed to be a comedic play. In the end, however, it proves a very hard piece of comedy to bear - or to laugh at.

There is another sense in which Simon's play comes across as dated and past its sell-by date. The script contains several rants against mysterious "them(s)" and their "plot(s)" to oppress the urban working class. As political statements these should have resonated with a Singaporean audience about to go to its most hotly-contested (and most rife with anti-government feeling) polls in a few weeks' time. They certainly had the potential to. HuM Theatre fails, unfortunately, to capitalise on this potential to transform Simon's play into something relevant to its audience at the present moment. By not making any changes to the script, the original Cold War/Marxist conspiracy context of Simon's play is retained and the chance to place the play squarely within present-day Singapore with its urban sprawl and creeping paranoia concerning the ruling party is - unfortunately - lost.

Nevertheless, despite the lost potential spoken of above, the standard of the overall production and acting is very good. Indeed, the two features of the production I find myself enjoying best are the backdrop (with its layers of cut-out apartment blocks and buildings creating a three-dimensional impression of a city rising in the distance) and the film clips of "Mumbai in a Minute" that stood in for the voiceover fillers that Simon wrote for the scene changes. The latter in particular, prove quite the highlight of the show. The clips, apparently starring the friends and family of the cast, poke merciless fun at Indian politics and had the audience in stitches whenever they begin to roll. I particularly remember one which spoke of Mumbai's reservoir water being depleted without explanation at the same time that the son of the Minister for Water Supply was releasing a line of bottled water as being particularly hilarious.

And as always, Subaiah and Irani provide good value for money. I do find that Subaiah's portrayal of Simon's male protagonist resembles his character in last year's Rafta, Rafta a little too much, but that to make a point of it would be a little unfair - the actual portrayal suffers very little as a result. If there is any issue to be made of the casting then it is with the inclusion of the very obviously Chinese (and if it isn't obvious on sight then one only has to close one's eyes and listen as well) Darius Tan as part of the cast and playing the brother of Subaiah's character. I have made similar points attacking the tendency to feature on-stage diversity for diversity's sake before, however - as such, they do not need to be repeated here.

HuM Theatre is slowly and deliberately carving out its own niche in the local threatre scene by adapting Western plays in order to make them relevant to a local audience. Its efforts should be applauded, as there is a wealth of Western plays that would otherwise never see the light of day in Singapore's limited theatrical market. There will be hits and misses, though, along the way and I suspect that this time around Neil Simon's Prisoner was probably not the best choice that could have been made.

STCRC Dressage Competition

2011-03-19T20:16:00.003Z

It has been quite a while since my last attempt at a horse riding competition: it was my final term in Oxford and I thought, "What the hell" and signed up to do a very rough and ready competition organized by the University Riding Club. It was the first and only course I've ever jumped but I don't claim to have used very much skill - my pony was seriously quite a "point and shoot" creature.

So this time when my current riding school decided to organize a competition, I was actually quite keen (though a little slow to sign up because I couldn't be sure I would be in Singapore during the competition weekend). Luckily for my mom and I, our laziness at booking our Japan trip turned out to be the best outcome (earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown - phew) and I had my chance to ride a proper dressage competition for the first time in my life.

So, what happened? Well, the competition was following the Pony Club rules and I signed up for D levels 1 and 2 - the first only involved trotting and walking and the second had a short canter to be done. The reason for signing up for two levels was simple: I'd asked for my regular ride Hadrian and I knew that he would be fresh during the first round. I wanted to work him only in walk and trot for at least one round before I took the risk of asking him to go on a canter. At least, that was the plan.

In the end, Level 1 didn't turn out too badly. Apart from being (according to Mike, the instructor carrying out the grading) wobbly and wander-y in the walk, Hadrian and I did well enough to come in join third with 70-odd per cent on that round. Apparently we had nice circles. Level 2 though, was quite disastrous. After all, if having "(no canter performed)" on your comments doesn't count for complete failure then I don't know what does. Hadrian just wouldn't canter at all and he wasn't responding to the outside leg. And while I thought I had sorted him out during the warm-up, I clearly hadn't. It also didn't help that it started thunder storming during my round and the rain was being blown into the competition arena by the wind. Silly Hadrian decided he didn't like getting wet and siammed to a side, pronto. I was too stressed and shocked to do anything about it. Silly, silly horse. But I still love him.

All in all it was a good experience, I think. Any competition teaches you where you're going wrong, I guess. And I clearly have a problem with the canter aid - though I think I knew that to begin with. I do wish I could try jumping next time, but with the lack of jumping experience I've had in recent years I'm reluctant to do it. One does forget the feeling of going over a jump much more easily than one hopes.

Till next time then. Level 1 joint third and a yellow ribbon isn't too bad at all!

Emily of Emerald Hill

2011-03-04T23:17:00.003Z

And Emily is back. Ten years after Ivan Heng founded W!ld Rice Productions in order to bring to life his version and vision of Stella Kon's Emily of Emerald Hill, Heng's Emily is back - and on a grander scale than ever before. A bigger stage, grander set, more generous production values and Heng himself - ten years older, wiser and more mature. For those who caught this inaugural production by W!ld Rice when it first took Singapore by storm, the temptation to compare this revival with the memory of the original must be pretty strong. For me, however, this production of Emily followed closely on the heels of the Margaret Chan revival that I caught last year as part of the Singapore Arts Festival; any comparative work that I engage in, therefore, is not with the "original" Heng but with the "original" Emily herself (Chan).

At first glance, the most noticeable aspect about Heng's one-(wo)man show is its lushness. Extravagance and decadence are the production watch words. The mood is set from the moment the play opens when Heng's Emily emerges dancing and spinning onto stage in silhouette. The set design deliberately sets out to capture the grandeur of Emerald Hill that Emily describes: the stage is all white, with layered arches, and white furniture. But it is the chinese screen that rises from the ground to shield a dress-changing Heng, the roll-on grand staircase and slowly-lowering crystal-laden chandelier that scream extravagance and expense on the same level as the apparently endless stream of dinners, parties, servants and food that seem to make up Emily's everyday life. The recreation of firecrackers on stage also (I applaud whoever designed them - it is no joke to come up with a realistic approximation of the noise, light and mess of chinese firecrackers) speaks of the "no expense barred" approach that W!ld Rice appears to have taken with this revival of their most famous production.

There were a few noticeable stage fumbles the night I was there - though, to be fair, it was only a preview night. The chinese new year lanterns and draperies refused to descend at first - prompting Heng to try and cover for his production crew's difficulties with a caustic comment about how everything had been made ready the day before. Heng's improvised filler comments meant that the cock-ups were, at the very least, entertaining for the audience.

The other element that is unique to Ivan Heng and W!ld Rice's interpretation of Emily is the use of interactive theatre. This was apparently a well-worn feature from the original staging, but as someone who hadn't caught Heng when he first donned his sarong kebaya I was surprised to see the extent to which it was used. Indeed, I do not think that it has ever been so dangerous to sit in the front row of a play before: people there will find themselves victims of Heng's cutting wit either as Emily's servants ("Where are my pineapple tarts? Have you started making them yet?") or her patchwork quilting students ("Why all the same colour? Got no imagination, is it? So Singaporean..."). Latecomers are not spared either: he/she has a go at all latecomers in the stalls - demanding that they stand up, pull their ears and apologize to the entire audience even as he scolds them upside down and rips their excuses for being late into shreds. These improvisational elements really showcases Heng's comedic talent and the memories of them are probably the ones that most members of the audience will leave the theatre treasuring the most.

I have to admit, however, that I missed out on the most important modification to the script. An entire scene from Emily is actually moved outside of the theatre during the 20 minute interval into the theatre bar - and as I hadn't left my seat at all during the interval I missed out on all the fun. Those who had experience of the first W!ld Rice staging of Emily and those who knew nothing but needed the loo or a drink will find themselves caught up in the play's wet market scene, where Emily is supposed to be buying ingredients for her babi buah keluak. Sadly, I was not one of them.

The most noticeable and distinctive element of W!ld Rice's staging of Emily, however, is the obvious elephant in the room: this is a one-woman play being acted out by a man playing a woman (who sometimes, to bring the story to life, plays a man - specifically "her" father-in-law). It is hard to ignore or forget that what you are seeing on stage is a cross-dressing man. The question that must be asked, though, is whether it brings anything to the play to have the character of Emily played by a man?

The brutally frank answer is that I don't think that it brings much to the play on the whole - indeed, on some level I actually believe that the cross-dressing (and even the interactive/improvisational elements of the play) distracts and detracts from the play's core message.

There are two inevitable comparisons to be made when one watches this current revival of W!ld Rice's Emily: one is to the original Heng portrayal of 10 years ago; and the other is to Margaret Chan's own return to the same role last year. I never caught the original Heng; but I did see Margaret. And alas for the former, I think it was Margaret who ended up maturing into the role better.

Do you understand what made me what I am? Before my breasts were grown, I learned that a woman is nothing in this world that men have made.

Heng is at his best when speaking of the girl who, having been abandoned by her mother, was determined to ensure that she would never be left in the gutter again. An orphan girl's strength of character built up over a struggle to survive and succeed; the flamboyance and extravagance that comes with being mistress of Emerald Hill: these were very evidently the aspects of Emily's character that Heng identified with and could portray most convincingly.

Where he is less convincing, however, is in his portrayal of Emily the mother and wife. The reason for this, rather unfortunately, lies in the inherent gender disadvantage that Heng carries with him. Since she first played the role of Emily, Margaret has been both a mother and grandmother. And for all its celebration of Peranakan history and a piece of Singapore's past, the heart of Emily the play is the tragedy of Emily herself: that she was a "good" mother and "good" wife, yet was hated (and rejected) by her husband and the son she loved above all else. It takes having been a mother, I think, to really understand capture that contradiction and paradox. Unfortunately for Heng, he just hasn't had that experience to draw upon. He captures Emily the mistress of Emerald Hill very well indeed - but the gender disadvantage is obvious enough to those who saw Margaret's masterly performance last year.

Apart from the cross-dressing, Heng also uses another little notable trick to keep an otherwise long and tedious monologue interesting for the audience: he introduces an element of cross-playing - of actually inhabiting some of the non-Emily characters in her story when it came to reporting on their words or dialogue. Her father-in-law, in particular, is played with great gusto and pipe-smoking pomposity. The contrast between Emily and these characters provides both variety and a fair amount of amusement; but while I enjoyed Heng's little gimmick, I came away in the end feeling that it detracted somewhat from the power of the play. This is Emily's story - her life through her words and her memories. In telling it she is confiding in the audience the way she would in her friend, Bee Choo. The cross-playing, however, is a tool that is obviously theatrical and stagey; no real person would actually tell the story of their life using pitch-perfect and full-on impersonations.

Perhaps I would not have felt that the cross-playing was as distracting as it was had it not been for Glenn Goei's choice to use an extremely elaborate set as the backdrop to Heng's performance. The choice is understandable, perhaps - the Esplanade Theatre is such a huge space, a small set just would not have worked. Yet as unfair as the criticism might be, the fact that the elaborate set becomes a star feature of the production in and of itself reinforces the feeling I had of being distracted from the core of the Emily story. Having had the advantage of seeing the play against a very sparse and minimal setting last year - just 3 screens and very subtle Peranakan tile projections - I could feel how the set had been overproduced not for the space that it inhabited, but for the play that it was meant to serve. The sparser set simply worked well. It maintained the focus on Emily and Chan's performance and there was nothing to detract from that. In contrast, W!ld Rice's production values are through the roof; but when you begin to applaud the set itself (fireworks! chandeliers! stairs!) it ceases to operate as a backdrop and begins to fight with Emily for centre stage.

Closer

2011-02-20T23:16:00.007Z

Patrick Marber's 1997 play paints a bleak picture of love. Dan (Keagan Kang), Alice (Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie), Larry (Adrian Pang) and Anna (Tan Kheng Hua) are drawn into each others' orbits by chance, desire, sabotage, obsession, and love. They screw with one another, screw one another, and screw up - badly. Yet, for all their shared experiences of marriage, living together, breaking up, rediscovery and reunion, the four are no closer to one another at the end of the play than they had been before it began. In Marber's hands, the very means by which human beings forge close relationships - shared experiences, sex, even telling the truth - become the weapons his characters use (whether deliberately or otherwise) to hurt and attack one another. Truth, in particular, is cast in exceedingly poor light: when Anna tells Larry that she is going to leave him for Dan the latter does not hit her, yet his demands that she tell him the exact truth of how good sex is with Dan are as violent and vicious as any physical attack; and when Alice and Dan have finally reunited, it is not his infidelity with Anna that sabotages their attempt to renew their relationship but his demands for the truth about her past. For those who believe that telling each other the truth reinforces intimacy in a relationship, therefore, Marber's script is potent reminder that every relationship needs its lies to survive.

The play differs from the 2004 movie screenplay in its ending and the difference, I believe, was intended to accommodate a more affirmative ending. Speaking for myself, however, I think I prefer the play's end to the movie's: it stands as a clear and powerful testimony to the damage that love (and being in love) can do to people and people's lives. In the play, none of Marber's characters emerge from this elaborate tale of betrayal, reunion and separation unscathed. They are not visibly unhappy; yet, the final overwhelming feeling is one of numb exhaustion - as if each of the characters have been so burnt by their experiences of love that they may never be capable of falling in love ever again. It is a powerful message and one that is extremely well told. Marber has a fine ear for dialogue and in Closer nearly every line rings with terrible authenticity and realism.

I suspect that Marber's bleak view of love and its ensuing whirlwind of dysfunctional passion will ring true or false with its audience depending on each member's own personal experience of love and relationships. I admit to conducting a quick poll amongst the friends I knew in the audience following the play: the reactions I got ranged from intense identification with the characters and dialogue to murmurs that the play resembled a television soap opera writ large (and in better English). Subsequent conversations with those who caught the production later in its run also revealed equally diverse reactions.

Speaking for myself, however, I have to say that I found the production a genuinely enjoyable one - though perhaps more competent than excellent. It is hard to pinpoint exactly where my reservations stem from, except to say that in a play that purports to showcase the playwrights' pessimism about the nature of love and truth, Pangdemonium's production of Closer fails to be relentlessly depressing. The scenes which stuck in my mind, in the end, were not the highly wrought scenes of emotional confrontations between the characters but the comedic moments instead. The internet chat room scene, for instance, had me crying with laughter from start to finish and is the sequence I remember best from the entire play.

The acting, too, was generally competent: as expected, Pang did a good job in bringing out the comic aspects lurking below the surface of Marber's script. He and Tan also made for a solid stage pairing and of the two couples, certainly had the better on-stage chemistry. Tan was the other noteworthy performance - bringing to the role of Anna a natural dignity, maturity and womanliness that is eminently suited to the character. Rather unfortunately, however, she and Kang share little stage chemistry and that fact renders it difficult to believe that Kang's Dan could be so taken by Tan's Anna as to fall in love with her and call her his soul mate before she had finished taking his first photograph. In the end Kang and McQuarrie make for a cuter and more believable couple than Kang and Tan - though perhaps some of this believability is due to the slightly cheesy but nevertheless endearing charm of Marber's opening hospital scene featuring the former two. I admit, however, to having an unfair bone to pick with McQuarrie over her inconsistent accent. The action of the play is set in London and while the other three members of the cast manage to maintain fairly convincing accents throughout, MacQuarrie's own (rather inconsistent) accent is a jarring mish-mash of a Singlish drawl and pseudo-English intonations. It makes for disconcerting listening and detracts greatly from any suspension of disbelief.

I have to hand it to her though: the girl does a good pole dance.

As for the production as a whole, the most noteworthy element was the flexible set and frequent scene changes. As the play moves on the original walls of the first hospital scene break apart and rearrange themselves into everything from a restaurant to Dan's living room and Larry's private clinic. The use of watery projections transforms the otherwise grey-painted drab stage flats into the London Aquarium; whilst the insertion of a few photographs into the "windows" of the flats and hanging of a few other works renders the same few flats the walls of the gallery where Anna is opening her first exhibition. The frequent scene changes accompanying these transformations could have been tiresome; yet I have to say that I actually enjoyed watching the backstage crew take apart and rearrange the set. It makes for fascinating viewing, and, set to snazzy music, has all the feeling of a Hollywood television series scene switch. In spite of the professionalism with which the scene changes were carried out, however, the set itself still feels rather flimsy. At points during the production, the set actually wobbled and shook when an actor or actress accidentally touched a flat or stubbed their foot in a "doorway". But while the scene changes were a nice window into the inner workings behind the stage craft, the same reminders of theatricality felt a little too jarring when taking place during the scenes themselves.

On the whole, though, while Pangdemonium's production of Closer will not be one to blow its audience out of the water, it remains a highly competent staging of Marber's play and one that makes for a very enjoyable evening to boot. For all the bleakness of its main message, the play is written with such a feel for its characters and played with such a feel for the humor of the ridiculous love quadrangle that the characters find themselves caught up in that it is impossible not to appreciate the play and the staging of it.

Eric Clapton

2011-02-14T23:12:00.005Z

There was always a risk with going for an Eric Clapton concert that I wouldn't enjoy myself because I didn't know enough of his material. The only album of his that I've owned (admittedly since my teenaged days) was the Clapton Chronicles and I was quite aware that he'd had a musical career spanning the 70s and 80s that I was unlikely to be familiar with. A bout of laziness also meant that I didn't spend as much time listening to and researching his music in the run-up to this gig as I'd have normally done with most other bands whose concerts I've attended in the past.

Nevertheless, classic rock is classic rock - and I was well-aware that classic rockers won't be around for much longer. If I was ever going to catch Clapton in concert, this was the moment. As was typical of the Indoor Stadium, though, the gig started half an hour later than its ticketed start time (though I must say that Caleb and I arrived at the concert early, thanks to the now-functioning Stadium MRT station. Finally, public transport links to the Indoor Stadium - it's been too long coming), but surprisingly the concert seems to have been sold out. I was honestly surprised by the number of Clapton fans here in Singapore.

A less surprising note, however, was struck by Clapton's chosen set-list. It made for both delight and a disappointment - but it seems that Clapton has more or less effectively disowned his work from the 90s (the acoustic, more pop-friendly ballads like Change the World, Blue Eyes Blue, Tears in Heaven, My Father's Eyes and so on) and returned to his blues/rock roots. It was a shift evident just from listening to his latest album (titled simply Clapton - yes, I admit I did do at least some minor research and listened a little to this new album), but it was made extremely obvious by a choice of songs that featured only two of his pop hits (Layla and Wonderful Tonight) and much of his older work (for instance, Crossroads - which dates back to his days in the 60s with blues group Cream).

Even Wonderful Tonight appears to have been played on sufferance: he had to make some concession to the fact that tonight was Valentine's Day night and that quite a significant number of ladies in the audience that night were probably there merely to accompany their other halves.

I did feel a little sad, therefore, knowing that the Clapton songs I loved best (and knew best) were not songs that he was either keen on or willing to put too much effort into playing (the solos on both were quite perfunctory, given the riffs lavished on his older work). It was a good night for getting to know Clapton's blues background though, and I found myself enjoying the style of music very much - though it did get a little repetitive after a while. It struck me that a better mix might have been found by scattering more of his 90s acoustic work amongst the old-fashioned rock/blues material but it was enjoyable nevertheless. And I was particular tickled by one song which had a very strong music hall influence and which I can't - for the life of me - identify the title.

The only other bone I had to pick was with the lack of a second guitar. Clapton's band featured two keyboardists but it was evident from the quality of sound and the sequences of notes being played by one of them that he was effectively standing in for solos intended for a second guitarist. While it is perhaps understandable not to want a second guitarist to take the limelight away from Clapton's own fretwork, I did end up feeling a little unwilling to applaud a person who was effectively impersonating a second guitar. Overall, though, the concert was a wholly enjoyable experience and a nice filler while I wait for my favourite rock bands to reappear on the tour scene.

Happy Valentine's Day. Yes, it was wonderful tonight. But "Bah, humbug", nevertheless.

Titus Andronicus 2.0

2011-02-05T18:23:00.007Z

Watching Tang Shu-wing's Titus Andronicus 2.0 brought to mind these immortal lines from another one of Shakespeare's works: "If it were done, when 'tis done, then t'were well/It were done quickly." This reworking of Tang's Cantonese production of one of Shakespeare's earliest works is only one-and-a-half hours long without an intermission but it felt much longer.

In Titus Andronicus the eponymous general of the play's title returns to Rome victorious after a decade of war with the Goths. His first act is to brutally sacrifice - by burning and dismembering - the eldest son of his defeated foe Tamora, the Queen of Goths, in order to avenge the loss of his own sons in battle. In this first of Shakespeare's tragedies, Titus' actions spark off a downward spiral of vengeance and carnage manifested in graphic acts of rapes, murders, amputation, decapitation and even cannibalism. In Tang's production, however, these acts of violence are narrated; never enacted. The upshot of this narrative perspective is to allow a limited cast of 7 to play the up to 25 characters from the original text with little difficulty or confusion; it also (along with the recourse to physical theatre and heavy stylization) serves to distance the audience from the blood and gore otherwise demanded by Shakespeare's original text.

This narrative element is one of the elements differentiating Tang's Titus from more traditional stagings of the play. There are a few others as well - most notably the exclusive use of Cantonese as the production's linguistic vehicle. Given that this production will be headed to the Globe theatre in London next year as part of the Globe's "Shakespeare in 38 languages" contribution to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, any assessment of this production must consider the impact that a different language has on the staging of the English Bard's plays. Apart from helping to bring Shakespeare's works to a vernacular audience, can or does the act of translation add anything to the plays themselves?

For my part, I find that the use of Cantonese works surprisingly well. There is something in the rhythm and feel of the dialect that conveys some measure of the musicality - the heft, bounce and unique rhythm - of Shakespeare's verse, while its innate expressiveness also makes it particularly well-suited for conveying overwrought emotions. And in many ways, the language of Hong Kong triad "brothers" and bosses (with their petty violence and elaborate acts of revenge) seems eminently suited for telling this tale of mutually-wrecked vengeance between two gang-like families. Even without understanding the language, I find myself captivated by the narrative occupying the first 15 minutes of the play - which the actors tell whilst sitting - still and unmoving - on their chairs in the middle of this "black box" stage.

Oddly enough, however, it is what follows the pure narrative that I find less effective. This is where the production's heavy stylization and extensive use of physical theatre kicks in and - rather unfortunately - I found myself becoming less enamored of the production the more physical it became. There is no doubt that physical theatre can be highly expressive and powerful: I forget now whether it is Lai Yuk Ching or Ivy Pang playing Lavinia, but she was able to convey the feeling of a wrecked and dismembered body very effectively with just her body and a twist of her arms behind her back; the use of nothing but heavy panting to convey the act of rape, too, was effective in unsettling the listening audience. However, when used over-extensively, such theatre can end up feeling tiresome and unnecessarily showy. Andy and Eric Tang, as Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron, in particular, are seen stretching and squirming on their chairs in an attempt to convey the emotions of their quarrel with one another and frustrated desire for Lavinia. Their isolated and constrained labours, however, come across in the end as a mere series of contrived moments and forced poses; very little is actually conveyed and even less of it is really memorable.

Tang deliberately inserts elements into the production that are obviously intended to demonstrate to the audience that the violence in the play is not as distant as the format would imply. The narrator-actors enter the stage not from the back, but step out of the audience instead, where they strip off the colourful clothing they were wearing in order to blend in and emerge clad in simple black and spotted trousers. There is also an extended scene in which the actors stare pointedly (and repeatedly) at the audience before turning back to stare at the actress playing Tamora. Tang also ends the play with what is clearly intended to be a final lingering image of the narrator-actors spinning and twirling on stage - presumably to convey the idea of an unending cycle of violence. These attempts to drive home the message that violence and vengeance is not something that happens to others but comes out of ourselves, however, feels more like attempts to dictate the "moral of the story" than a sustained effort to cause the audience to arrive at and fully realize a universal truth. The distancing effect (spoken of above) of this "black box" staging detracts, in the end, not only from the play's violence but its central character's suffering and the play's essential tragedy; and the perceived truth of the play's moral message cannot be felt in full without the catharsis engendered by both.

There is also one other reason why I am less than impressed with Tang's chosen approach to Titus. I suspect that there are many who find Shakespeare's works difficult enough to engage with already in their original form. Deconstructionist "black box" theatre is an inherently demanding theatrical format - both difficult and ultimately alienating. The audience has to work to engage with the material despite its staged form rather than because of it. Productions such as these, therefore, can only add to the modern audience's perceived inaccessibility of the Bard. The mere fact that the play is staged in the vernacular language of the Hong Kong audience it was intended for can only make up for the nature of its chosen dramatic style in a limited way.

Thus while this was a well-scripted, well-acted, and well-staged production for what it was, I must admit to preferring my Shakespeare un-deconstructed and staged in a form more geared towards audience engagement with the story and characters, rather than the emotions or ideas behind both in isolation.

The Rocky Horror Show

2011-01-06T23:20:00.002Z

In the space of a week, I have gone from the lofty heights of watching an opera (albeit an opera aimed at people of a pretty young age) at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden to this international production of The Rocky Horror Show at the Singapore Esplanade. There's something strange and a little incongruous about that progression, somehow, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

It's time to admit it though: until I saw Richard O'Brien's musical being performed at the Esplanade tonight I'd managed to maintain my Rocky Horror virginity - this despite the best efforts on the part of one of my good college friends (Yes, Zann, I'm pointing the finger your way) to get me to watch the movie. I'd known about the film's cult following for some time (and heard about the wacky Rocky Horror screenings that take place in what seem to be university towns), but I hadn't managed to find the courage to take the plunge. Until today.

And I'm quite glad I did. Even in this watered-down musical stage form (and man, did my companions for the night think it watered down - they wouldn't stop going on about how there wasn't a Harley) the show was raunchy, ridiculous and rip-roaring good fun - especially after one had been fortified by some scotch during the interval. Trust me: it's a show that can only get better the more drunk you are. Even with a little bit of alcohol in my bloodstream I found myself time-warping away gleefully with my friends at the curtain call. God knows what I or my friends would have been doing had we been totally smashed.

Back to the production, however - I must say that this has been the best international musical cast that I've seen in Singapore so far. Hailing from the UK, Australia and New Zealand, every member was possessed of uniformly excellent singing and acting skills. Juan Jackson's turn as Frank-n-Furter stood out, of course - but the sight of a black sweet transvestite from Trisexual Transylvannia strutting his stuff on stage was always going to be a crowd-pleaser. I also greatly enjoyed the way in which the production set out to capture the cheesy and dated feel of the original movie: from the front-of-curtain introductory song about wanting to go to the late night double feature picture show to the presence of four phantoms who provided everything from "live" sound effects to physically moving Brad and Janet's car around the stage. The very lame-ness of the production was an essential part of its charm.

It was a pity, therefore, that this otherwise excellent cast and production was let down by (a) an overly reserved crowd (only a small proportion stood up at the end to do the time warp - despite it being patently obvious that that was what you were expected to do) and (b) absolutely terrible sound balance. From where my friends and I sat in the stalls, the live rock band completely drowned out the singers and without mikes they could not have survived; yet the Esplanade sound crew were completely off-script. They clearly did not know who was to start singing when and often failed to turn up the individual's mikes when they started - with the inevitable result that the first few words of each singer's stanzas got chopped off. If this is the standard of our facilities after so many years, I suspect we're still far away from being able to safely characterize our theatre facilities as "world class."

Hossan Leong's turn as the narrator was also not quite on par with his fellow cast members' performances. Oh, he has a reputation for being camp and all (which probably led the Rocky Horrow team to believe that his presence would suit the tenor of the show), but his understanding of the nuances of his script was severely lacking. He lost some of the most dubious (and in my opinion, potentially the best) lines of his script by refusing to play up the innuendo that was staring him in the face. He might be capable of time-warping with the best of them, but singing and narrating are not his forté. So a word of advice to anyone looking for locals to play the narrator in your musicals or plays in the future: not Hossan. Get someone else instead.

Theatre 2010

2011-01-02T23:58:00.027Z

2010 has been a frankly terrifying year in terms of theatre - 7 plays, 1 musical and 1 concert in the month of December alone! I don't think I've ever spent so much on theatre before and the list below probably reflects a small fortune in ticket expenditure. I suspect I shall have to be more circumspect from now on. Though I might find myself eating my own words soon enough - the first three months of this year looks already to be shaping up to be another big round of theatrical indulgence. I guess we shall just have to see. I'm also currently behind on quite a few of these reviews - shall have to get them up soon.

Opera
Puccini's La Boheme - Singapore Lyric Opera, Esplanade Theatre, Singapore
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) - Singapore Lyric Opera, Esplanade Theatre, Singapore
Hänsel und Gretel (Hansel and Gretel) - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London

Musicals
A Little Night Magic - Esplanade Theatre, Singapore
The Lion King - The Lyceum, London

Concerts
Big Night Out 2010: MUSE - The Resistance Tour, featuring opening acts Saosin and Rise Against, Indoor Stadium, Singapore
Pink Martini - Mosaic Music Festival, Esplanade Concert Hall
Bebel Gilberto - Esplanade Concert Hall
Andrea Bocelli in Singapore - YTL Concert, Singapore Botanic Gardens
MIKA Live in Singapore - Singapore Expo Max Pavilion
Scissor Sisters Night Work Arena Tour - O2 Academy, London

Plays
__ Can Change - M1 Fringe Festival, The Necessary Stage, Singapore Museum Gallery Theatre
JP - M1 Fringe Festival, Theatre Group Gumbo, Esplanade Theatre Studio
To Kill a Mockingbird - Toy Factory Production, Drama Centre
Ringside - Mem Morrison company, Singapore Museum Gallery Theatre
The Tempest - Bridge Project, directed by Sam Mendes, starring Stephen Dillane, Esplanade Theatre
Animal Farm - W!ld Rice Productions, directed by Ivan Heng, starring Lim Yu Beng and Pam Oei, part of W!ld Rice's 10th anniversay celebrations, Drama Centre
Rafta, Rafta (All in Good Time) - HUM Theatre Productions, starring Daisy Irani and Subin Subaiah, DBS Arts Centre
Those Who Can't, Teach - The Necessary Stage, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Drama Centre
Gatz - Elevator Repair Service (US), as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Esplanade Theatre Studio
11 and 12 - directed by Peter Brook, by Theatre du Bouffe du Nord (Fr), as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Drama Centre
I, Malvolio - conceptualized and starring Tim Crouch (UK), as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, NAFA Campus 3
Emily of Emerald Hill - starring Margaret Chan, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Victoria Theatre
The Masrayana - Open Stage Singapore production directed by Nicole Stinton, DBS Arts Centre
Boeing, Boeing - W!ld Rice production, starring Adrian Pang,Drama Centre
Blackbird - Singapore Repertory Theatre, DBS Arts Centre
Breaking the Silence - Esplanade Theatre Studio
Confusions - The Stage Club, DBS Arts Centre
A Flea in Her Ear - Old Vic, London
Yes, Prime Minister - by Anthony Jay and Johnathan Lynn, Gielgud Theatre, London
The Railway Children - Waterloo Station Theatre, London, with real train station and real steam train
The Master Builder - by Henry Ibsen, Almeida Theatre, London, starring Stephen Dillane
Deathtrap - Noel Coward Theatre, London, starring Simon Russell Beale
The Glass Menagerie - by Tenessee Williams, Young Vic, London
King Lear - Donmar Warehouse, London, starring Sir Derek Jacobi

So what, you may ask, was the best thing I've seen in 2010? Out of the above, I think the best experiences I had were the Muse concert and watching Gatz. The former was just an out of this world rock gig experience that I suspect will never quite be topped and the latter was just the most amazing theatrical production I've seen all year. Jacobi's Lear comes in a good second, but while I love Shakespeare beyond words Michael Grandage's production was in the end a very traditional staging of the play - and in the end when it comes to giving out accolades, imagination and inventiveness on top of excellent staging is what will win the day.

So there we have it - the winning play of 2010 for me was Gatz and it deserves that acknowledgement. Here's to more theatre in 2011! May it be as fruitful as the last!

London Calling

2011-01-01T23:04:00.017Z

I think that it must be impossible to tire of London and the UK. Having spent 4 years there and returned there on an almost one-and-a-half-yearly basis, I still find the UK and its great metropolitan centre as full of surprise and delight as it was when I first arrived - fresh with anticipation of my student years abroad and wondering what life in this strange country would be like. Every time I return, there's something new to experience - and something old to sink back against with all the comforting joy of familiar nostalgia.

I revisited my old haunts, of course. It was Vivienne's first proper visit to London in a while and I wanted to show her all those things and places that - for me - made up the London experience: from poking around Borough Market to checking out Fortnam & Mason's on our first day, to letting Viv try her first Ben's cookie, her first gbk burger, and even her first Tesco's chocolate muffin (still, in my opinion, the best of the supermarket chocolate muffins). We trod the old familiar paths through the streets: Covent Garden through Leicester Square down to Piccadilly Circus and up Regent's Street; through Green Park to The Mall and down into Horseguards Parade and out onto Whitehall; from Trafalgar Square to Embankment and then across the Jubilee Bridges to the South Bank, Royal Festival Hall and Waterloo stations. After one and a half years, my map of London was a little hazy (and fuzzy too - I think at one point I forgot how to connect Piccadilly and Embankment) but it soon came back to me and I found myself navigating its streets and back lanes as if I had never left at all.

But on the whole, this was a trip for new discoveries and new experiences. My mind's map of London grew, for the first time, to cover some of the East End - which I'd rarely been to in the past. There was Spitalsfield market, Tower Hill, Brick Lane and Whitechapel. I find myself able now to walk all the way from Bethnal Green to Green Park - a path from East End to West that I was forced to first traverse in the wee hours of Christmas morning, when I learnt that London transport really does shut down over Christmas. Even the night buses would not run. And instead of taking a cab I stubbornly walked the entire way from Jie Kai's place back to our hotel in Park Lane - pausing only to inform other weary souls waiting at bus stops that their wait would be in vain.

There were bits of the West End that I'd never really been to before as well: New and Old Bond Street; Jermyn Street, the little side lanes that connect Carnaby Street through Soho to Shaftesbury. Even Westminster had gained a new landmark since I was last there and I set aside one morning to visit the new UK Supreme Court, wander through its re-furbished courtrooms and corridors, and sit in (if only for a little while) on a Privy Council hearing that I was pretty sure featured one of my ex-Oxford tutors as junior counsel (though I couldn't verify this).

Other new experiences included staying in a London hotel for the first time - I've never done so before. I'd also never (for all my theatre-craziness during the last of my student years) committed myself to an early morning queue for theatre tickets before. This was my first full queue and it lasted from 5am to 10.30am in the cold, frosty December morning air, with only the short relief of being able to switch places with Viv and wander into the nearby Starbucks for hot chocolate and a place to warm up.

But most of all, I think I shall remember this trip to London as my most food-filled one ever. When I left the UK in 2008, I had, until that point, spent nearly all my time in London eating at Chinatown. Not this time, however: between myself, Naeem, Janice and Vivienne we chalked up an impressive list of eateries. There was Simpsons-on-the-Strand, Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley, Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, and Yotam Ottolenghi's cafe on Upper Street. There was also an impressive list of high teas - no less than three different high teas at three different hotels (Brown's, Park Lane, and the Ritz). And besides all this, there were the cookouts at Naeem's: stuffing a turkey and roasting all the various sides during Christmas Day; trying out a Jamie Oliver roast chicken recipe (and realising that putting in a whole lemon was a bad idea) with Balti fried vegetables (yes, incongruous, but who cares?) on New Year's Eve. Before this I never experienced the culinary delights that London had to offer; this trip, however, I probably made up for all of that in one fell swoop. We just ate so much.

There were many little things I learnt on this trip: I learnt that men's suits along New Bond Street, even at a discount, can cost a whopping 700 quid; I learnt never to trust a New Bond Street dealer claiming to trade in Italian suits but who carries a French brand and whose price tags are entirely handwritten rather than the original suit maker's own. I discovered that there was such a thing as a New Year's Day Parade in London and that it buggers up the traffic for miles around. I learnt that there are some places open on Christmas Day (though I was quite shocked to see this) in London - though these were apparently limited to two restaurants next to St Paul's and the Starbucks on the Strand opposite Charing Cross.

Most of all, however, I learnt one thing about myself: that I still love with London and the UK with a passion. Nearly 3 years away hasn't changed that fact one bit and nearly 3 years away hasn't diminished the regret I feel at not having been able to stay behind. There's something seductive about London and the UK and it's not purely a case of feeling that the the grass is greener on the other side. No, the power of London - I think - lies in something very aptly summed up by this article:

London will take your curiosity about it, your disdain for it, your interest in it, your love for it, your ambivalence about it, your admiration for it, your loathing for it, your flirtation with it, your indifference toward it, suck it all up and contrive to make it part of her teeming whole. The city is also magnanimous about many things. Her museums are free. Her parks are large, beautiful and made for lolling about in. Her magnificent libraries are welcoming. Her summer calendar alone is a dizzying array of art fairs, literary events, pop concerts, open-air markets, food festivals, the Chelsea Flower Show, the Proms and Wimbledon.

London - I don't think I could ever really get away from it. There is no doubt that I will be returning often in the short term - after all, there are potential weddings and one graduation degree left to do. I'm also aching to do a regional theatre tour, to attend the Hay Festival and Glastonbury, and to experience a Wimbledon match. In the long term, however: who knows? I hope that someday... Well, that is all it can be for now: vague hopes and dreams left better unexpressed.

Farewell again, London - for now. Till your siren call draws me near once again.

Hänsel und Gretel

2010-12-31T16:14:00.007Z

I can think of no better way to bid farewell to 2010 and welcome in 2011 than to spend New Year's Eve at the opera. It was a fitting way to cap off a year of rather intense theatrical patronage on my part and an activity comparable to the last cultural year-end note that Naeem and I hit in 2007: namely, Stephen Fry's panto at the Old Vic.

Moreover, this was not just any opera - this was my maiden attendance of an operatic production at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I got started on opera during my student years in Oxford, but for some reason I never got around to attending one at the ROH (I did actually go for an ENO production of Rigoletto at the nearby Apollo Theatre, but that hardly counts). Now - finally - this omission has been rectified and I believe it counts as another item ticked off my London bucket list.

Engelbert Humperdinck's operatic take on the classic tale of Hänsel und Gretel is a strange creature made even more so by the ROH's dark, surreal and almost twisted production vision. Subtitled a "Märchenspiel (Fairytale) in Three Acts", this particular re-telling of the Brothers Grimm's story did not, at first, appear to follow in the more bloody and gruesome tradition of faerie lore (I believe there's a version of this story where the two children are left lost in the woods not because they were out picking berries after dark but because the lack of food had driven their parents to deliberately abandon them to starve and die). Humperdinck's addition of characters such as the Sandman, references to angels and the surreal appearance of a morning Dew Fairy to the tale even gave the operatic script the feel of a Disney-esque whitewash - rendering the tale at hand benign and wholesome. Just what the children should see if parents were trying to introduce them to a "higher" art form than the local pantomime.

The benign innocence of Humperdinck's script, however, was quite deliberately undermined by directors Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's black and and darkly whimsical production. The opera started innocently enough: the opening scene of the first Act showed the two children in their pastel-colored bedroom, with the forest and its trees looming all around. I was instantly charmed by the set and the fantastical Alice Through the Looking Glass feeling that it conveyed. The children's bedroom was not set on the stage itself, but within a large rollaway room-within-the-stage. Its walls and angles had been so foreshortened that even the beds and mattresses (nay, even the pillows) had to be cut and sewn in the shape of irregular quadrilaterals in order to fit the strange viewing angle and proportions of the set-within-a-set. The image was both fantastic and effective: you knew at once that this was not the real world - that you were looking through a kind of distorting looking glass at a world that was similar but different at the same time. The Other World: filled with faeries, witches, goblins and angels.

As the show continued, however, the imagery employed by the production became increasingly twisted and disturbing. Even as night fell on the children's bedroom set, the forest surrounding it began to glow a menacing red; the Sandman drifting across the stage backdrop turned out to be a goblin-like puppet whose legs were really the arms of the singer playing him; angels came with squirrel heads and flashing LED wings; and the wicked witch, having imprisoned Hänsel within in the middle of her kitchen counter with only his head poking out, attempts to frighten Gretel by opening two drawers at opposite ends of the long counter to show one of Hansel arms waving on one side and his leg kicking out at the other.

Some might, of course, regard those as merely darkly whimsical and harmless enough. I admit, however, that I was really quite traumatized by two particular images that came towards the opera's end. As the witch swings into her cooking, she goes to a large cupboard at the back of the stage where the audience could see several child-sized "bodies" hanging from hooks, takes one down, slaps it into a child-sized gingerbread mold, squirts icing on it, and then slides it straight into the oven. This was just after she had already removed one gingerbread "boy" from the oven and it is clear that she is physically cooking these children and baking them into gingerbread. Yes, I'm 25 years old and yes, I knew full well that the "boy" plonked so unceremoniously into the gingerbread mold was really just a large doll. Nevertheless I gave a small yelp and was supremely disturbed by the image that scene left lingering in my mind's eye. I was also quite traumatized when, after the Hansel and Gretel had outwitted the wicked witch and returned the children she had captured to their original forms, all the children rushed to remove the now baked witched from the oven and began eating her quite enthusiastically as the curtain fell. Perhaps it was a function of an over-active imagination on my part, but I couldn't shake the sense of having witnessed a form of cannibalism in action - however gleeful or childish the actual scene might have seemed.

I sympathize entirely, therefore, with what Andrew Clements had to say about this production of Hänsel und Gretel: that this was a distinctly adult and dark take on the fairytale whose lingering images - whilst fantastical - also had an almost nightmarish quality to them. Where I disagree, however, is with his conclusion that as a result this was not a production suitable for children. In fact, it strikes me that this would be exactly the kind of production that children would enjoy. Yes, some of them may feel a little frightened - but there are adults who get a kick out of being scared/shocked to death by horror movies and thrillers. To assume that children don't enjoy being scared in the same way is to take a particularly rose-tinted and patronizing view of childhood and children's attitudes. It also assumes that children are psychologically fragile when in reality I doubt today's children are that easily frightened. They see far worse on the telly and on their home computer screens, after all (society isn't debating children's inurement to violent and dark imagery for no reason), and it is not as if the original Hansel and Gretel story was not inherently disturbing or twisted to begin with (a witch who lures children with a gingerbread house and wants to eat them? How sick and twisted is that, really?).

Therefore, I say we should give children a little more credit. The best stories, as they say, are about blood; and the best productions of fairytales should reflect both their fantastic whimsicality and their inherent dark logic. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the production. The quality of the opera was excellent, though the cheap seats that Naeem and I were in made it difficult for us to hear the precise words being sung by anyone except the baritone Thomas Allen as Peter, the children's father. I think that this was the first theatrical space I've sat in where the ticket prices of the seats really did reflect the quality of the sound you heard, rather than the view (Naeem and I had quite an excellent view, really) and I would be curious to try the more expensive seats in the ROH next time, given the opportunity.

It says something about the quality of operas I've been to up to now, but I have rarely attended an operatic production without emerging with some bone to pick about some singer's voice or acting capability. I could find no fault, however, with this production. The inventiveness of the staging and production was charming; the singing was of high enough quality to appease my critic's ear; and the acting was of truly first rate quality. Each character was played - not merely sung. Christine Rice, as Hänsel, carried off the part of a lazy and greedy boy with great aplomb - stuffing her face with berries and cream and refusing to dance with Gretel whilst nevertheless being protective of his sister. Ailish Tynan made for a plump, endearing Gretel while Naeem and I were extremely amused by the abortive amorous activity of Allen's Peter and Yvonne Howard's Gertrud when the former returned with enough food (in Tescos shopping bags, which amused the audience no end) to feed the family in weeks. Small children are excellent contraceptives and the thought of your children being out on their own in a magical woods with witches on the loose is, I suppose, an even more potent anaphrodisiac.

I regard this first experience of an ROH operatic production, therefore, as a resounding success. It was a very enjoyable way to spend an early New Year's Eve afternoon - and the glass of champagne at the interval was extremely welcome too. Here's to more opera - and, perhaps, more productions at the ROH in the future! Santé!

The Glass Menagerie

2010-12-30T23:36:00.004Z

As a theatre-goer, it's a terrible confession to make but there are quite a few well-known theatres in London that I've not caught plays at before. The National is one biggie that I'm missing, but the other (till today) was the Young Vic - the Old Vic's newer (better funded) and more experimental counterpart. So when I was casting around for shows to watch in London this December (and I'm still sore about the National's very late release concerning its winter season) and chanced upon the Young Vic's production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, I thought it would be a nice touch to catch my first Williams play on my first trip to the Young Vic. Lucky for me as well, the Young Vic were still offering 5 pound tickets for people aged 25 (unlike the Old Vic, which suddenly changed its policy are only offering its youth tickets to those under 25 now). My first Williams, first time at the Young Vic, and last young person's discounted theatre ticket - quite the bittersweet combination.

This being my first time there, I was quite intrigued by the Young Vic: it's a very unusual theatrical space. The theatre is squarish and not, in and of itself, unusual - but the unusual element was the location of the stage. It was not set in the middle of the square but to one side and into one corner. The end result is that the audience is seated only on two sides (perpendicular to one another) of the stage - a stage and audience arrangement I have never come across in my life. It has the advantage of allowing two sides of the stage to be used as part of the stage backdrop and set but I do wonder what it's like to perform on for the actors. Perhaps it's less difficult than a thrust stage (where the audience is on 3 sides), but I suspect it's an odd feeling still, because performing to only 2 sides must feel a little off-kilter.

In any case, the theatre space was just part of the staging of the play and this production shone in its staging. The opening lines of Tennessee Williams' unabashedly semi-autobiographical work are delivered by Tom Wingfield (played by Leo Bill, but a character speaking with the apparent voice of Williams himself):

Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion...

The scene is memory and is therefore non-realistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; other are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic.

This protagonist's preface tells us that this is memory as theatre; but it also reminds us of the innate theatricality of memory itself. As we remember things, we seek threads of meaning and patterns; it is how we construct a narrative of our own past and no different, perhaps, from any narrative constructed purely out of fiction.

Joe Hill-Gibbins' production indulges the Williams' overt theatricality with great panaché. Musicians inhabit a balcony above the action, providing live music using (quite aptly) wine glasses filled with water. Curtains also figure heavily in this particular staging: a short fringe of red curtain around the base of the raised stage rises on the "memory" scenes and falls as Tom shifts from character to narrator. Its effect is almost magical - actors that weren't there as the curtain begins to rise past the floor level of the stage are suddenly in position as the curtain continues rising and ceases to obscure the viewer's sight of the stage. As it falls, the same actors disappear just as quickly to reveal Tom standing alone on the set, addressing his audience - carrying echoes of stage magicians and music hall.

There is another curtain used in the second Act. Strung across the entire diagonal length of the stage, it ostensibly represents the draperies and soft furnishings that Tom's mother Amanda (Deborah Findlay) breaks out in order to beautify their humble abode and separate off the dining room and kitchen from the parlour. Visually, however, its sheer white length serves as the backdrop against which "The Gentleman Caller" (the play's climax) plays out. It gives Laura's interactions with Jim (her unrequited high school crush, played by Kyle Soller) take the feel of a play within a play: it visually distinguishes this portion of the play from what went before (obscuring almost entirely the small warehouse-like apartment in which the previous action took place) and isolates the two from the other characters. And if dim lighting and poetry is the mark of the theatre then this scene was far more dimly lit (only by candle) and even more poetic (laced high romantic with rhetoric and dance) than anything that had preceded it.

The enhanced theatricality of this scene set off a train of thoughts in my head. It's a thought that probably would never have crossed my mind but for my having read Ian McEwan's Atonement a year or two back. To what extent should we be suspicious of Tom's claim (and thus Williams' claim) that this play is a series of memories? Are they at all? As they say - beware the stage magician who confesses to how some of his tricks are done. There are usually others up his sleeve.

The crucial question is how "The Gentleman Caller" can be a part of Tom's memories at all if he wasn't present at it throughout and the answer, perhaps, gives us a clue as to why this scene was staged as if it were a play within a play. If theatre is part fiction and part real life then "The Gentleman Caller" is -quite possibly - a piece of fiction hidden within a work of half-fiction and half-truth. And in the wake of McEwan's book, where the protagonist claims to have given her story a happy ending as an act of atonement for the wrong she did to her sister and her sister's lover, I found myself wondering to what extent The Glass Menagerie might be Williams' own attempt to give the sister he abandoned when he left home the same thing: a fictional, impossible, but dreamlike memory of a candlelit dance and kiss from the only boy she ever had feelings for.

I admit I'm not quite sure how well the interpretation I've come up with above will hold up under scrutiny. Possibly not at all. A more traditional reading of The Glass Menagerie would probably treat it as what it is: a picture of family tragedy - a glass menagerie of three very different characters, each so fragile and breakable in their own way. Ironically, though, it is Bill's Tom and Findlay's Amanda who are the closest to breaking point - as illustrated by Tom's drinking and walking out on his family and the ridiculous hopes that Amanda pinned on finding a suitable Gentleman Caller for her daughter - and it is the crippled, socially inept Laura (played by Sinéad Matthews) who, in her acceptance of the breaking of her favourite glass unicorn, demonstrates greater inner strength of character.

The roles were all very demanding ones. Each required the actor to keep up some quirk or trait without cracking and some did it better than others. The accents were a common feature that had to be maintained. Deborah Findlay's had some trouble keeping up her Southern accent as Amanda: it cracked every now and then into something just a little too Australian or ended up trailing off into something approaching a shriek. And even at its best her accent wasn't really very accurate - more stereotype than life. But Leo Bill's Tom was - to me - quite excellent. He kept up a series of nervous tics and twitches: of the hand, head, face and so forth. And the nervous intensity he brought to the role spoke volumes of a sensitive soul feeling trapped and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It was Matthews, though, who truly shone as Laura. She had to keep up a vocal quirk (Laura's voice would rise and break on a regular basis, even as she stuttered and gulped her way through every sentence she spoke) and a physical limp for the entirety of the play and she did so without any noticeable effort and without cracking - a feat that, alone, I would already applaud her for. But she captured Laura's inner strength, loneliness and beauty perfectly and for that I hail her performance as the best of the night.

There isn't much else to be said about Williams' play. Autobiographical plays are like that, I suspect. The only question that might possibly arise is "Why this title?" for an autobiographical play and for an answer to that I suspect Williams' own words would do a better job of explaining than I would:

"The sight of the areaway had become so odious to [my sister]... that she kept the shade constantly drawn so that the interior of her bedroom had a perpetual twilight atmosphere. Something had to be done to relieve the gloom. So my sister and I painted all her furniture white; she put white curtains at the window and on the shelves around the room she collected large assortment of little glass articles, of which she was particularly fond. Eventually the room took on a light and delicate appearance, in spite of the lack of outside illumination and it became the only room in the house that I found pleasant to enter. When I left home a number of years later, it was this room that I recalled most vividly and poignantly when looking back on our life in St Louis. particularly the little glass ornaments on the shelves. They were mostly little glass animals. By poetic association they came to represent, in my memory, all the softest emotions that belong to the recollection of things past. They stood for the small and tender things that relieve the austere pattern of life and make it endurable to the Sensitive."

As far as Williams' plays go, therefore, this is not a bad one to start with but I suspect its unique subject (his own life) makes it a poor representative of his oeuvre. It's a pity I missed Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire when they played in London last year. It'll be a while, I suspect, before I'll ever see another Williams again. If I complain about not enough Shakespeare being staged in Singapore, the sad fact is that I'm far more likely to catch a piece of Shakespeare here than something by Tennessee Williams or even (as I did this trip) Henry Ibsen. The conclusion to draw, I think, is that Singapore theatre needs more breadth. And amen to that.

Deathtrap

2010-12-30T17:11:00.009Z

Deathtrap was one of those plays I knew I wanted to watch the moment I heard that it was being put into production. After having seen Simon Russell Beale in action in The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard I am a firm believer than nothing Beale ever does can go wrong. He is just too good an actor to ever miss seeing on stage and I was desperate to catch him in the last few performances of this staging before the play's run ended. Naeem, however, managed to catch the play before I did and had his reservations about it - a fact that made me a little nervous about how Deathtrap would actually turn out. After our experience with Yes, Prime Minister I was a little chary about having to face another bout of disappointed expectations.

As it turned out, however, I probably should not have worried quite so much. Matthew Warchus' production of Ira Levin's comic murder thriller was thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining from start to finish. Jonathan Groff (of somewhat limited Glee fame, apparently -but it didn't stop me hearing non-stop squee-ing from people who only recognized his name when I mentioned the play) plays the part of Clifford, a gifted young writer who befriends Sidney Bruhl (Russell Beale), a once best-selling novelist and playwright, now fallen on hard time and plagued by writer's block. He turns up at Bruhl's Connecticut home with a new stage thriller which turns out to be superior to anything Bruhl has done. Bruhl, desperate to regain money and success, finds his thoughts - already attuned to murder and death by virtue of his profession - turning all too easily to thoughts of blood and violence. His wife, frightened by the possibility that he might actually do something, hopes that her presence during Bruhl and Clifford's meeting will ward off disaster - but will it?

Deathtrap apparently took Broadway and the West End by storm in the 1980's. It also became a hugely succesful motion picture starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve. Warchus' production scored a huge coup by securing an actor of Beale's stature and talent to play the part of Bruhl. The other actors and actresses were, for the most part, entirely forgettable. The only thing Claire Skinner had going for her playing Bruhl's wife Myra was her thin, wavering voice that made her sound as if she was bordering on the verge of nervous collapse all the time. Apt for her character, perhaps, but nothing spectacular. Bruhl's lawyer (Terry Beaver) and the psychic Helga ten Dorp (Estelle Parsons) were equally pedestrian - though the latter character, with her over-the-top Scandinavian accent and ridiculous lines ("Oh, my daughter just got pregnant. I must call her to tell her the good news") was certainly good for a few laughs.

However, the play revolves around the interactions between Bruhl and Clifford. Beale carried off his role spectacularly (and with great human feeling), but Groff proved himself a rather weak actor the moment he was required to go beyond mere dialogue. He had a monologue - an explanation to give - in the second scene of the second act and the artificiality of his delivery (you could see him in his mind telling himself to speak in "anger" here or "passion" there) betrayed the limits of his acting capabilities. He managed initially to convey the impression of an enthusiastic eager-to-please young pup very well; but perhaps one should not be entirely surprised at that, given his Glee roots. It is not difficult to convey the freshness of youth if one still is young, after all.

Naeem's main beef with Deathtrap, however, was not with the quality of its acting (Beale's ability alone is quite capable of carrying the others along with him, to be honest) but with Ira Levin's script. The play bills itself as a thriller - as one following in the grand old tradition of on-stage suspense, plot twists and unexpected about-turns. Such a play, however, can get old and trying even within itself (an audience can be held in suspense for only so long, after all) and the genre too, has been tested and done to death. The stage thriller found its apotheosis in Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth; since then, however, the challenge has been to do something different - to find something that hadn't been done before.

Levin's answer is to transform the entire play into a piece of meta-theatre and those who want to avoid spoilers of the play's plot should look away from this discussion now. The first Act was a genuinely masterful illustration of the thriller genre: Sidney's throwaway remarks about killing Clifford in order to steal his play (itself supposedly named "Deathtrap") is gradually built up from a foolish notion to distinct possibility whilst maintaining the suspense of "Will he or won't he?" There was authentic shock when the murder was actually carried out; and equally shocking were the series of twists that followed to reveal that the actual intended victim of the entire rigamarole was Sidney's wife.

The second Act, however, seems almost an entirely different play. The play whose existence was invented as a ruse to frighten Sidney's wife to death is actually written and the events of the first Act become the first Act of the play that Clifford writes. The conceit of art mirroring life (and the audience watching a piece of art that mirrors art that mirrors life) is layered on ever more thickly thereafter and the play develops a surreal sense of self-consciousness when it is revealed that the entire second Act consists of Clifford's search for a second Act to attach to his first.

The layers of meta-reality that Levin throws about leaves the second Act suddenly transforms the play into something close to a farce. That feeling is reinforced by the nigh-on ridiculous third scene of the second Act, where the (rather random) psychic is shown threatening to kill Sidney's lawyer unless she was given credit (and a share of the profits) for having given him the "idea" (having psychically "sensed" and narrated the entire events leading up to Clifford and Sidney's deaths) for writing Deathtrap. The entire scene smacks of a filler - the very filler that Clifford talked of inserting when Sidney (captive and trying his best to distract Clifford) pointed out that the play, by ending on the note of Sidney's death, would lack the symmetry of having two Acts consisting of three scenes each. Its ham-fistedness, cheesiness, and ineffectualness makes it appear almost as if Clifford had managed to write the filler than he had intended and strengthened the perception that the very play the audience was watching had actually been written by the two characters collaboratively.

This farcical nature of the second act (with its clunking self-consciousness and self-referencing) was probably what justified the description of the play as a "comic" thriller. It is almost as if Ira Levin was deliberately poking fun at the thriller genre itself by setting out to prove how easy it could be to write a first act but difficult to follow up. I suspect he was also trying to be clever as well - by incorporating all the layers of realities-within-a-play that he did. Such cleverness would normally have been either irritating or tiresome - clever plays usually are. But in truth, the play's premise was carried by Simon Russell Beale's performance. The play turned on his portrayal of Sidney and the character's wry wit, dry humor, caustic tongue, and heightened self-awareness. The audience ended up laughing with Sidney's awareness of the ridiculousness of his situation, rather than at him. And that made it possible to laugh not at the play but with the play as it laughed at its own self-consciousness and its own attempts to be clever.

It was that subtle self-awareness of its own farcical ridiculousness that made the play bearable in the end and ones suspects that that was what Levin was aiming for when he wrote it. A play that resolves itself by murder by medieval crossbow could hardly be described as begging to be taken seriously at all.

So much for the plot. The production itself was quite impressive. I was amazed, in particular, by the set - a room with a high-vaulted timbered roof (to resemble a converted stable) and wood-paneled walls lined with medieval weapons of all kinds. I marveled at the close attention to detail as well. The impression of a gravel-surfaced driveway was conveyed by the sound of crunching gravel from just offstage ever time someone was shown as exiting the house. I swear they must have had actual gravel somewhere backstage for creating the sound.

Of course, such attention paid to the actual production should not surprise me - this was a West End production after all and such productions generally have larger budgets than the usual off-West End theatres. Yet, I remained pleasantly surprised by the intense realism of the production and the obvious expense that went into creating the world that was Sidney's workroom. Overall I found myself having enjoyed Deathtrap very much - and definitely much more than I had expected to after Naeem's repeated refrain of "Well, you just tell me what you think after you've seen it."

So there you go, Naeem: I did enjoy the play :) It came close to trying too hard to be clever, perhaps - but on the whole it didn't tip into causing irritation and the premise itself worked well enough for to make for an enjoyable matinee. And I'm quite glad that it did.

The Master Builder

2010-12-29T23:27:00.007Z

There were several pretty good reasons for catching Henry Ibsen's The Master Builder at the Almeida Theatre during this trip. First, it was an Ibsen and I've never seen an Ibsen before; secondly, it was at the Almeida, which I've never been to before; and thirdly, it starred Stephen Dillane of The Tempest fame. After a slightly lacklustre performance as Prospero, I wanted to give Dillane another go and see if this time he would shine.

And so thus, after a leisurely (and very delicious) dinner at the nearby Cafe Ottolenghi, Naeem and I made our way into the Almeida for some Ibsen/Dillane goodness. Neither of us quite knew what to expect - though on second thoughts I may be wrong about that statement. I think Naeem might've actually read and remembered a bit more of the play's sypnosis than I had.

The fact that he had done so, however, did not appear to help him much in understanding the play. He blamed this failure on Ibsen's script and I must admit that he is probably not wrong. Whether it is typical of Ibsen's work or not - and I've not seen enough of his work assert anything - The Master Builder is a very, very difficult play to both stage and appreciate.

For one, it is an extremely claustrophobic play. The audience enters the theatre to find Bygmester Halvard Solness (Stephen Dillane) already sitting on stage already, steadily watching and gazing at every member of the audience as they come in to sit down. And, this being Dillane, he was not merely playing the part of watching the audience. You could tell that he really was watching you - staring and eyeing every body that came through those doors. It was very unnerving and gave you the feeling of being a trespasser - of having stepped onto someone else's turf; of having stepped into someone else's space. By dint of his sheer omnipresence, therefore, the theatre became an extension of the Master Builder's personal space and - to a greater or lesser extent - his very person. By stepping into the theatre we, as the audience, were entering his world - his little claustrophobic and internalized space. And it is a narrow space that is maintained all the way through the play: enclosed, with no means of escape (no interval, even) until the Master Builder's death at the end of the play.

In the course of the entire play, therefore, there was only one breach of this narrow space - one entry to combat the claustrophobia of the play. That came when the character of Hilda Wangel (Gemma Atherton) burst through the audience's entrance to the theatre and into the life of Bygmester Solness. Her entry fit in well with the purported impact that her character was meant to have on Dillane's. To him, she was a breath of fresh air - representative of youth and the rising generation knocking on the door, but a member of which he did not have to be afraid of. In his enamoured mind she was a whirlwind of fantasy and wide-eyed hero worship - a wild bird building castles in the air with her talk of princesses, kisses and kingdoms. She was an outsider to this narrow, claustrophobic, and sterile laconic space belonging to Solness; and she brought with her passion and exuberance - all those qualities he now lacked in his downward spiral of self-recrimination and fear.

Yet while Hilda was all those things the Bygmester saw in her, she was also like a demon in many ways. She drove him to do things he would never normally do: climb the scaffolding he was so afraid of climbing; sign off on Solness's plans and allow him to go off and set up on his own. Her desire for him to become her Master Builder (the one she claims to have hero-worshipped all her life) was what, in the end, drove him to his death.

The questions raised are endless. Was it better for the Master Builder to have died at the height of his prowess than to live on and sooner or later fail? Was it necessary for him to fall so that he might never fall? What is Hilda to him - an angel or a demon? Did she set him free, or was she retribution? Had anything that she said occurred between them occurred at all? Was she the rising generation he was looking for or the one that he should have been most afraid of?

The Master Builder offers few answers to the questions it raises. Ibsen's script is thick with possibilities and interpretations - most of which would only get more complex and involved the deeper you delved into them. For instance, one notes that most of the play involves two-way exchanges between Dillane's Solness and the other characters. One might ask whether this was really dialogue between characters or a dialogue taking place entirely within Dillane's own mind and soul. After all (and the production chose to place some emphasis on this aspect by placing Dillane on stage before the play even began), we are clearly in the Master Builder's space. The question is whether this space is entirely internal or part of the external world. Are Hilda and all the other characters real at all? They come across as, at times, no more than foils for Dillane's character: they ask the questions and he proffers the answers that purport to bare his soul, his doubts and his views of his own life and achievements for their benefit.

The play is less a piece of dramatic work, therefore, than a piece of psychological investigative work. I wouldn't be surprised if Ibsen had been influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud when writing this play - Freud would've had a field day picking apart the characters and the symbols littered across the script. The constant reference to a tower (the highest church tower in the world), in particular, would probably have excited him no end. A Faustian tale, perhaps, for the Freudian generation. And the characters are certainly some of the most strange and disturbing characters I've ever seen people a stage.

There is, for instance, Kaia: already betrothed, she is mesmerized by Dillane's Master Builder and wants nothing more than to be near him every day. Yet never once does she ask him to leave his wife for her; or to make love to her. What, then, does she want of him? There is his wife - constantly justifying all her actions with the disturbing language of "duty". We do come to have a sense of where it is coming from - when she confides a little in Hilda further on in the play. From her words, it was clear that she had loved her dolls and her family house more than she cared about losing her children; the language of duty, therefore, is a form of self-recrimination - a reminder of her failure as a mother and a wife. She was not, as Dillane's character insisted, made to be a mother. Then, there is the Master Builder himself. Why does he keep building houses with 3 children's rooms for his wife and himself? They have no children anymore and even before their death there had only been the two boys - so why 3 rooms? Why 3? As for Hilda herself: what motivates her? If she is at all real, why did she come to him? Does she want to make love to Solness? Or does she want only what she claims she wants - to be made a princess with a kingdom?

Ibsen's Master Builder, therefore, is a strange and disturbing play peopled with strange, disturbing characters and their strange, disturbing relationships. The Almeida's staging of it was an excellent one - the set was impressive with its raw, unfinished brick backdrop, metal staircases and black soil on the ground. It had all the appearance of the interior of an unfinished tower - an image that resonates powerfully with the subject matter of the play. The performances were also extremely good - especially that of Gemma Atherton as Hilda. Atherton's performance was simply amazing. From the moment she burst through the doors at the back of the theatre, she swept onto the stage like a force of nature. She was utterly compelling and took over the stage completely when she was on it. Dillane's Master Builder was an excellent foil to her larger than life character - dry, laconic, measured and prosey. I found I appreciated those qualities better as part of Solness' character than when he had brought them to Prospero but perhaps that was a function of the Almeida's intimate space. Dillane's style can get quite lost in larger theatres. But it was Atherton who outshone everyone else tonight and she will be one to watch in years to come.

Yet despite the very good performances and excellent production Ibsen's script is ultimately a problematic one to stage. It is, quite frankly, not only quite incomprehensible (it cries out for the kind of intellectual analysis that few audiences would have the energy or inclination to engage in) - it leaves its audience feeling drained from the intensity with which the play delves into the narrow space of a single man's soul. For some, that process would have been entirely too tedious. Naeem was certainly of that opinion. I still felt myself sufficiently engaged by the play to stay immersed in it while it was unfolding. Nevertheless, even I found myself needing the metaphorical breath of air every now and then and I had to mentally pull myself out above the play in order to gain some relief from its intensity. There was little room for laughs: only the feeling of being sucked into and pulled into this tiny internalized place from which there could be no release before the play ended. The experience was simply exhausting and I suspect for some it would not be regarded as having been worth the exhaustion.

And on some level, the very Freudian-esque feeling of the play leads me to conclude that it might be better not to be tempted by it to analysis or interpret too deeply. It seems to me that, as with the now discredited Freudian style of analysis, any attempt to focus on one particular interpretation of the play as being "the one" would only drags you deeper and deeper into ever more ridiculous ideas and rationalizations. With some plays, therefore, the least said the better. I suspect this - for the sake of most people's mental health - is one of them.

The Railway Children

2010-12-28T22:27:00.004Z

It was a little out of my usual fare, but this stage adaptation of E. Nesbitt's The Railway Children by the Theatre Yorkshire Royal was something that I had booked myself in for purely on the strength of its venue. The story was about railways and it was being staged on the platforms of a train station (the Waterloo Station Theatre was the now-defunct platforms from which the Eurostar service had run from while it was still leaving from Waterloo) and using a real steam engine.

The words "real steam engine" and "real train station" probably appealed to the child in me, and that child who went "Wow, that's awesome" promptly booked herself in to watch the play. It was the last one that I booked for this trip and by booking it tonight I ended up sacrificing some of the flexibility I needed in order to visit Oxford this trip. As it was, I never did get to go to Oxford; and while in fairness I couldn't blame The Railway Children completely for my failure it did make it very much harder for me to contemplate rushing up and back down from Oxford in just the span of a day or two.

I have no regrets over catching this play, however - it is one of the most utterly delightful and charming productions I've ever caught. From the moment one approaches the "theatre", one is transported into a world of railways and trains . I collected my ticket from the old ticket office of the Eurostar service; and upon entering the "theatre" I walked past the old train station shops (WH Smith, Tie Rack et al) to find the bar and lobby situated in the old departure lounge of the station; and finally, as I prepared to enter the theatre space proper, I had to check my ticket again. The reason? I had to figure out if I was seated on Platform 1 or on Platform 2.

This use of an unusual space for staging theatre was part of the reason why I came to this play at all. The audience is seated not in front of the action but entirely on the sides. While I have been seated on the sides of thrust stages before, those generally still do have an audience situated in front. An actor may have to give thought to playing to the audience members to his left and right, but his primary duty is still to play to the audience in front of him. The Waterloo Station Theatre offers a very different challenge: namely, how to play a stage that is sliced in two by a railway track. How, in effect, does one transform two platforms into single stage?

The apparent solution chosen appeared, at first sight, to be a purpose-built and small square wooden platform connecting the two platforms. It was located at the very centre of the theatre space and its effect was to join the two platforms into a sort of "H" shape. That appeared to solve the problem of space - though I felt at first that it was a slightly boring solution to the problem.

I could not have been more wrong, however. As the audience sat itself down and got ready, the actors began to come onto the platforms - milling around, waving, interacting and behaving to all intents and purposes as if they were at a real (well, they were, but I meant "real" as in... oh, you know what I meant) train station awaiting the departure of a real train. Suddenly, a whistle was blown; the actors all rushed onto the little connecting platform, seated themselves, and with a puff of steam the platform suddenly began to move. The audience watched disbelievingly as it "chugged" away, bearing the actors still waving goodbye; and as the steam cleared the source of the platform's capacity for locomotion was revealed to be two be-capped stage hands - down between the platforms on the tracks and pushing away like madmen. As you might imagine, that discovery raised quite a chuckle from the delighted audience - especially those members of it over 15 years of age.

In all I think there were at least 3 such movable platforms. And they were pushed in and out of the theatre space as, when and where they were needed. They provided the necessary focal point - the much-needed centre stage - of the action. With two parallel lines of crates stacked on them they became representative of actual trains; with a few bits of furniture, they became first the Railway Children's family home in London and then their new cottage in Yorkshire.

The creative way in which the production solved the problems posed by its chosen theatrical space was no small source of delight for me. But another equally powerful source of delight was the script itself. Adapted by Mike Kenny, the script is quite different from my memory of the book. Its primary departure is in adopting the retrospective narrative technique. Instead of running smoothly as a straightforward narrative, the play jumps between the Railway Children (Bobbi, Peter and Phyllis) looking back on that fateful summer as their older selves and actually being what they were that summer. The device was clever and only added to the play's charm. It explained why the Railway Children were being played by quite obviously older actors and actresses. It also allowed the play to beg pardon of its audience's more modern sensibilities when it would otherwise seem twee or old-fashioned. For instance, how "ordinary" is it for a family these days to have a cook, butler and between-maid? The children's older selves were able to demonstrate their awareness (and sheepishness) of how un-ordinary that was; their younger selves, however, could hardly have been expected to know any better.

This device of having Bobbi, Peter and Phyllis narrate as well as play out the past broke the dividing wall between past and present; it also allowed the play to break the fourth wall between the audience and the actors without it seeming too out of place. There was a lot of direct interaction with between actors and audience. We were waved to (at the beginning of the play, as I mentioned above), asked to wave (the Old Gentleman asked us for our "help" when they needed to re-enact the scene where the entire length of the Green Dragon's passengers waved to the children as the train went past), spoken in aside to (Phyllis: "I'm sorry if you were disappointed that there hasn't been a real [train] crash; but this is meant to be family entertainment after all") and even asked outright to use our imaginations to fill in where the production could not, by any stage magic whatsoever, actually show the children running from one end of the train tunnel to the other in order to watch the paper chase enter and exit from it. The lights flashed, the children (and the stage hands holding the black cloths masquerading as the tunnel walls) ran madly on the spot, fast music played, and Bobbi turned to the audience with a wry "Oh look, here we are on the other side" and thanked us outright for helping them out.

Thus, while the acting may not have been the best I have ever seen, the star attractive in this production was the production itself. Indeed, when the famed steam engine made its highly anticipated appearance at the end of the first Act I found myself rather unexcited by its entrance. For me, the excitement of this staging lay in the inventiveness with which the Theatre Yorkshire Royal approached the problems of narrative and space. These, I thought, were the real achievements they had in bringing this much-loved children's classic to life on stage; and the real-life steam engine was not entirely necessary, though it added to the staging's charm (and no doubt, to its appeal for children and boys under a certain age).

If this is the quality that regional theatre can bring to the table then the UK can take heart. This is truly a golden age of UK theatre. I can only hope the planned austerity measures do not jeopardize the work of such companies as these from now on.

Yes, Prime Minister

2010-12-23T22:59:00.008Z

Has it really been nearly 10 years - 10 whole years since I was in secondary school and picked up the "diaries" of a certain Minister (then Prime Minister) Jim Hacker ("published" courtesy of Messrs Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn) for the first time? Those old paperback copies of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were my first introduction to politics and satire - things which, 10 years later, have become nearly inseparable from my interests and my sense of humour. In my young and naive state, I did manage somehow to believe that the characters and events narrated in those books were actually real; all these years later though, I do feel somewhat vindicated knowing that Jay and Lynn actually did have insider information about the operations of government.

Whatever else it was to me, though, this one thing is true: Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were a crucial building block in the fabric of my life (I was even nicknamed Humphrey by my two secondary school friends - who themselves went by Bernard and Hacker). And when I learnt that Jay and Lynn had returned with a stage version of their beloved sitcom and were transferring it from Chichester to London, I just knew that I had to visit London to catch it.

Yes, Prime Minister, therefore, was one of the plays that brought me up to London this time around. And perhaps that is a burden no play should have to bear - when a play becomes your reason for traveling there is a tendency to bring overly high expectations to it. However the truth of the matter is that I did leave the theatre feeling just a little let down by the play.

The fault lay for the most part with the script. I admit that Jay and Lynn did a fantastic job with the first act of the play. That was a hilarious and witty mix of old and new: Humphrey's (Henry Goodman's) patronising put-downs; his two minute soliloquies consisting of incomprehensibly big but empty words; Bernard's (Jonathan Slinger's) pedantry and lapses into equally obscure Latin maxims - these were well-known crowd favourites that garnered applause simply as a result of the aplomb with which they were delivered. But there was new material mixed in there as well: jokes about coalitions, hung parliaments, slim majorities, the financial crisis, the quants and computer models that lay behind it. There were even oblique references to Jacqui Smith and Home Secretaries being moved to the portfolio of Culture, Media and Sport - subjects joined only by the single fact that they are all portfolios that "don't matter" very much.

Thus, Naeem, Janice and I all agreed that we enjoyed the first act of the play very much. I was chortling my way through most of it there were some real comic gems there: for instance, when, in support of Hacker's (David Haig's) reassurances to the Qumrani ambassador that the Prime Minister's inner circle were all quite informal whilst at Chequers, Bernard (upon a pointed glare from Hacker) reluctantly took off his suit jacket and slung it over one shoulder but Humphrey's only meagre concession was to tuck his handkerchief neatly into his breast pocket. The mixture of grudging outrage and resignation on Goodman's face as he pushed his handkerchief in with one finger was simply spot on and it sent the audience into gales of laughter - myself included.

Such good old-fashioned gags coupled with the kind of excellent comic pacing that characterized the original television episodes saw me and my friends through the first act quite happily. Potential disasters emerged out of the Chequers woodwork like mayflies on a hot summer's day: first, we learnt that Hacker's government was responsible for addressing the terrible state of the UK economy and that the international conference Hacker had convened to solve the crisis was not going well; then came the discovery that the cook at Chequers was an illegal immigrant; a potential solution to the economic crisis looked apparent with the arrival of an offer of an oil deal with the Qumrani government, but this was followed by the Qumrani foreign minister's surreal bombshell of a request for the sexual favors of an underaged girl. And in the midst of Hacker's panic over losing the deal with the Qumrani government, he is told that the BBC was going to be broadcasting a programme attacking him for failing to address the issue of global warming.

I must admit: it is hard not to sympathize a little with (though not without laughing at) Hacker when he rages against the fates for throwing "f***ing global warming" at him on top of all the other impossible and intractable problems he already had to face in that single evening.

On the whole, though, I found it difficult to sympathise with Haig's Hacker. Jim Hacker as played by the late great Paul Eddington was an eminently endearing character for all his desire to climb the greasy pole of politics. Eddington brought to the role a subtle naïveté and innocence that, coupled with the level of foolishness and ignorance that the role required, made Hacker someone that the audience could identify with - even take the side of. David Haig's performance, in contrast, lacked finesse. It hit the one note of permanent exasperation and never rose above it. His Hacker was an over-exaggerated character bordering on the brink of hysteria and Haig spent most of the play near-shouting or shrieking. It was an interpretation of the character that lacked subtlety and variation - failings that became extremely obvious in the second act, when Humphrey was effectively written out of the script and Haig's Hacker no longer had Goodman's calm to serve as his foil.

Indeed, I have grave reservations about the second act of the play. The storyline and pacing of the first act of the play had the heft and feel of a classic Yes, Minister or Yes, Prime Minister episode. The classic series, however, relied on a strict formula: up to 20 minutes of an episode was devoted to Hacker dragging himself further and further into an apparently insoluble problem of his own making, with Humphrey stepping in at the last minute to offer an ingenious but perfectly immoral solution that appeared to give Hacker what he wanted but usually gave Humphrey what he wanted. The format was - quite frankly - designed for a 30 minute sitcom format. Stretching those episodes any further would have broken the pacing and made the episodes impossible to hold together.

That observation was proved true by this theatrical adaptation of the old sitcom formula. After the build-up of the first act, one got the impression that Jay and Lynn simply lost their momentum and that they did not quite know how to use the additional half an hour to 45 minutes they had as a result of the theatrical form they had chosen. The second act descended into a farce that was barely recognizable as Yes, Prime Minister: at points it tested the limits of the audience's suspension of disbelief; at others, it bordered on being offensive.

I have to state very clearly that I am quite the follower of UK political satire. I could recognize, therefore, that when the script made Haig's Hacker go down on his knees in order to pray to God for guidance as to how he should address the Qumrani foreign minister's immoral request it was attempting to satirize the suspicion that despite his profession that he "didn't do God", praying to God was quite possibly something a closet Catholic like Tony Blair did. I could also see the joke in having Hacker suggest that it would be alright to provide the Kumrani foreign minister with an underaged illegal immigrant because such people weren't British and, thus, "not (his) problem." But having Hacker bang on about and elaborate upon the latter idea as if it were a possibility that could be logically entertained brought the script beyond satire and close to being offensive. And that was especially because Haig's manner did not suggest that Hacker was throwing this idea out because he was absolutely desperate and just throwing anything that came to his mind into the ring even while knowing it was wrong; instead, Haig's Hacker appeared to consider the idea with such longing, mean spirit and cruelty that it was impossible not to feel repulsed by him.

Then there was the prayer to God for guidance. That scene was, itself, already rather over the top and ridiculous. It was made even more ridiculous, however, when Hacker's plea for "some sort of sign" was followed by a sudden flash of lightning and clap of thunder. God's reply, so to speak - but how ham-fisted and unsubtle. It was farcical in a way that bordered on the level of Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear and to be frank, I expected better of British satire than an offering of French farce.

While I appreciated some of the current-day satirical references, therefore, the overall feeling I had of the second act was that it was trying so hard to be edgy and contemporary in its satire that it had lost much of the charm of the older series. Perhaps mourning the loss of that charm is misguided - satire must arguably be current to be relevant and the best satire is often that which leaves you feeling uncomfortable about the existing state of affairs. That might have been the thinking behind the inclusion of the scene with the BBC Director-General (William Chubb), who is browbeaten with threats to the license fee into curbing the Corporation's criticism of the coalition's policies in its upcoming programme. I found myself growing extremely angry at the inclusion of such a scene by Jay and Lynn but in retrospect my anger was probably misdirected - it should have been anger directed at those in government who would threaten the BBC's editorial independence.

Nevertheless I still mourned the choice to brow-beat the audience with political criticism ("Look - the anti-terrorism laws can be used to locked anyone up on the Prime Minister's say-so: including illegal immigrants who might have an inconvenient story or two to tell about him...") instead of exploring the political and moral dilemmas that government and governing can pose. The first act, in introducing the choice between economic salvation for Europe for another 50 years and sacrificing an underaged girl and all one's moral and legal principles, gave us a real glimpse of the kind of deeper moral exploration and exposition that even satirical shows are capable of. It was a shame to waste that potential in the second act by expending it all on second-hand rants against existing government policies.

Thus, it pains me very much to have to say this: but I don't believe that this production of Yes, Prime Minister quite deserves the 4 stars that the reviewers have been giving it.

Admittedly, there were some good performances on show. Henry Goodman's Humphrey was quite faithful to that of his predecessor, Nigel Hawthorne. Though, I must say that I don't quite remember Hawthorne Humphrey mincing out the door as much as Goodman's did. Nor was Derek Fowlds' Bernard anything as camp as Jonathan Slinger's. The latter's performance owes more, I think, to the character of Sebastian Love from Little Britain than the old portrayal of Woolley. In one scene, in fact, Slinger actually curls up in a chair with his hand over his ears in an attempt to ward off Hacker's and Claire Sutton's (Hacker's political advisor - played by Emily Joyce) requests for him to do something he desperately did not want to do. That was a move that was pure and utter Sebastian and while I did not particularly mind the camping up of both my favourite Civil Service men it did feel just slightly strange seeing elements of David Walliams in them both.

On the whole, however, both Goodman and Slinger could not make up for the slightly sub-par performance on the part of David Haig; nor could they address my difficulties with Jay and Lynn's approach to the script. This was particularly because Goodman spent a good part of the second act - the act I have the most issues with - off stage.

It is a sad thing. I would not, I think, go so far as to say that my memories of the television series have been tarnished by this play. It is not a bad play in and of itself, even despite the heavy-handedness of the satire in the second act. But I had hoped to be blown away by what was essentially a revival of one of my all-time favourite shows and, unfortunately, I was not. Perhaps my expectations were too high. However, any revival inevitably will have to deal with expectations - it would be unrealistic not to expect to have to.

I was still glad to have caught it though - and to have seen this revival (probably the first and the last) with my own eyes. As a long-time fan of the series, I couldn't have done anything less and, given the chance, I guess I would still have flown all the way up to the UK to judge this production for myself. Here's to Yes, Minister and all its spin-offs. May it continue to amuse and entertain us all for years to come...

From Barcelona to Strasbourg

2010-12-22T23:57:00.011Z

While I generally do miss London, the purpose of going up to Europe this time around was not just to visit old haunts. No - this time it was to finally do what my best friends from Junior College and I never managed to do while we were still in university. And that was to travel together in Europe at last.

Three toots; three cities. Of which one had been a dream destination for at least one of us for quite some time; and the second a deliberate detour in order to let another one of us experience her first European-style Christmas market.

Barcelona

Janice once told Vivienne and me that she would liked to either get married in or spend her honeymoon in Barcelona. I'm not sure whether that fantasy has been preserved, but it seems to me that Barcelona is less of a destination for a romantic getaway than a pure holiday destination. It has it all: sun (when it's not winter and clouded over - and even in winter its skies can be so blue), sea, sights, sounds, and shopping galore. Everywhere you turn there's something interesting to look at or browse through - from trinket and jewellery shops to artisinal chocolates and sweets, from museums to Gaudi's whimsical and impossible creations. We barely scratched the surface of the sights Barcelona had to offer because we were so distracted by all the little random nooks and crannies of the city - from cafes and gelaterias in the Gracia district to shops selling dresses and artisan jewellery in the Born and Barri Gothic.

We visited La Sagrada Familia and got to see the inside of Gaudi's amazingly impressive Cathedral; we wandered around the tourist trap that was La Boqueria and bought the world's most expensive bag of nuts (10 euros!); we managed (at long last, after an hour-long detour at a earring shop) to see what the Picasso museum had to offer (and learnt, to our great amusement, that Picasso went through a blue period and a rose period and that the rose period was considerably less rose than the blue period was blue. Said so on the museum wall's write-up); and wandered up to Parc Guell and down again. Jan and Viv also managed to squeeze in visits to La Pedera and the modern art museum - I was rather more unlucky and chose initially not to visit La Pedera and was told quite firmly that I couldn't visit the museum of Catalunyan history because it would be closing in less than half an hour.

Despite a few disappointments, however, (Palau Guell was unfortunately closed for renovations while we were there) I don't think we've ever had so much fun - nor felt so tired. Barcelona is huge and we walked almost everywhere. It meant we earned the food we were eating and man, did we eat a lot. We did well in terms of food - having had tapas at Lolita tapaeria (owned by Ferran Adria's brother) and Tapac 24 (owned by his student), seafood at Con Maro (cheap, local, but oh-so-good seafood restaurant) and paella at Elche (listed in the Michelin guide). We also had hot chocolate and pastries at Escriba, a gourmet chocolatier whose unique take on after-eights dinner mints was apparently approved by Ferran Adria himself (him again - you can never get away from him in Barcelona).

For me in particular, Barcelona was chocolate heaven. I'd never had so much good dark chocolate in my life. Their version of hot chocolate was more like chocolate sauce than the milky stuff you get elsewhere - rich, thick, gooey stuff that stays on your spoon and doesn't come off. I dosed up on chocolate and churros everywhere I went, hoping to goodness that I was walking it all off in the meantime. If chocolate is sinful then Barcelona is the seventh circle of Dante's Hell. It would also, I think, be the tastiest.

Strasbourg

Strasbourg was intended as a short trip - just one full day with a little of the second day for a bit of a wander if we wanted. We were there specifically for one thing only, and that was to let Vivienne experience her first European-style Christmas Market and soak up the festive atmosphere. Strasbourg surprised us, however. It was one of the most charming European cities I've ever been to. Small enough to cover in 3 hours using an audio guide tour (available from the tourism office and an excellent idea, since it allows tourists to do their walking tours on their own steam and timing), its collection of well-maintained half-timbered houses, exposed wooden beams, medieval-style paved roads and festive lighting all combined to form one of the most picturesque (and postcard-worthy) old cities I've ever visited. From the impressive gothic-style Notre Dame Cathedral (not the Notre Dame, but one of them) to the old tannery houses in Petite France painted in a mixture of vinegar and animal blood (well how else did you get the colour pink in those days?), everything about Strasbourg was just endearingly festive and European. Billed the Christmas capital of Europe, it certainly did its best to live up to the name and it was a nice and charming change from the metropolitan feel of a large city like Barcelona.

I had my own agenda in Strasbourg apart from the Christmas Markets. Apart from wanting to compare gingerbreads (I still prefer the Lebkuchen from Nuremberg but that's a personal thing), I wanted also to visit the European Court of Human Rights. Sadly individual tourists aren't allowed inside, but I walked around the outside of it and the other European institutions located in Strasbourg before heading back to join Janice and Vivienne in the town centre. I also had the chance to meet up with a very good friend from the Somerville MCR and there is nothing better than knowing that you have friends who are willing to take a one and a half hour drive up to Strasbourg in order to share a flammekuchen and a drink with you. It was good to see you again, Alex - seeing you again somehow made the trip to Strasbourg all the more worth it.

In all this trip merely reinforced what I've known for a long time: that I love Europe, and that I love being in or at least a stone's throw away from Europe. I can only hope that I manage another trip there soon. Farewell, till I next see you again.

Scissor Sisters: Night Work

2010-12-15T23:22:00.011Z

It struck me in the middle of my crazed play-booking spree that there were other things I failed to do enough of in the UK while I was there before. One of those things was to attend a pop or rock music concert - indeed, it was in Singapore that I've been catching my favourite British rock groups over the last few years.

Watching British groups outside of Britain: something had to be done to right this wrong. So, naturally, I ran a search for concerts and came up with a New York duo performing in London the night before I left for Barcelona. The irony is not entirely lost on me.

However, I've always wanted to catch the Scissor Sisters in action and given the nature of the group, its lead singer (yes, Jake Shears - 'nuff said), and their music (gay-scene pop-y goodness) it was highly unlikely that they would be showing up in Singapore any time soon. So despite the fact that we had originally planned to leave for Barcelona today, I managed to beg an extra day off our original holiday plans in order to attend the concert. I was joined (well, not exactly, since he didn't manage to get the standing tickets I had and ended up in seats instead) by my friend and his girlfriend, but not Vivienne - whom I left to enjoy the eclecticism of Camden Town on her own. In an interesting turn of "dangnamit, if only I had known" events, however, it turned out that if I had managed to beg off another day from our holiday I might've caught Lady Gaga live at the O2 instead. Life, I've concluded, is simply not fair.

In any case, I've always wondered what the demographic of Scissor Sisters fans was; and today I found out. Once inside the O2, I found myself surrounded by 40-50 year olds standing around and carrying their coats. There was even a mother-daughter pairing standing directly in front of me - though I have to say, the mother was quite the happening sort. In fact, she spent the concert dancing around more than her teenaged daughter did. The sight, I must say, was simultaneously laudable and disturbing.

My first UK concert standing pit experience, therefore, can only be described as pretty damned strange. The mature crowd wasn't nearly as dance- (or jump-) inclined as I was hoping they would be. There was little of the fist-pumping and singing along that I had come to expect of UK concert-going crowds (though perhaps Glastonbury and Muse concert videos are just a little misleading). It was hard to let one's hair down, jump about and commit entirely to the music when one's fellow pit-dwellers preferred to stand and bop their heads minimally to the music.

The group's concert style is also quite different from what I've been used to after attending other concerts (or perhaps I've just been watching too many Muse concerts - on stage, they are truly taciturn). Ana Matronic did quite a lot of talking in between songs. She talked dirty with Jake, told the London audience how she liked certain British slang words enough to want to introduce them to America ("loo, knackered, gurning, minging, and - oh - bristols"). I still have no idea what gurning means, but "bristols" (apparently slang for boobies) helpfully launched the duo into "Tits on the Radio". It had, however, to be the longest lead-in to a song that I've ever experienced.

One particularly memorable moment came, however, when Ana insisted that we (the audience) put down all our cameras for the span of one song in order to allow the band to perform for their audience rather than a sea of cameras. One guy right in front refused to put his camera down; she then insisted he hand it over ("Don't worry, honey - I'm not going to steal your camera") and insinuated that he might get some pictures he otherwise wouldn't get if he did. Then, the moment he actually handed the camera over, she immediately took it over to Jake and took a close-up of Jake's crotch. That was, as far as on-stage hijinks went, the best that it got to be that night. Otherwise the entire set-up was effectively a rant against the phenomenon that left artistes interacting with cameras instead of live audiences. It was also a diatribe against the phenomenon of being caught up in capturing rather than living the moment. I admit: I'm quite guilty of that sometimes. Though in my defence I never ever film entire songs at concerts - only short snippets. However, I gave in to Ana's request this time and put my camera away for Paul McCartney.

"Is it the music that connects me to you?"

The best songs of the night were - quite obviously - Filthy/Gorgeous, Take Your Mama (Out All Night), Paul McCartney, Fire with Fire (anthem of the year, I swear) and I Don't Feel Like Dancing. The latter two came as part of a 3-song encore; the third Invisible Light appears to be the latest song off the album they've chosen to release as a single. It was a bit of a risk on their part closing on that song, however, given that it's neither a well-known or well-loved song. Especially after I Don't Feel Like Dancing got the entire crowd dancing like loons. I did like the other songs off the new album though: Skin Tight, Harder You Get, and Something Like This. The album plays well live, and though I rued the lack of Sex And Violence it was good hearing these songs being performed and being able to dance freely (well, as freely as one can when everyone else around isn't dancing) to them.

Overall, while this virgin experience of a concert in London wasn't as good as I had hoped it to be (well, I suppose not all concerts can be like a Muse concert at Wembley) it still made for a good night out. I only wish I could've gone with a bigger group of friends/fans though - it would've made the experience that much sweeter.

The Lion King

2010-12-14T22:08:00.005Z

I have fond memories of watching Disney's The Lion King as a child. Indeed it was the Disney cartoon that I loved most and could watch over and over again, repeatedly, without getting bored (Beauty and the Beast just didn't cut it quite the same way; and Sleeping Beauty gave me nightmares). I learned the songs by heart; I think I even memorized entire chunks of dialogue at some point.

Basically, I was obsessed by the show. But how time flies and changes a person. In my four years in the UK I never once felt the need to catch the musical based on my childhood favourite. Perhaps I had outgrown the whole magic of talking safari animals. Or perhaps I wanted those childhood memories to remain as they were - pristine, untouched by anything but fond reminiscence. But Vivienne was particularly keen on catching a musical during this trip up to London and I have to admit, looking at the West End musicals on offer this season, The Lion King was the most appealing of the lot. I had, after all, already caught both Avenue Q and Wicked!. Musicals, unfortunately, hold very little appeal for me these days. And so The Lion King it was: my first West End musical in more than 2 years.

Unfortunately, the production did little to change my mind on the fundamental point I made above. True - the staging was lovely. The puppetry was quite ingenious and gorgeous to behold and I was absolutely fascinated by how they chose to portray incidents such as the stampede in the gorge (where layers of screens with wildebeest rotating forward made it look like a whole herd was charging towards the audience and towards little Simba). The work that went into conceiving and designing the costumes, the choreography and the production as a whole was admirable and I can quite understand why the Lion King has become quite a firm family musical favourite. There was just so much there to entertain the young: animals coming down to aisle to the strains of "Circle of Life", Timon and Pumbaa's antics, etc.

But as part of the older audience, however, I felt the musical's weaknesses much more strongly. Perhaps it's a feature of young people my age. But we all grew up with the original Lion King; hell, most of us probably (like myself) memorized every piece of dialogue and every song from the animated movie. So sitting there, listening to actors putting on the same voices (the actor playing Zazu sounded uncannily like Rowan Atkinson), even using the same rhythms and style of enunciation, was a very strange experience indeed. It was like being caught in a time warp - deja vu all over again. I knew exactly what lines would follow next - knowledge which, unfortunately, takes away a lot from the power of an coming punchline. And there was an element of realizing that what you enjoyed as a child - what you thought funny, enjoyable, brilliant - wasn't nearly as objectively good once you're older and find yourself getting impatient with the saccharine feel-goodness of Disney's story whitewashing.

In the end I came out of the Lion King wishing for one of two things: to re-watch the original animated film or to have the entire production redone with a totally different story. After all, if I had to relive a portion of my childhood I might as well do it with the original source material. Especially since the singing in this West End production, while not bad, was certainly not on par with that of the original voice talent used in the animated film. Young Simba, in particular, couldn't really sing; and the older Simba sounded a little too whiney for both Viv's and my tastes. Nala was the only singer of any real note, but she had few songs and none of them the original crowd-pleasers.

But if you ask me, however, I would've liked to see the production values from this show used to bring some other African fable to life. It would have been fascinating to use the puppetry and choreography - so obviously inspired by the real textures and feels of Africa and its animals - to bring to life a real story from that continent. To a certain extent I felt the production could have been much better than the story it was trying to tell. The Lion King, however, has found its niche in the world of musicals and I suspect using its designs and production vision for a more serious work is probably out of the question. More's the pity.

King Lear

2010-12-13T23:11:00.008Z

This was the one play I had come up to London to watch without having booked a ticket for. Why? Because Derek Jacobi's star turn in Michael Grandage's Donmar Warehouse production of King Lear had already sold itself out. In June.

So, for the second time in my life I found myself queueing outside the Donmar at some ungodly hour (5am, to be specific - Viv and I woke up at 4am and walked and bussed our way over to Covent Garden in an attempt to beat the inevitable queue), freezing to death (that night temperatures were very definitely in the negative region) and hoping to survive till the ticket office opened at 10.30am with all my extremities intact and not lost to frostbite.

The hilarious thing was, we were the first to arrive and start queueing outside the Donmar. Then at 6.40am we thought, "There's no one else here at all. Let's just go get a coffee from Starbucks" only to discover upon our return that our place at the front of the line had now been taken. So we ended up second, despite having been the first to arrive on the scene. Sod's Law, indeed.

5 hours of queueing and many cups of Starbucks hazelnut hot chocolate later, we had our tickets and a day that began shrouded in darkness outside the Donmar ended much the way it started: shrouded in darkness inside the Donmar this time - with only the stage lighting illuminating a minimalist rough-hewn and flakily whitewashed wooden stage. The perfect setting for finally catching the living legend who is Derek Jacobi on stage. I missed watching his Malvolio at the Donmar West End production of Twelfth Night last winter; there was no way in hell I was going to miss seeing him on stage again.

He did not disappoint. Michael Billington describes Jacobi as one of the best speakers of Shakespearean verse alive and having seen this performance of his I have to agree: Jacobi just has an ear for the natural flow of Shakespeare's verse that is utterly unique and completely mesmerizing. More than any other Shakespearean actor I've seen he makes it seem completely natural, real and genuine.

But then, everything about his performance was real and genuine. Shakespeare's King Lear may ultimately be a tragedy about the follies that greed for love can drive us to - yet as Goneril (Gina McKee) expounded on her love for her father and praised him, Jacobi's Lear had his eyes shut, his hand over his heart, and such an expression of contentment on his face that it was impossible not to appreciate how genuinely and sincerely Lear wanted to hear that he was loved. For the first time I understood - truly understood - how natural it was to want to hear that we are loved and Jacobi's performance continued in that same vein.

It is difficult - very difficult - to convey the power of his performance in words, but he made the character's sudden transitions between moods and passions both believable and natural. His grief as he raged against the cruelty of Goneril and Regan (Justine Mitchell), insisting through a veil of tears that "No, I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping", was so palpable and so real that you accepted that he could go mad with grief. The lines "O let me not be mad, no mad sweet heaven/ Keep me in temper, I would not be mad" were not delivered ironically but as a genuine plea - a form of babble to try and stave off madness which itself smacks of despair and borderline insanity. There was nothing of Ian McKellen's lucid insanity and half-awareness in this Lear: only a powerful sense of grief and sorrow laying waste to a man before his time. My heart rent in two when I saw him emerge - with inarticulate cries of anguish - on stage bearing Cordelia's (Pippa Bennett-Warner's) dead body. Jacobi's Lear is neither philosopher nor Fool; nor is he natural man, stripped bare and exposed to the storm. His Lear is simply what he admits to being: "a very foolish fond old man."

This was a production that conveyed - very powerfully - the sense that the fundamental tragedy underlying King Lear is the tragedy of growing old. Much of King Lear is analyzed in terms of the opposition between nature and the unnatural - the "natural" love and obedience Cordelia has for her father; the "unnatural" son Edmund seeking to usurp the "natural" heir Edgar. Yet there is another aspect of the natural that the play explores - and that is how "nature" demands that the old give way to the young.

Lear: I gave you all.
Regan: And in good time you gave it.

It is natural because of its Darwinian logic: the young must usurp the old in the circle of life on this planet. Yet, therein lies the tragedy, for if the old do not "give way" by dying, what is there left for them? Over the course of the play, Lear learns this particular truth the hard way. By giving away his lands and powers, nothing remains of Lear the King - he is nothing but "Lear's shadow", reduced to an old man, begging on his knees for "raiment, bed and food"?

"The oldest hath borne most, we that are young,
Shall never see so much, nor live so long."

Michael Grandage's production explores the tensions between young and old, and the inherent tragedy of growing old in the most merciless fashion possible. Mitchell as Regan delivered the line "O sir, you are old" with all the force of a slap to the face or the crack of a whip; and the impact on Jacobi's Lear is powerful and palpable. From that moment on, he begins to grow old before the audience's very eyes and finally, in Act VI Scene 7, he is carried in to Cordelia on a chair - dressed in a white long-shirt, asleep, with a blanket tucked around him, and looking every bit the stereotypical Old-Aged-Person in a nursing home. The care home image was only reinforced when he awoke, blearily and unable to recognize his whereabouts or anyone around him ("Who's that with you, dearie? Eh? Speak up...") and I was horrified by the startling contrast between this Lear and Lear the King.

This was a Lear who, even in his retirement, was capable of riding out to hunt - who rained down fearsome curses on his eldest daughter, and who threatened to physically strike the Steward who showed him disrespect. He had been old; but he had not been the frail, helpless, pathetic and tragic figure he now cut. This was a "child-changed father" changed in a specific way - that is, changed or made old.

This emphasis on age and growing old was what made me finally understand and feel the tragedy of King Lear. Before this I'd never really found myself sympathizing very much with Lear himself and the tragedy of the play eluded my understanding for quite some time. This would've been a good enough reason to find Grandage's production memorable, but there were specific scenes that have seared themselves into my mind's eye and won't go away so easily.

The first is the famous (or perhaps infamous) storm scene. It is (for better or for worst) the scene that makes or breaks a Lear. What Grandage and Jacobi did, quite unexpectedly, was to play this storm scene not as a outward raging against the storm but almost as an interior monologue. Jacobi's Lear begins his soliloquy almost at the level of a whisper, building it in volume as his grief mounts and spills over into defiant rage. As he speaks, the very elements seem to freeze around him - an effect heightened by the Fool (Ron Cook) ceasing all action whenever Lear began to speak, and by the ingenious use of lighting and set. As mentioned before, Grandage's setting for this particular production was very minimalistic - the entire stage, backdrop and even the frontage of the theatre's balcony consisted of wooden planks that had only been very roughly whitewashed. Until the storm scene I had only noted the link between the rough, flaky and aged feel of the whitewashed wooden stage and the play's focus on the idea of growing old. During it, however, flashes of intense white light behind the stage used the cracks and gaps between the boards to create the effect of lightning flashing across the sky. These flashes were silent at first - illuminating but not interrupting Jacobi's hushed words; as his words built and his interior monologue became an outward challenge to the heavens, however, the flashes of light began to be accompanied by the rumble and roll of thunder. The effect was entirely unique - powerful, and capturing perfectly the idea of inward grief and rage that can no longer be contained.

The second scene seared into my memory is the other infamous scene from Lear: the putting out of Gloucester's eyes. I'm no stranger to productions of this play (though the Trevor Nunn/Ian McKellen production was one of the first plays I ever watched and my reviewer's or even playgoer's eye hadn't quite been trained yet), but I don't remember ever having felt the need to shut my eyes and turn away from the action on stage so strongly before. For instead of stamping out Gloucester's (Paul Jesson's) eyes, Gideon Turner's Cornwall actually reaches in and forcibly pulls his eyes out, before throwing the vile, red jelly against the whitewashed backdrop and floor and stamping on them in sadistic, hellish glee. It was horrific beyond words to actually see the gooey red mess (so realistic) splat and splatter against the backdrop; and that stark contrast of red spatter on white remained on stage throughout the remainder of the play - a visual and bloody reminder of violence and cruelty between men. The very act of physically pulling someone's eyes out (as compared to simply stamping on them while they're in the face) is an act of violence so intimate and so personal, one can barely comprehend the level of sadism and cruelty it would take to drive one man to inflict such injury on another. I can barely put into words how traumatized I still am from that scene.

This was, therefore, a memorable and powerful production of Lear that captured, for me, the simplest, least pretentious, but possibly two of the most potent interpretations of what makes the play a tragedy: the tragedy of old age and the folly of being greedy for love (the latter leads not only to Lear's downfall, but Edmund's as well). It was the theatrical highlight of my London trip - my first time seeing Derek Jacobi on stage at long last. His was not the only excellent performance, of course. McKee and Mitchell as Goneril and Regan were excellent: strong, assured, proud, and yet for all that truly bound by sisterly love for one another. But it was Jacobi I deliberately flew over to see and he did not let me down. He was a delight to watch and well worth the 5 hours of queueing in the freezing cold that morning. The Donmar Warehouse is also my new favourite theatre venue of all time - the space there is just so astoundingly intimate and small. You truly feel like the performance there is for you and you alone - nothing and no one else matters. I shall have to see more plays there in future - though I fear that might mean more hours of queueing ahead in the distant future. Brrr.

A Flea in Her Ear

2010-12-11T22:15:00.004Z

I booked Vivienne and I into the Old Vic's A Flea in Her Ear all those months back because (1) I thought that we would be able to take advantage of the 19-25 age group ticket discounts, and (2) Viv thought a farce would be a good opening play for our first day in the UK, since we would probably both be too wiped out to handle anything more substantial than that. In the end, (2) probably held true, but I was disappointed to find out - upon booking - that the Vic's policy of granting discounted tickets for those aged 19 to 25 years had been changed, so that the moment you turned 25 you lost the discount. I can't begrudge them the change in policy, given what I know about arts funding cuts in the UK this year (f*** Jeremy C*** - oops) but I was still gutted because I always thought this would be my last year to take advantage of those discounts and I was almost deliberately returning to the UK (and pouring in my tourist dollars) because I thought they would still apply to me.

But complaints about cuts in arts funding aside, the Old Vic's production of Georges Feydeau's La Puce à l'oreille, translated into the English by John Mortimer (of Rumpole fame) was the opening play of this, my 2010 winter sojourn in the UK. A quintessential French farce opening a European sojourn - what more could one ask for?

I suppose there was more one could ask for. Oh, there was certainly no fault with production values of this play - as I've long come to expect of the Old Vic, they were through the roof. The set was simply to die for. While it was normal enough in the first and third Act - set in the library of Mr Victor Emmanuel Chandebise, Chairman of the Boston Life Assurance group in Paris - in the second Act, Vivienne and I had our breaths taken away when the safety curtain rolled up to reveal an elaborate and rococo-styled hotel set wheeling towards the stage front as the housemaid twirled on the spot in the one bedroom (Room 5, apparently - very comfortable) open to the audience's view. It was an impressive sight already, but when we discovered that the bedroom set came with a bed that could revolve on a platform with the push of a button to exchange places with the bed from the next-door room, we couldn't help falling completely in love with the stage set.

Yes - one can never escape having been a set-building, flat-painting, clamp-wielding Hwa Chong ELDDFS student.

The acting too, was quite excellent. Tom Hollander's alternating turn between prim, proper and gentlemanly Chandebise and his rough, plain-spoken, kick-up-the-bum-loving lookalike porter Poche from the Hotel Coq d'Or was one stand-out; the others were John Marquez's jealous Spanish husband (complete with outrageously superfluous flamenco moves and a ridiculous love of firearms - "I gave my word as a gentleman that I would not carry a revolver; so I brought pistols instead") and Freddie Fox as the speech-impaired and hapless nephew (how he managed to speak in not-speak for so long I have no idea - not speaking properly while being somewhat intelligible takes a lot of effort!). Some pretty quick costume changes were called for on Hollander's part and it was quite amusing to see him disappear out one doorway as one character only to emerge from another as the other.

In the end, however, despite the good production values I felt the base material was just inherently lacking. Feydeau's farce was just that - pure farce. The fickle and (rather air-headed) Madame Chandebise suspects her husband of infidelity and enlists her childhood friend to help write a letter to her husband arranging an assignation at the Hotel Coq d'Or in order that she might be able to confront him. Unfortunately, her husband shows the letter to her friend's insanely possessive and hot-blooded husband, who recognizes the handwriting at once and rushes to the Hotel Coq d'Or with murderous intent. The situation is complicated by the fact that Poche, the hotel porter, is a complete dead ringer for Monsieur Chandebise.

The resulting comedy of errors holds together well enough in the second act, where the laughs come fast and furious (thanks in no small part to the presence of a German-sprouting Prussian hotel guest whose sole purpose seems to be to attempt to shag every and any female who goes anywhere near his room). However, the farcical device (particularly of Chandebise's and Poche's mistaken identity) wears thin after a while and by the third act, I was mentally doing the equivalent of tapping my foot and glancing at my watch, waiting for the play to end. Perhaps it's something about the French farces. I noticed I had the same reaction in the third act of Boeing, Boeing - the farce, entertaining as it was to begin with, simply had too little substance with which one could engage. Pure farce, for me, is generally empty - and while I enjoy a good laugh, the laughs get harder and harder to generate the more predictable the play and its resolution gets.

As usual, I found myself missing Ackybourne's plays, which combined farce with enough substance to transcend the limitations of the genre and to turn farce into something more than just mere comedy. I fear Feydeau's offering - even with John Mortimer's genius intervening - fell far short of reaching the heights that the genre Ackybourne showed it was capable of. A nice play, therefore, to open this trip to the UK with - but not, I fear, one of the best offerings I've caught from the Old Vic. More's the pity.

No, Dorothy...

2010-12-10T23:24:00.009Z

... I think we're not in Singapore anymore.

(She lets out a whoop of sheer joy)

After all the last minute pain and working late, late into the nights - London, Barcelona and Strasbourg: here I come!

A Little Night Music

2010-11-11T22:17:00.004Z

There are people who say that Andrew Lloyd Webber ruined musicals as an art form. I never quite understood what they meant by that - though I did always personally feel that musicals were the poorer and more plebeian cousin of plays. That is - until now.

Until I watched this production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, I never knew how rich a musical could be - both musically and thematically. Musically, Sondheim's work was more strongly reminiscent of opera than even Webber's most explicitly operatic work (Phantom) was - the use of interlocking voices, near-Wagnerian dissonance and diminished falls and rises that revealed a score more musically complex than I have ever associated with a musical. Thematically too, the musical explored so many ideas: empty glories, empty lives, empty charm, empty wit, youth and age, life and death, and the general farce that is life itself.

I loved the set and how rich it was - colorful, lush, leafy, and golden; I loved how there were no stars within the script. Each character got their own set pieces - down even to the lowly maid. But what I especially loved was the musical's wit. How witty it all was! How funny - how hilarious! Lines such as "Never marry a Scandinavian. They're all insane - it's the latitude" kept me in stitches and thoroughly delighted.

The singers too, were excellent. There have been some dubious Filipino musical casts in the past (I didn't attend it myself but I heard that the cast that brought Avenue Q to Singapore weren't fantastic), but this was not one of them. XXXXXX as Desiree was fantastic. Her rendition of Send in the clowns was a musical tour de force. The emotion that she brought to the song was so real, she was actually crying. Even seated in Circle 1 of the Esplanade Theatre, I could feel her sorrow and bitter disappointment at how farcical and ridiculous life was reaching out to touch me and I was weeping buckets by the time the song ended. XXX as Frederick was pretty solid too: he carried off the part of the solid, dependable lawyer very well and with considerable aplomb. The other stand-outs were old Mrs Anstalt and the maid Petra. The latter could really sing, though her enunciation of the quicker bits of her song left something to be desired. I also greatly enjoyed Henrik's set piece. Its syncopation combined with angst lyrics made it altogether too appealing.

At the end of the evening, all I can say is that A Little Night Music was an excellent musical. I was quite skeptical of it at first when Denise and Caleb asked me to join them in order to watch it. After all, I hadn't heard of the musical before - nor had I even heard its signature song. Now, however, I find myself quite the Sondheim convert. Perhaps after this, there will be hope for me and musicals from now on.

Blackbird

2010-09-17T09:08:00.003+01:00

(NB: This review has been long overdue.)

Blackbird is a filthy play. Its subject matter is what most would regard as the filthiest and the most reprehensible of crimes; and even its drab, grey, colourless warehouse-office setting is a disgusting mess. The only table is strewn with the leftovers of one too many lunch breaks and snacks; and the rubbish bin just behind the water cooler is filled to the point of overflowing.

Filth, therefore, is present on stage from the very beginning; for now, however, it remains contained - limited to those two areas: the table and the bin. As the play progresses, however, any pretense of containing filth is abandoned as it explodes - verbally, metaphorically and physically - across the stage in a gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching exposé of the moral and emotional abysses that can and do lie along the twisted and forked roads of human existence.

Una (Emma Yong) and Ray (Daniel Jenkins) are seeing each other again for the first time in 15 years. When they first met, she was only 12; he was well into his 40s. Following their short, torrid and doomed relationship, they were separated: he went to prison and she remained in her old home - a shunned, tainted and wounded creature, regarded by all with suspicion. Now, years later, she has found him again - working in a new job, in a different city, and under a different name. Why has she sought him out? To torment him? To torment herself? For answers? Closure? Reconciliation? Or to pick up where they left off all those years ago?

The ensuring psychological drama is characterized by a series of provocative twists as the confrontation between Ray and Una provokes the progressive revelation of secrets, half-truths, repressed feelings, and hurt. The resulting maelstrom of emotions is intense - almost too intense for the isolated, claustrophobic and filthy theatrical space they inhabit.

The play tries hard to avoid providing easy moral answers or easy moral judgments. The twists and turns that it takes through the complicated thoughts, emotions and motivations that informed the actions of both characters all those years ago are clearly designed to make one think the story behind each individual case of sexual abuse less clear-cut and murkier than one could have imagined. Some will leave the theatre convinced of its central message; others will not. The latter will probably be those who find the play's tactics a little too obvious and the play on the audience's sympathies (only to be reversed by the final plot twist) predictable in its attempt to be "edgy" and unpredictable. That criticism would not be entirely unfair. For all of the play's attempt to bring to a story of abuse the trappings of a story of thwarted love, the repeated refrains of:

You abused me.

and

I have nothing to say to you.

reinforces a simpler and less controversial message: that abuse is abuse and there is really nothing more that can be said about the subject.

Or is there? For me, the play succeeds in exploring a more interesting and subtle aspect of sexual abuse: and that is the power of filth to liberate, seduce and excite.

As the characters talk of what happened between them 15 years ago, what emerges clearly is the sense in which both saw their short-lived relationship as having brought new thrills and excitement into their otherwise dull and humdrum existences. Wallowing in filthy and forbidden behaviour both thrilled and excited them. For instance, as Ray sat on a park bench, and Una called softly to him to join her in the undergrowth ("Ray, Ray - come and find me, Ray") within earshot of another man sitting nearby, Ray reveled enough in the thought of "Little does he know" for that afternoon's activities to have led to the duo's first sexual encounter. This was the power of filth to titillate and excite, while the power of filth to provide an outlet for cathartic release was explored in a more visual and visceral form on stage. In the midst of their dull, drab and grey warehouse locker room environment, Ray and Una rail against filth and mess (and the mess they have made of their own lives); yet their reaction to their filthy environment was not to tidy up but to express all their impotent rage and frustration by flinging, kicking and scattering the existing mess all across the stage. And the final exploration of the seductive power of filth culminates in the two characters are writhing on the filthy stage floor - obviously aroused and talking dirty ("Do you think of f***ing me?").

Dirt, filth and stains: imagery that the play employs without pause. Yet despite its liberal use it does not come across as tired or worn because what is explored is not simply how one might be considered stained by the past but how one might be stained and not care.

It is difficult to say much else about the production (without reference to the original script in order to see what the original stage directions were and where the production took liberties with its source material). I note with some gratitude, however, Tracie Pang's choice to use sound in order to transport the audience into the different environments referred to by the characters. It is a directorial choice that has not always been taken by those who stage the play, but I appreciated how - for instance - the sound of gulls and the local church clock in Tynemouth provided brief respite from the otherwise merciless claustrophobia engendered by the play.

In the wake of the early troubles that beset this production and resulted in the delay of its staging, it is also heartening to see how well-matched Jenkins and Yong are on stage. The two have enough chemistry between them to be convincing in their roles (though both started the play a little coolly and it took them a while to warm to their roles and thus for the audience to warm to them) and the racial mis-match is an interesting one. It strikes me that there could have been a missed opportunity to explore the connection between sexual abuse and colonial exploitation here - though perhaps Harrower's play may not have sustained the comparison for very long. The suggestion is faintly there, however, and is, I think, worth exploring in the future.

Singapore Youth Olympics: Equestrian Finals

2010-08-24T13:59:00.008+01:00

The Youth Olympics Games came and went in Singapore and I barely noticed. I didn't watch the much-lauded opening ceremony; nor did I bother much about the closing one. I did notice that there were a lot more fireworks going off than usual (I was out with a friend on a Monday night and I saw fireworks going off in the Bay area), but apart from that I suspect I could have avoided the YOG and its (slightly artificially drummed-up) excitement entirely had they not had equestrian as one of the sports coming in.

Naturally, I couldn't not go.

It was a real joy to be able to watch competitive jumping at this level - even if the jumps weren't as high as they could be for riders of this age group and if the horses weren't the riders' own. I felt particularly glad for the Saudi girl who came in third in particular - especially after we found out that she was here competing in Singapore on her own cash and initiative. The Saudi government won't sponsor or send women to compete for their country; but she came anyway. Good on her, I say - though it made it even more gutting to know that she and the rider who came in first were the only two to jump clear rounds in the jump-off for the finals and that she jumped the quicker round of the two but because the jump-off for third place was hived off from the jump-off for first and second, she only ended up with the bronze.

However - and I fear this is probably nothing new and just a repeat complaint - the lack of an audience was really quite demoralizing. I fear the YOG Committee and MOE policy of compelling school-going students to make up the bulk of audiences at these events backfired quite spectacularly. It was common for students to turn up late, stay only a while, and the leave - all with the sanction of the schools, who treated attendance at the games as an unwelcome distraction from the primary job of educating the young (which, to some extent, it possibly is). But it was especially bad to do this at a equestrian event - just from the one event that I attended alone I can think of a few incidents where the horses were really bothered by the late arrivals and nearly spooked whilst jumping the course. The victory lap after the medals were awarded also suffered badly - the poor medallists just could not summon up the enthusiasm needed to gallop around the arena and celebrate their wins if there was no one to either see or applaud them whilst they were at it.

And so, the number of empty seats around us by the time the award ceremony came around was absolutely depressing. It was also frustrating, because we knew of several people who had been turned away from the event that very morning on the basis that the tickets were fully sold out. The empty seats staring out at us told a very different story.

But on a more cheerful note: the horses brought in for the YOG are apparently going to be staying in Singapore. And I have to say that they are absolutely gorgeous. I do hope that the STCRC will be able to get their hands on a few of them. All the more reason (and motivation) to work hard and improve my riding so that I can start jumping lessons at some point, if so.

Sherlock

2010-08-09T18:34:00.011+01:00

The verdict is out: Steve Moffat's done it again. As an avid (Ok, near-fanatical) Sherlockian I was half-dreading this modern adaptation of the Great Detective; the other half of me, though, was curious and excited. Steve Moffat's writing on Doctor Who has been of tip-top rate and the man is a confessed Sherlockian himself. Surely, I thought, this BBC's Sherlock won't end up being an exercise in sheer embarrassment?

In the end my faith in Moffat paid off - and spectacularly too. Sherlock is not only an absolutely brilliant adaptation of Conan Doyle's characters, it was the undeniable television hit of the summer and a celebration of all things both modern and old. It celebrates London as we know and see it today with its lavish panoramas and evocative filming; it gleefully delights in all things modern and high-tech from Sherlock's use of text and email to Watson's blogging to Mycroft's control over the CCTV network; and more importantly, it pays fanboy-worthy homage to as much canon as it possibly can.

Of course, there were weak moments. While the opening episode adapting A Study in Scarlet was a joy to watch, it could hardly have been a mystery to anyone with any basic knowledge of canon watching the show. The title (A Study in Pink) gave the game straight away. I delighted in the more subtle adaptation combining The Valley of Fear and The Sign of Four in the second episode, but I admit, the playing up of the whole camp mystical/evil Chinese bit can begin to grate after a while.

The final episode, however, with its slew of original mysteries to solve, rapid-fire references to canon ("A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Five Orange Pips" in under a minute - let alone the larger "Bruce-Partington Plans" plot running alongside the Moriarty plotline? - genius!), homage to other filmed versions of the Holmes canon (Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett - even to the Hammer Horror adaptations) and introduction of one of the freakiest Moriartys I've ever had the privilege to see onscreen was - hands down - absolutely mind-blowingly amazing. And the knowledge that it was Mark Gatiss who wrote the third episode script and not Moffat has only resulted in my now hailing both Moffat and Gatiss as absolute geniuses. Thank you both for bringing the Great Detective back onto our screens; and thank you both to Benedict Cumberbatch (totally hot, with a gorgeously deep voice that I can't help comparing favourably to that of Brett) and Martin Freeman for having done a magnificent job of embodying these characters for a new generation.

Come on, BBC - We Want More. NOW. Just do it already!

Boeing, Boeing

2010-08-05T23:03:00.017+01:00

I had heard excellent things about the last run of W!ld Rice's Boeing, Boeing - and the Inkpot's last rave review of the previous production is still actually being quoted on the new posters. So (I thought), time to find out what all the fuss was about. Viv was equally keen on catching it: she claimed she hadn't had the joy of a good bedroom farce in far, far too long.

It has to be said from the start: this particular night's staging of Boeing, Boeing was particularly memorable for its beginning and its ending. The play's opening was one of the most hilarious - and innovative - I've ever seen. Given the subject matter and title of the play, I half-expected the pre-production announcement to involve a version of the now well-known (and bordering on cliched) parody of the stewards' in-flight demonstration. What I did not expect, however, was for it to have been done in impeccable, perfect and fluent Japanese. I doubt that many in the audience could speak or understand the language; but there was no mistaking the round of thanking the sponsors, advice us to fasten our seatbelts and strict prohibition against the use of all mobile devices - all delivered with the world's most kawaii anime-esque actions possible. Kudos to Emma Yong for carrying it off. It bodes well when a play has its audience rolling in the aisles with laughter even before the curtain has even officially risen, and I must admit that I was, myself, tickled completely pink. It was, I think, my best introduction to a play (and best "please switch off your mobile phones" reminder) since the actors at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre threatened us with certain death if we didn't put the d***ed things away.

The second memorable moment came right at the play's end. Under the guise of giving away free lucky-drawn tickets to W!ld Rice's end-of-year pantomime, Adrian Pang called a couple up onto the stage only for the girl (and the audience) to discover that it had all been an elaborate set-up in order for the guy to (publicly) propose to his girlfriend. I'd never been present at one of these before (though I was aware that the phenomenon was becoming more and more common in Singapore). It was definitely an experience to remember - and a nice one to round off a play about a polygamous playboy being forced by near-disastrous-but-farcical circumstance to finally become a one-woman man.

Other elements of the production stood out as well. I fell in love with the set: stark-white, rounded, with multiple doorways leading out into "rooms" with primary-coloured walls. It was an absolutely delightful aesthetic that seemed to have been lifted right out of a period film featuring 20s/30s UK architecture. My only gripe was that this "retro" set was not matched by having other "retro" references as well. The background music (some unfortunate 70s or 80s pop/rock of the Lionel Richie kind) was more than a little dire and the historical references (volcanic ash spewing from Eyjafjallajoekull, anyone?) were just a little too current for my tastes. Perhaps it is unfair to expect an actual period setting, but I admit to feeling just a tad disappointed that an otherwise gorgeous period set was being wasted by the lack of a period setting.

There was also quite a lot of quality acting on offer - and I am not referring to either Adrian Pang or Daniel York. No doubt both of them did a competent enough job with their roles - having caught York as Jack in W!ld Rice's production of The Importance of Being Earnest before this, I suspect he has carved out a (limited) niche for himself as the go-to man for the role of hapless-Brit-who-is-the-unfortunate-victim-of-farcical-circumstance. But it must be said that both men's roles hardly amounted to a challenge. York was effectively playing Jack (the same raving mad restraint and repression) all over again; and Pang was evidently taking it easy.

No, it was the women who shone this evening: from Chermaine Ang's extremely teh and super ah-lian Prada-carrying SIA girl, to Wendy Kweh's fiery, sexy, sing-song, and Cantonese-spouting Cathay Pacific girl, to Emma Yong's superbly kawaii JAL girl complete with shrieks of "Hontouuuuuuu?!", "Naaaaani!" and "Ieeeeeeeee!" Even the maid Rosa, with her forthrightness, bluntness, scattering of Malay, earthy sense of mischief and constant refrain of "It's not easy, lah" kept Vivienne and I clutching to our sides with laughter. The production plays on stereotypes that are the stuff of feminists' nightmares; but they are (unfortunately or not) no less hilarious for that.

Watching each woman carry off the stereotypical quirks of each nationality was the most amount of fun in a theatre I've had in a long time. As the play went on, however, I found myself growing dissatisfied with the actual script of the play. The truth of the matter is that Boeing, Boeing is not a very impressive play. Yes, it is a classic bedroom farce: an outrageous situational premise (polygamy and fianceés arranged according to timetable) degenerates into the absurd as order breaks down and personal disaster threatens to strike at any minute. But while it possesses the style and format of, say, a classic Ayckbourne it lacks the substance and depth of social commentary and critique that Ayckbourne always brought to his plays. Perhaps this is because the play shamelessly uses national (and gender) stereotypes without attempting, in any way, to look past them or examine them in any more serious light at all. The lack of a dénouement scene - one in which all three women chance upon one another and discover the full extent of Bernard's polygamous scheme - also robs the play of a proper climax. Without one, the resolution achieved at the play's end seemed too easily arrived at and too pat. The close calls set up by the doors opening, closing and admitting people at potentially inconvenient times were also a little dissatisfying. Somehow, they felt more pantomime than farce.

And so while I enjoyed the spectacle of performace itself, I came away from this production of Boeing, Boing feeling the lack of the play's depth quite a bit. Bedroom farces are, in the end, almost entirely predictable. Once you've seen one you've generally seen them all and there is little to hold your attention once the novelty of watching national stereotypes being played out has exhausted itself. W!ld Rice's production is a more than excellent adaptation of the play; unfortunately for them, Marc Camoletti's script has more style than substance and the lack of the latter ultimately lets what is otherwise a very entertaining premise down.

Die Zauberflöte

2010-07-27T23:41:00.022+01:00

I've never really taken to non-Italian opera: after my last experience of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, I had the impression of German opera being slow, ponderous, jarringly rough and dully repetitive. But - I told myself - that was Wagner. It would not do to preemptively tar other composers in the Germanic tradition with the same brush and The Magic Flute was not only by Mozart - it was Mozart's last opera as well. Viv was keen on catching it - and so, it appeared, did most of Singapore. Onlywe caught it on the show's last night on Tuesday, when everyone else did Saturday.

(It was a strange Saturday to be spending in front of one's laptop. Judging from the stream of status updates on facebook that night, everyone I knew was either at the opera or at the Jay Chou concert. I think it was then I realized I had friends of all sorts running about my facebook newsfeed. I doubt you could think of any greater divergence in taste within a single person's group of friends.)

All throughout the performance, I felt that there was something odd about this production of The Magic Flute by the Singapore Lyric Opera. First, there was the setting. The SLO had decided to set the opera in an ancient Balinese/Javanese setting - a choice that did not seem to add much to the production, apart from giving all the actors the chance to wear some pretty funky headdresses (Viv: "The Queen of the Night's headpiece is, like, one third of her height, lor!").

This unnecessarily exotic setting only added to a general sense of confusion on my part - a feeling I attribute to watching Javanese-clothed singers singing in German, speaking in English, and worshipping Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris (pronounced, even more confusingly, as "Eeeeseees" and "Oseeereees"). Even the spoken English contributed to the impression of a mash-up, as it was delivered in accents ranging from Japanese to Taiwanese, and from Korean to very, very bad lah, loh Singaporean. Add the use of Chinese characters (知理人性) written on the rocks outside a temple dedicated to the Egyptian gods and a set resembling something off the stage musical version of The Lion King but which is framed by a rising Japanese sun to the list, and you can imagine why my mind was in a whirl. This hodge-podge of a production was scattered with so many random cultural references, it was enough to make my head spin.

As for the singing, I have to admit that after seeing this, my second SLO production for the year, I can feel myself getting a little weary of seeing the same old faces and hearing the same old voices in every single opera I go to. I've seen Nancy Yuen and William Lim perform 3 times now - and it's not as if their range or quality of voice have changed much over that time. I did get to see Kota Murakami for once this time (I've been unlucky enough to miss his performances twice so far) and can conclude that he is solid enough - but it was nothing especially noteworthy or impressive.

Viv, however, was singularly unimpressed by Tai Hsiao Chun's Queen of the Night. She disliked the way Tai vibrato-ed her way through O Zittre Nacht in the first Act and felt that her coloratura was off - though it improved noticeably and significantly for the Die Hölle Racht aria in Act II Scene III. The latter was probably not surprising, given that it is Mozart's most famous composition from this opera and a firm favourite of most opera-goers. Indeed, most of my friends who attended the Saturday night performance seemed to have gone especially just to see that song being performed. And Tai was meant to be an accomplished coloratura.

In the end Die Hölle Racht was (thankfully) not a complete letdown; but if I were to be honest, the most enjoyable performance that night had nothing to do with famous arias and everything to do with baritone Song Kee Chang's Papgeno. Not only was he the only cast member whose voice wasn't going out, off or being forced noticeably (Martin Ng's Sarastro, in particular, had huge difficulties hitting the low Fs) - he was the only member of the cast whose heart and soul was put into the acting that night. And for his efforts and his bell-ringing, high-kicking, butt-shaking antics, he was richly rewarded with delighted laughs and the longest applause after the show. The folksy tunes that Mozart wrote for him were also a great hit; and his attempt to get a someone in the audience to say "no" to his attempt to hang himself also amused the entire theatre no end.

The real highlight of the evening, however, was Papageno's Pa … pa … pa ... duet with Papgena. Not only was it hilarious to listen to a grown man and woman cluck at one another like two mating chickens, the situation was made even more surreal by the onstage presence of 3 spirits (or fairies) played by three cute young girls decked out in butterfly wings and who bounced and danced along to the clucking in a most adorable fashion. Those three little girls thoroughly won the hearts of the audience that night. I also note that the eldest of the three will be quite the talent to watch in a decade or two - she has a wonderfully pure singing voice and probably has great potential as a soprano one day. One can only hope that she receives the training she deserves.

On the whole though, I enjoyed this particular operatic production a lot less than I did La Boheme. The Magic Flute's set, for example, seemed amateurish - flimsy, cardboard-like - in comparison to the impressive revolving restaurant set utilized in La Boheme.

Some of my disappointment, however, hast to be put down to the actual composition itself. The music of The Magic Flute was characterized by clean sounds and bell-ringingly clear melodies - classical music to a "T" and thoroughly Mozartian as well. But, for that same reason, it felt more suited to chamber or recital music than an opera: the music was simply not dramatic or not big enough to ill an entire theatre whose audience are there specially to watch a large-scale dramatic staging. The lack of "oomph" was not helped in this particular production by what seemed to be a very muted orchestra. Perhaps it was the seat I was in, but I could barely hear the music at all during the evening; and the soft volume did much to detract from the experience and left me missing the last production of La Boheme (and other Italian works I've seen) very, very much indeed.

I fear, therefore, that I have yet to be won over by German opera. Perhaps the ROH outing to Hänsel und Gretel that I have planned with Naeem for the end of the year (quite literally - we're catching it on New Year's Eve!) will be able to make a difference. At the moment, though, I remain dissatisfied with my experiences of German-language opera so far.

(9/08/10: Watching Stephen Fry on Wagner is making me a little more interested in exploring Wagner at least, now... and given me a whole new way of looking at Tristan and Isolde. Who knows, maybe my bias in opera might shift in the near future...)

Thoughts

2010-07-18T10:47:00.008+01:00

I was just browsing through the blogs of a few friends and it struck me how different my blog is now from most other people's blogs. Someone - unwittingly - made a comment about this the other day (I can't remember who it was). He/she referred to it as a "theatre blog" and, I confess, I was a bit taken aback at that. I'd never really thought of my blog as a theatre blog; yet I suppose, when you look at it objectively, that is what it has become. The occasional post about my obsessions with Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes or British politics and satire can hardly conceal the truth: that this blog is dominated almost entirely by reviews that serve to commemorate events and experiences rather than capture and preserve my moods, thoughts or emotions about life and the world around me.

I suppose I was surprised by that characterisation of my blog because I knew that it hadn't always been a review-based blog - and you can easily test that just by clicking on the archives and going back beyond 2007's posts. From 2003-2004, particularly, this blog captured my inner musings and need to write very well indeed. But I doubt that it could have survived for very much longer as an outlet for youthful and angsty rants - mostly because I like to think I've stopped being as angsty (and because objectively, I suppose I'm no longer as youthful as I was, either). And so, somehow, along the way - the purpose of this blog changed. I don't know if I did it deliberately - but I did do it.

Sometimes, though, I wonder: have I lost the opportunity to capture bits and pieces of myself that I may wish to revisit and re-acquaint myself with in future times? This blog started almost as a replacement for a diary. It's since stopped being one. Is it any poorer for that change?

In all honesty, I was never much of a diarist - writing has always been a difficult birthing process for me, and I liked the fluid, ever-changing and ephemeral nature of thought. And as a lawyer, I'm now only too-aware that some things are best left in the realm of thought, unsaid and unwritten. But I'm also curious: who am I now? Will I one day wish to look back on myself as I was and only see a few theatre reviews that give an imperfect glimpse of the no-doubt innumerable words that race through my head every day?

It is this sudden need to take a snapshot of myself, I think, that's made me decide to post up some of the quotes that I've placed on my Facebook profile page. I know that I placed these quotes on my Facebook profile for a reason - because they spoke to me on some level, captured some essence of a feeling or belief I have about the world around me, or just simply made me laugh. But Facebook, while good with the "now", is rubbish as an archive of one's past. So here they are on this blog instead - preserved in their current assortment for posterity (or for however long data ends up lasting on the internet).

"Can YOU travel into the future, John Constantine?"
"Only like everyone else, Boss. You know. One minute at a time."

"But I did okay, didn't I? I lived a pretty long time."
"You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

"Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spent my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The Devil made me do it.' I have never made any one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them."

"I didn't know you could stop being a God."
"You can stop being anything."

"So computers are tools of the devil?" thought Newt. He had no problem believing it. Computers had to be the tools of somebody, and all he knew for certain was that it definitely wasn't him.

Angus: "Lawyers and plumbers... what?"
Paul: "Lawyers and plumbers and pelicans can all stick their bills up their a***s."

"Freedom of speech is a concept, but Justice is concrete"

"Seriousness is no more a guarantee of truth, insight, authenticity or probity than humour is a guarantee of superficiality and stupidity: angels can fly because they take themselves lightly."

"When your back is against a wall there's only one thing left to do and that is turn around and fight."

"The joy of a woolly jumper is that you can take it off at will; whereas the blight of a woolly mind is that you are lumbered with it for life."

DEATH: "Humans need fantasy to *be* human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape."
SUSAN: "With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?"
DEATH: "Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies."
SUSAN: "So we can believe the big ones?"
DEATH: "Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing."
SUSAN: "They're not the same at all."
DEATH: "You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged."
SUSAN: "But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?"
DEATH: "You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"

"Believe in God, the soul, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of views. If the answers are in the back of the book I can wait, but what a drag. Better to struggle on knowing that failure is final."

SEPTIMUS: So the Improved Newtonian Universe must cease and grow cold. Dear me... when we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore.
THOMASINA: Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?

"Look at me! I'm a target!"

And here are some from Oscar Wilde's essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism - which I read recently and found myself agreeing with. These quotes aren't to be found on my Facebook page (they're just a little too long for that, I think), but they capture a lot of my current thinking about the world and human beings:

"To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to be to be impossible. To sweep it with joy would be appalling. Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt. All work of that kind should be done by a machine."

"It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature. That is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly the existing conditions that objects to; and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Changes is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development."

"... all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect, by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and Individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralizing. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realizing that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment... authority, by bribing people to conform, produces a very gross kind of overfed barbarism amongst us."

(It appears that there is the element of the student in me yet.)

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is as good a snapshot of the Soul of Karin Lai as you are going to get on this blog for the foreseeable future. Normal service will resume shortly.

The Masrayana

2010-07-04T22:54:00.020+01:00

Truth be told, I wasn't quite sure why I took up the offer to see this play when the email came around on the Inkpot mailing list. There was, I think, some mention of land, inheritance, bureaucracy and the living dead - all of which somehow piqued the lawyer in me. I had a hard time explaining to Caleb, though, what exactly it was that I had invited him to come and watch with me.

Open Stage's The Masrayana tells the story of one of India's "Living Dead". Based on the true story of Lal Bihari Mritak, Bill Kovacsik's play follows the story of Gopal Masra, who returns home one day to find that his brother has had him officially declared dead in order to inherit his land. The play tracks his journey as one of the dead - dispossessed, unseen, and ignored - and the audience bears witness to his struggles as he subsequently loses, and fights to regain, what he lost as a result of that fateful betrayal: his land, his home, his family, his life, identity, dignity, self-worth, self-respect and ability to love and trust another person once more.

It is a touching and endearing tale - and one that is a little unusual in form, being narrated in some parts and fully acted out in others. I last saw this technique being used in Peter Brook's 11 and 12; and there are other elements to remind me of Brook's production. The stage, for instance, is made up of a single large sand pit, where all the action takes place. It is reminiscent of the large red cloth that Brook employed to make up the "ground" of his set. But in this case, the use of sand (or soil) seems particularly apt, given the links between the plight of the "living dead" that the play examines and the underlying politics and desperation which gave rise to the phenomenon to begin with: overcrowding and the resulting grab for land.

But while Brook's use of a combination of narrative and action seemed too distancing in 11 and 12, the use of the same device seems much more justifiable in this play. Had it consisted only of narration, the story may have been nearly impossible to grasp. Indranil Banerjee as the narrator ("Yours truly: Vijay Gupta. Barrister") is, unfortunately, blessed with too thick an accent to be easily understood. This is successfully balanced, however, by the excellent turn of the play's lead actor - Musa Fazal. As the protagonist Gopal Masra, he is both convincing and charismatic - successfully pulling the laughs when he cheerfully offers himself up for arrest and happily eats a stolen banana in front of its infuriated owner, yet equally capable of conveying the character's sense of despair and heartbreak when he sees his wife (who until then had stood by him) putting on her white widow's shroud of mourning.

The use of a lawyer to narrate or tell the story of Gopal Masra is also fitting for another reason. The title of the play is reminiscent of that other great epic saga of Indian origin: namely, the Ramayana. And, knowing that the Ramayana explores as its themes the tenets of human existence and the concept of dharma, it is no small delight to realise that dharma is a word that generally translates into the English as the word, "law". Masra's Journey, however, also has "law" - in all its various shades and meanings - at its heart. The character's plight is born out of a ridiculous legalism: once the documents say that a person is dead, he is required, somehow, to prove that he is alive. The mere fact that he is walking around and clearly alive somehow is not enough. Then, as if slavish adherence to legal formalism is not injustice enough, the nightmare is worsened by the unthinking cruelty and selfishness of other human beings, who find it inconvenient or "too troublesome" to acknowledge the "dead" for what they are - alive.

This is a tale of the absurdity of legal formalism, justice, injustice and the capacity for the law to giveth back what it taketh away. Seen in that light, it is perhaps not entirely surprising for the play to effectively cast its audience in the role of the jury and provide, in the person of the narrator, a counsel for the defence, in order to put forward Masra's story of his plight and appeal to our sense of judgment and injustice.

In the end, I was enjoying the play: with its touches of humour, romance, warmth and scattering of unexpectedly expressive Bollywood-esque Indian dancing. The dancing is particularly impressive, given that is has been asked to depict everything from the neighbours turning the Masras away from their homes to the way in which an entire community completely ignores the living (but "dead") presence of Masra in their village. The latter dance, in particular, captures the protagonist's isolation well. I also found myself enjoying the little jokes at the expense of my own profession: the preening that accompanies the narrator's declaration that he is a barrister; his disbelief when he is told by Masra that a judge is willing to listen to the case for the "living dead" - "A judge who will listen? I never thought I would ever see such a thing in my life!"

I did find myself initially irritated, however, with the "This is the Open Stage" announcement that runs on for far too long at the play's start. This is because it rudely interrupts the till-then organic and gradual start of the play, which see the actors and actresses moving around and interacting on-stage while the house lights remain up. I was enjoying this feature of the play very much; I did not, therefore, appreciate having the gradual suspension of disbelief broken by a 4-minute expression of gratitude to various sponsors and an exposition of how this production portrays "integration at work." If the start of a play is to be an organic one, then it is perhaps best to keep any announcements as short and as sweet as possible - lest the audience begins to wonder what the point of an organic introduction is when the announcement jars them back to the reality of the theatre and the world around them once more.

SSO Lunchtime Concert

2010-07-02T14:37:00.008+01:00

I hadn't known about the SSO giving a free lunchtime concert till my friend from the Treasury emailed me out of the blue to ask if I was free to go. And because I missed the idea of free lunchtime entertainment (why oh why did I not attend a Prom when I could?), I readily agreed. Though we ended up being a little late (we weren't let it till after the first piece on the programme was completed), it was still a nice way to spend the lunch hour. And a good change from the usual eat-eat-eat-chat-chat-chat routine one normally faces at this time of day.

The programme:

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Darrell Ang

GIOACHINO ROSSINI (1792-1868)
William Tell: Overture

LI HUAN ZHI (1919-2000)
Spring Festival Overture

BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913-1976)
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34

LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)
Candide: Overture

I admit, I was a bit tired and the seats a little too comfortable. So I did doze off a little in the middle of Britten's Guide. But I enjoyed listening to William Tell from just outside the concert hall; and Bernstein's work was vastly enjoyable (I suppose it was the most Broadway-like of the pieces, which would explain its popularist feel). All in all, I fear, I'm still not really a classical music person. Pity. Perhaps a few more years on this earth might change that. I feel no urge to change too soon though. Here's to more chances like these, though, to expose myself to classical recitals and whatever interests that might unexpectedly spark.

Eleven

2010-06-27T22:54:00.020+01:00

I spent most of today watching videos from this year's Glastonbury Festival (Happy 40th Birthday, Glastonbury!) - from Scissor Sisters, to the Pet Shop Boys, to Muse (Muse!). Having access to Beeb videos is a godsend. But it was a godsend for another reason as well - and football has nothing to do with it. Instead, my ability to get Beeb videos meant that this year, for once, I could keep up with the latest series of Doctor Who. And my goodness, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

"Look at me! I'm a target!"

Earlier this year, I mourned the loss of David Tennant and Russell T Davies from the series. Tennant, after all, was the Doctor responsible for drawing and hooking me onto the series and I thought that my love for Who would die a natural death once he left. But oh, how wrong I was.

"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."

Enter, Matt Smith - foppish, high-cheekboned, complete with wiggly fingers, a runaway mouth and more tweedy bow-tied eccentricity in his skinny frame than even Tennant had at his most gawky moments. Where Tennant was all boyish charm, Smith was endearing beyond measure. From the moment he clambered out of a smoking and overturned Tardis and declared that he wanted "Apples. All I can think about is apples. Maybe I'm having a craving. That's new - never had cravings before" he had me hooked. Watching him go through half of little Amelia Pond's kitchen before deciding that what he really wanted was "fish-custard" sealed the deal. He was too hilarious, too eccentric, too alien to dislike at all. Thus, a new Doctor was born (for me) out of Tennant's ashes; and I suspect I have come to like Smith just as much as I did Tennant.

"Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?"

But what has me gushing about this season wasn't Smith alone - it was the new lead producer and writer, Steve Moffat. The Eleventh Hour was a fabulous start to the series, but there was some talk at first as the series progressed about how Moffat was not living up to expectations. And I felt it at times too - the return of the Weeping Angels (from the previous episode Blink where, I admit, they freaked the hell out of me) in The Time of Angels seemed a little disappointing, and episodes like Victory of the Daleks seemed a little strange, to be honest (the rebooted Daleks were just too candy-coloured).

"Something old, something new, something borrowed... something blue."

But then, in a move which silenced almost all his critics, Moffat hit us with a real whopper of a 2-part finale: The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. And suddenly the cracks in the universe that popped up all across the season, the little details (Amy's large, empty house), the little moments that looked like continuity errors but weren't after all - all these suddenly pulled together, cleverly, and with such a twist that you were left awestruck by Moffat's wit and ability to juggle so many concepts, ideas and time-loops. It was clever; it was intelligent; it was a real story arc. Nothing as obvious as "Bad Wolf" or "I am Harold Saxon" - but something so subtle and delightful that it just blew you straight off your feet.

And the image of the Doctor dancing at Amy's wedding is one that I will take to my grave.

And so: welcome back, Doctor. I look forward to the next series (and to the Christmas episode in between). The DVD boxset of this last season can't be released quickly enough, in my opinion. Here's to Smith, Gillam, Moffat and the rest of the Who team - may the show live on forever. Amen.

MIKA: The Imaginarium Tour

2010-06-14T05:09:00.013+01:00

What can I say, but that I've been concert-deprived since Muse and Big Night Out all the way back in February? Yes, there've been the odd classical music concerts along the way (Pink Martini, Andrea Bocelli), but nothing big, nothing outrageous, and nothing particularly pop or rock. So when I saw that British-Lebanese pop sensation Mika was coming to these shores, I quickly poked at ZM to join me for an evening of Scissor Sisters/Elton John/David Bowie-esque falsetto sugary goodness.

Originally, I wondered about the wisdom of my choice. First, while Mika's music was terrific fun to listen (and boogie down the street) to on CD and MP3, I wasn't sure about how it would translate live - and my supposedly "live" recording of his performance at Sadler's Well's that came with his latest album The Boy Who Knew Less hadn't raised my hopes. Second, the concert was to be held at the Expo Max Pavilion - already well known for being a less than ideal concert venue. Plus, ZM and I bought our tickets late and we decided to go cheap.

The fear, therefore, was that the concert might turn out a bit of a damp squib.

In the end, however, I can happily say that our fears were proven entirely wrong. With two albums under his belt now, Mika had more than enough material to play a full concert set without the need for an opening act. (Though admittedly the concert started a good hour later than the supposed 8pm starting time.) And what an act it was while it lasted! It was pure unadulterated psychedelic, saccharine, jump-up-and-down-shrieking pop music fun - with a round screen showcasing some of the most beautiful stage animation I've seen at a concert (ZM really adored the fact that the song Blue Eyes came complete with an actual eyeball rolling around, but I much preferred the plasticine stop animation that had faces shooting colourful droplets out their mouths and cracking forming in the skin).

It was a celebration of colour and outrageously flamboyant stage gimmicks: whilst singing Doctor Jones Mika was bedecked in a technicolour dreamcoat to rival any Joseph's; during Big Girl (You're Beautiful) a inflatable leg with a pink high-heeled shoe suddenly popped up on stage left; and then at the start of Love Today a parade of costumed figures bore an inflated golliwog onto stage. It was cheesy - or rather, it should have been cheesy. Yet because this was Mika, somehow it wasn't - it was just what you expected to happen in a Mika concert, with his brand of happy, sing-a-long, feelgood old-fashioned pop.

The song highlights were, quite naturally, the dancey numbers: Touches You (one of my favourites off the new album), Kick Ass (We are Young), Good Gone Girl, and a surprisingly disco-like take on Rain that had everyone screaming "I hate days like these!" (possibly in reaction to it being a Monday - I assure you that was part of my reason). But the real highlights were the on-stage banter and antics of Mika and his band - from competing to see who could do the best mock trumpet sounds to a comedic shoot-out that ended with everyone (including Mika himself) lying flat on stage, dead. And this was the first time ever that I'd seen an artiste's band come out after the encores were (we thought) done to show off their dance moves and lead the entire audience in the most ridiculous mass dance ever. We had, in the end, five encore songs (though admittedly Relax, Take it Easy was a repeat) and I still can't quite believe we got that many in the end.

So the upshot was that I didn't regret going for this concert at all. It was all I could have wanted from a concert of this sort: good, clean, wholesome (you could've told from the sheer number of kids and tweens in the audience, accompanied by their parents, that Mika has found a niche as a child-safe artiste), positive and cheering fun. It might not have been Muse, but I am still feeling deaf and feeling hoarse from it all. And that's not a bad place to be in, in the immediate aftermath of a concert. Not a bad place at all...

Emily of Emerald Hill

2010-06-13T23:58:00.028+01:00

As a Singaporean, I've long heard of the famous monologue that is Emily, even though I've not actually picked the script up and taken a look at it before. But Emily of Emerald Hill has always been one of those local plays whose titles were spoken of reverently in hushed tones alongside other acknowledged local "greats" like Kuo Pao Kun's The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole. Despite all this background, however, I was not initially interested enough to get tickets to the play - not until some friends started to encourage me to see this production, rumoured to be Margaret Chan's last go at the character (a fact confirmed by her personally on the night I saw the show).

It won't be the last time Emily will be showing, as Ivan Heng and W!ld Rice will be reviving their version of the play early next year as part of the company's 10th anniversary celebrations. Nevertheless, Chan's Emily sold out like hotcakes and, curious to see what the whole Emily phenomenon was about, when the Arts Festival released a third date for the production I agreed to get tickets with my friends.

Now that I've seen it, though, I can understand why Emily is such a well-loved classic of the local theatre scene. This one-woman monologue captures, in wonderful detail, aspects of both Singapore's cultural past and its present. It is the original Little Nyonya: a snapshot of Peranakan lifestyle and culture - with its quaint customs, traditions, practices, clothes, foods, even politics - that since Singapore's independence has sadly faded away.

To me, therefore, Emily is a play full of nostalgia - a piece of history or of period drama that captures everything about the Babar tradition down to Emily's recipe for Buah Keluak. So it is not surprising that it intrigues, interests and touches Singaporeans from all walks of life. Who doesn't want to know more about their past? As a people, we don't just want to know about historical events but about people, life, and what it was like in the past. And the play gives us that through the eyes of a woman whose character is instantly recognizable to us all. The over-bearingly "good" mother, the over-controlling "good" wife: these are characteristics that we've probably seen (to differing extents) in our own mothers, if not in ourselves at times. Emily's continued relevance to today's (and future) audiences derives, therefore, from the fact that her hopes and dreams for her son and her struggle to fight and win back a straying husband are still hopes, dreams and struggles that any woman from any time will face.

That connection with the audience's feelings of nostalgia and sympathy did not, however, come across particularly well in the first half of the play. I doubt it had anything to do with the staging - perhaps more with the script itself. The death of Emily's son washed over my friends and I - it seemed a little too melodramatic for a grown man to kill himself because his mother had effectively poured cold water on his dreams. But the connection with Emily was completed in the second half of the play - as the audience was made privy to her triumphs in taking her position in the family and becoming mistress of Emerald Hill. All those little triumphs and instances of guile and cunning made it impossible not to take her side.

All in all it was a good performance - if only because one had the feeling that Margaret Chan was Emily, somewhere deep down inside. Her prosey style and manner of speaking (she appears to naturally slip into Malay from English and vice versa on a regular basis), her tai tai-ness (accentuated, perhaps, since her last performance more than 20 years ago by her age) gave the impression that she and the character were not too different after all. Indeed, I was left wondering if she was, herself, actually of Babar descent. She probably is.

I was less convinced about some elements of the staging, however: in particular, the use of multimedia projections on the backdrop of the stage. I loved the very subtle Peranakan elements that were incorporated into the three screens that form the "walls" of Emerald Hill; but the tendency to project old photographs of Babar families and of the airport (when Emily left Singapore to go to the UK and check on her son) felt unnecessary somehow. No doubt they were intended to give a better sense of time and space, but I found them somewhat distracting. Time and place, as I said above, may be derived from Emily's own words alone. The projections, whilst perhaps an understandable attempt to "stamp" a director's artistic mark on the play, felt superfluous next to the very real history that the play itself already captures and embodies. In short, we didn't need pictures of Babar families to remind us that we were seeing a story of the Babar community in Singapore.

In any case, I am glad to have caught Margaret Chan's Emily. With Ivan Heng's version coming up in January, the memory of this production should provide good fodder for some comparative work later on.

I, Malvolio

2010-05-29T23:45:00.019+01:00

I must admit that my reasons for purchasing a ticket to Tim Crouch's I, Malvolio were pretty simple: (1) it's Shakespeare (Shakespeare-deprived here in Singapore); (2) it's Malvolio (I've been mentally scarred by the image of a middle-aged man dressed in yellow underpants, yellow socks and yellow sunshade); and(3) it's a UK production (God, I miss the English accent).

I tried to do a little research on the play, but apparently I, Malvolio is a new play in Crouch's I, (Shakespeare character) repertoire. The only mention of the production I found popped up quite late in the day and the reason for this, apparently, is that the play was actually commissioned specifically for the Singapore Arts Festival (and indeed, was written almost in conjunction with local JC students - as Crouch himself made clear in the post-show dialogue). So interestingly enough, audiences here were being treated to a play that was still in the works, so to speak. And on a more personal note, what made the experience wasn't actually the play itself - it was the post-show dialogue that really stuck with me in the end.

From the moment audience members enter the theatre, they are encouraged to see Malvolio as a figure of fun - a madman put on stage for us to ridicule and laugh at. And indeed, it would be hard not to think a man dressed in long johns stained by faecal matter, surrounded by flies, wearing a turkey wattle and topped off by a cuckold's horns as either mad or looking utterly ridiculous. Particularly if his first words to the audience are, "I'm not mad."

Crouch, however, pushes this ridicule of Malvolio further than even Shakespeare did - into the abject perversity and cruelty that only a crowd or a mob like a theatre audience could possess. A piece of paper reading "Kick Me" was discovered pasted on his back. He asked if anyone would like to give it a go and I enthusiastically raised my hand. After I had given him a real whopper to the arse, he asked, "Is that what you like?" and I only grinned and nodded. Whilst he was offstage gathering his rope, some of the younger members of the audience ran up on stage to throw what props and possessions there were on stage into disarray and his only reaction was, again, to ask, "Is that what you like?" Even when Malvolio sought assistance in hanging himself, those audience members who were holding on to the other hand of the noose with which he planned to hang himself were still playing pranks at his expense - raising the noose too high for him time after time. All the while, the "helper" who was meant to pull his chair away on the count of three was poised, only more than happy to push this drastic scenario to the bitter end. No member of the audience yelled "Stop"; no one objected to the sight of an actor being assisted in committing suicide, even though no one quite knew how it was going to end.

Naturally, Crouch's Malvolio didn't actually go through with hanging himself. The scenario was, however, intended to expose us all for the Toby Belch-s that we (the audience) were. Our willingness to hurt, to play pranks, to effectively bully Crouch's Malvolio rendered us no different from the prank-pulling and ultimately cruel character of Toby Belch, whose prank on Malvolio forms the main fount of humour and tragedy in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. And for that, Malvolio promised as he restored himself to his original appearance as the Lady Olivia's Steward, he would similarly have his revenge upon us all.

As evident from above, the conception behind Crouch's I, Malvolio was an interesting one. The focus on the theme of bullying and madness was an interesting one that provided a flash of insight into the character of Malvolio. This was, after all, a man who had good reason to go mad: disappointment in love, and the wanton and unnecessary cruelty of others. In the context of such a ridiculous plot line as that of Twelfth Night, it is hard in the end not to sympathize with Malvolio (to regret our cruelty towards him just a little) because it is evident that he was probably the only sane person in a world of insane cross-dressing, shotgun weddings and ridiculous love.

The only problem I had with the play, however, was its ending. Malvolio had promised us several times during the play, that he would be revenged on the lot of us (meaning, naturally, the audience - though perhaps he meant Toby Belch as well on some metaphysical level). He went on, however, to tell us how he would be so revenged: he planned, he said, to just walk out of the theatre, and we the audience were supposed to be left feeling dirty and soiled by our experience, by our experience of just how cruel we could all be; we were to be left feeling as if we will never again attend one of these theatrical showpieces again. That he claimed, would be the ultimate revenge he, as a theatre-hating puritan, could have on a theatre audience. But it all fell apart because the audience, whose perversity had been encouraged - nay, built and stoked - during the entire duration of the play, could not so easily abandon that perversity in favour of being serious. When Malvolio attempting to walk out, we immediately began clapping - only to have him walk back on and chastise us for clapping and for not remaining silent. As I volunteered to Crouch in the post-show dialogue, there could be no revenge if you told an audience what the revenge was. Given the tone of the play until that point, we would only refuse to cooperate - much as, I suspect, Toby Belch would.

The reason why I remember this post-show dialogue so well, though, was because it honestly seemed like a feedback session - a way to help mold a play you saw by talking and discussing it with its author/performer. And my own suggestion to Crouch was this: that he should simply tell the audience that "I shall have my revenge on the pack of you now" and just immediately walk out after that with no explanation and no exposition. If the purpose was to engender awkwardness and some twinge of guilt, then that would be the only way to undermine the perversity that had been building up for the length of an entire play. He seemed quite taken by the idea, I must say. I can only hope it might be adopted one day.

And so, to be frank, this will be what I shall remember this play best for: the fact that I was more than just a reviewer that day. For a moment during that post-show dialogue, I felt suddenly like I had a (however slight) creative say in the genesis of a work of theatre. I am no playwright and modest contributions such as these will be my lot, I fear; but it was a good feeling while it lasted.

P.S. I must say I do wonder why I never tried to find out why Shakespeare called his play Twelfth Night to begin with. I never really thought there was a reason. But in the post-show dialogue, I learnt that there was a reason: namely, that this play was written to be performed at a twelfth night festivity. The reversals of roles, ridiculing of the high and mighty and elevation of the poor, were all familiar elements within the twelfth night tradition and that was the reason for the title. Just goes to show: you learn something new every day. Especially at post-show dialogues, clearly.

11 and 12

2010-05-26T23:02:00.039+01:00

The Singapore Arts Festival this year has some really good offerings and when I was scanning the Sistic pages for plays to go for I came across this: 11 and 12, directed by Peter Brook (UK) and produced by Theatre des Bouffes Du Nord (France). The use of numbers in the title apparently caused many to gloss over it - even the Inkpot editor didn't realize it was a actual play or list it on the site's listings page until I pointed it out. I was piqued, though, by the explanatory blurb. That, plus a 5-star review from Michael Billington of the Guardian meant that I couldn't resist signing myself up to review this production for myself.

It is the 1930s and we are in West Africa - specifically, in Mali. Adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from the work of Amadou Hampâté Bâ and helmed by acclaimed director Peter Brook, 11 and 12 explores the background behind a dispute a over whether a certain prayer should be recited 11 or 12 times. The ensuing hatred and violence from the dispute sees tribes and families being torn apart. The occupying French wade into the disagreement - whether out of cynicism or sheer ignorance, it is not clear. They side with the "twelves," repeatedly imprisoning and exiling the contrarian Chérif Hamallah for stirring up trouble. When one of the spiritual leaders for the "twelves", Tierno Bokar (Makram J Khoury), thinks to approach the Chérif Hamallah and listen to his arguments in favour of the number 11, he becomes convinced and concedes that the latter is correct. Thereafter, however, he is himself ostracised by his family and followers and dies a lonely death.

The play clearly seeks to examine the senselessness of violence and the need for rationality and tolerance. The audience is encouraged to see the violence arising from the religious dispute as on par with those deaths dealt by famine or the ruling French's cruelty towards the African natives; the script is littered with references to old sufi parables speaking of the need for tolerance (a snake may hiss, but not bite) and the wholehearted commitment and sacrifice it demands (a butterfly may wonder what the flame of a candle is, but only the one who throws himself into the flame may know and understand what it is).

Brook's messages should resonate powerfully in the post-9/11 world where the incitement of religious sentiment to senseless hatred, mistrust and violence is rife. Instead, the play somehow feels unsatisfying and unfulfilling - as if, whilst expecting to be blown away, one is tickled only a faint breeze. There are moments of high action - the scene, for instance, where the Chérif's son has his feet burned as a the result of an attack, and kills a man in response - but overall, the tone of the play is measured, meditative and somehow distant. Perhaps this is in part due to the production's heavy use of dramatic stylization. In Brook's directorial hands, a mountain of dead bodies is represented by a single man choking on his last breaths and trying to reach out for something (anything); a piece of red cloth with its ends and edges folded together forms a boat, rocking slowly from side to side as it made its way down the river; and the corners of the red cloth upon which the entire of the play's action takes place, when folded over lumpen material, become the mounds of graves in a yard.

This stylization is reflected even in the script itself. Apart from the one scene referred to above, the audience is never shown any of the violence resulting from the dispute over 11 and 12. We are told about it - are told that the young narrator and Tierno's protege (Jared McNeill) has been "caught up" in the dispute. But we are not shown it - until it finally kills a man.

This reflective tone suits the production's moral message. The play seeks to advocate "true" tolerance as the solution to hatred and violence - in contrast to the mere show of tolerance employed by the Africans towards the French Commandant, which consists of ironic salutes and false smiles. As Brook himself put it in an interview, "To be violent is the ultimate laziness... And false non-violence is also an idol." It is fitting for the play, therefore, to take measured approach itself in showcasing violence. The audience are told of - but not shown - acts of violence taking place in order that their own emotional reactions should not cloud their ability to appreciate and understand the wisdom of Tierno's actions.

Yet, for all that my understanding of Brook's message and for all its style, skill and coherence, 11 and 12 failed to connect with me. The potential anti-colonial message was undermined by the very nature of the small multinational cast (otherwise a strength of this production). Very often, one of the Africans would actually be played by a white. Tierno's death should have been moving; but it was not. Indeed, after his death I had no idea the play had ended - as did most of the audience, I believe, for there was a long 2 minutes' wait before the entire theatre realised that the play was over and started clapping. It did not seem a natural conclusion to the play and I left with the feeling that the story had been left hanging in the air, unfinished and incomplete.

It would be unfair to blame this feeling of mine entirely on the production itself. Indeed, it was perhaps my own expectations that set me up for disappointment. The topic of religious violence had raised my hopes for a hard-hitting, powerful, explosive and visceral play. But the conclusion is as inescapable as it is unfortunate: this simply was not as fulfilling, nor as powerful, a production as I hoped it would be.

In writing the above, I realise that I'm properly departing from a Billington review for the first time in my life. The thought is disconcerting, somehow - I don't quite feel that I'm quite ready to leave the reviewer's nest just yet. I expect, though, that I will be flocking back to his brood soon enough.

Gatz

2010-05-22T22:01:00.047+01:00

The most common reaction I've had every time I mentioned that I was going to be watching a 8-hour play has been "Man, you're crazy." After having heard it so many times, I'm nearly convinced that I must be. I mean: Eight. Hours. With a dinner break. I thought 5 hours of Tristan and Isolde was the last straw, the last time. Evidently, I am some sort of sucker for punishment.

Yet, the reviews from the US have almost universally hailed Gatz as a true gem of a play - albeit one that you had to possess enough determination to get through. But just stick with it, the reviewers urged, and the experience would not fail to reward. I did; and it did not fail to deliver.

At the beginning of New York–based Elevator Repair Service's six-and-a-half-hour theater piece (performed in four parts) a typical employee (Scott Shepherd) enters his workplace with dossier and coffee, tries unsuccessfully to resuscitate his aged computer, and discovers a dog-eared copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic 1925 novel stuffed into his Rolodex. He checks the little clock on the table several times (perhaps wondering how much time reading might help pass), then starts to read aloud from the found text - tentatively at first, then a little louder and more confidently - as business continues around him in the drab, dreary, gray and file-and-box-filled workplace.

Suddenly, a female co-worker (Sibyl Kempson) is peering over our reader's shoulder, lip-synching the gruff dialogue of Tom Buchanan. A minute later, another co-worker (Robert Cucuzza) strides masterfully into the office and stands just as Tom Buchanan had been - a moment ago - described standing on his front porch: his legs apart. Then, just as suddenly, he begins to speak with Tom's words - to our reader's initial befuddlement.

Thus begins the gradual process by which the lively, colourful, compelling, aching business of the novel intrudes on and takes over the mundane business of the office. At first it seems as if the office workers are merely playing the characters - as if they had, for whatever mysterious reasons of their own, already memorized lines from the book and decided to act them out for a laugh. Yet they have no names or identities that we are aware of and after a while, quite naturally, the audience begins to identify them both as and with the characters in the book that they supposedly "play."

As the narration continues, however, all pretense of pretence is dropped. The office inhabitants become the characters in the book and the two worlds (that of the office and post-war Long Island, New York) coalesce into one. Our erstwhile reader begins to flip the pages of the book backwards instead of forwards before putting it down entirely and speaking directly to the audience in the person of Nick Carraway himself; another co-worker (Kate Scelsa) unfolds a newspaper in the glass-paneled room off the main office space. Its headline reads "Gatsby Murder Mystery."

This transition between the office and Fitzgerald's world may, on paper, seem contrived and implausible - yet on stage, it is not. It is managed beautifully, not only by the actors themselves, but with clever use of the power of sound and lighting as well. The background sound of the office (cars driving past, buses trundling down the road) slowly fades into the sounds of bullfrogs and cicadas as we enter Tom Buchanan's estate. We hear the clink of glasses and chatter of a crowd of partygoers at Gatsby's party. By the time one of Gatsby's guests crashes his car, the blending of two worlds is nearly complete: the screech of car tyres, loud bang of the crash, and sight of the a single car tyre rolling past the office door in the corridor outside is hilariously surreal, but somehow not outrageous.

It is a transition that somehow also makes sense within the logic of Fitzgerald's Great American Novel. With nothing on the drab and dull stage to distract one from the Fitzgerald's prose, his lush language - full of colour, movement, sound, mood and wit - comes to life. And if his language can come to life, why not the whole book - with its beautiful, outspoken, larger-than-life characters and heady atmosphere?

Thus, the very ordinary office space becomes the common setting for a whole host of fantastical, emotionally-charged and larger-than-life incidents; and a little raggedy poppet is treated by our characters as a puppy, whilst the newspaper articles pinned to a notice board on the wall becomes the personal photographs on Gatsby's bedroom wall. The ordinary and mundane objects in the office are, in the words of the book, transformed by the sheer "colossal vitality of... illusion." Like Gatsby, the creative team behind Gatz threw itself at Fitzgerald's prose with a creative passion - "adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted (their) way."

It shows in the way in which the production not only captures, but enhances, Fitzgerald's dry humour. Scott Shepherd is a wonderfully wry Nick Carraway; but it was masterful touches of anticipatory humour (such as Nick's Finnish maid spraying water in the face of a frozen Daisy in what appears to be a huff but which turns out to be anticipating the fact that the book goes on to describe Daisy's face as streaked with tears) and the absurd (Nick's dry observation that "perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone" starts off a complete audience riot when Gatsby, holding Daisy close and gazing intently into her eyes, wraps his other arm around Nick and pulls him too close for comfort as well) that kept the audience rolling with laughter in the aisles.

In the end, Gatz is a narrative marathon that is about the compelling power of prose and the quixotic power of performance. You may leave the production feeling tired - perhaps you may even leave with a bit of a headache. But you will not have spent a single minute of it feeling bored; it is simply too funny, too spellbinding, and too amazing for boredom to rear its ugly head. It is a production that is mind-blowing in its quality - but most of all, in its sheer ambition in daring to bring to life, for six-and-a-half hours, the entirety of one of the most quintessentially American novels of the 20th century. It is an ambition - a dream - to match that of the "Great" Gatsby himself. And it is as beautiful, as awe-inspiring and as great a dream as anyone could possibly have.

There is only one word I know to convey what I feel about this production - and it both captures and falls pathetically short of capturing my feelings of joy and pleasure at simply having been there to see this: "Wow." Just simply: "Wow."

Those Who Can't, Teach

2010-05-21T23:44:00.023+01:00

It is an amusing coincidence that just a few weeks back, the Singapore Academy of Law had organized its annual debate around the motion "Those who can't do, teach." I wish I could say that I attended that debate, and could now make pointed references to The Necessary Stage's production in order to defend the views adopted by the practitioners and academics debating the topic at that event. Unfortunately, I did not; I therefore now cannot.

By a strange coincidence, it turned out that I wasn't alone in the theatre that night - Caleb was apparently just a few rows behind me (in an admittedly better seat) the whole time and we had no clue that each other was there. Ships passing at night at all that rot.

Those Who Can't, Teach was first performed as part of the launch of the Substation back in 1990. The script has been updated for this year's Arts Festival - references to the internet, facebook, and the Singapore Flyer abound - but the story and characterisation are recognisably Sharma's work. There is the initial use of easily classifiable stereotypes: the PSC (Overseas Merit) Scholar; the young and flirtatious Dance teacher; the dedicated English Literature teacher; the too-earnest recent NIE graduate; the bad-boy student who makes good.

Then there is the slow chipping away of those stereotypes with uncomfortable truths: the dedicated teacher being told that she had actually let the majority of her students down by focusing all her attention solely on the "troubled" kids; the student who, on failing his 'O'-levels, was told by his teacher to "just believe" and he would make something of himself but who returns years later to admit that he has believed but achieved nothing. His message? That "sometimes, people fail."

There is the use of language and dialect - ranging from Cantonese to Malay (I must admit, given how far forward I was sitting, I was originally puzzled by how many people in the audience appeared to understand Malay fluently before I noticed the subtitles).

And there is humour. Teach made me laugh like no other Necessary Stage production has before. Lines such as "You act like slut, damn good"-"No one's ever said that to me before", to "I don't want to be Mr Zach's bitch!", and surreal scenes involving angels, blue cloth being waved about to represent water and actors dressed up in butterfly wings kept the audience in stitches the entire way through. Then there were the typically Singaporean in-jokes. One line about "havoc" convent girls sent the entire 2 balconies of the theatre (chock full, it turned out later, with CHIJ girls) screeching with laughter.

But in the end there were a few things that I especially appreciated about the play and this production of it. The first was the multi-faceted answer that Sharma's script offers to the unsaid question posed by the play's title: so is it true that only those who can't do, teach? Sharma's answer is simply to present to us all that is expected of teachers: the young flirtatious teacher is told that she should be a role model; the dedicated teacher is told by the parents of her student that she is their last hope for redeeming him as they themselves have given up; the teachers on the whole are bogged down by administrative work over and above their teaching duties. If we expect teachers to do so much, how can we condemn them as people who "can't do"?

Thus, while Sharma does point out that a teacher can only do so much to help her students (some will, inevitably, be failures - that is a fact of life; a teacher cannot save everyone), it seems impossible to say that they "can't" make a difference in the end. For is not encouraging someone to believe in themselves, "doing" something? My opinion of Sharma as one of Singapore's most subtle and nuanced playwrights has been building up over the year and watching Teach has only confirmed it. The play is a beautiful mix of humour, warmth, understanding, tragedy, triumph, false impressions, false fronts, truths, questions and answers. For that alone, it is well worth the watching.

While the play was a worthy one, what ultimately made it was the quality of the acting. Rodney Oliveiro made for a pompous Mr Zach but really stood out in the role of Keong, the delinquent student who turns good in the end for the sake of unrequited love but who ends up finding his perfect life with a wife and child an empty, meaningless one. Siti Khalijah stood out too - with impeccable comic timing - as the flirtatious teacher and in her alternative student role as Keong's love interest. Kudos must go to them, and to the rest of the cast, for their impeccable switches between their teacher and student roles. But it was Neo Swee Lin as the dedicated English Literature teacher who really touched the hearts of everyone that night, when she and the audience began to realise how much her passion for teaching had caused her to sacrifice her own dedication to her family in favour of dedication to children that were not hers.

I also enjoyed one particular element of the staging, though Caleb disagrees with me fairly strongly on this point. He thought it too blunt, but I enjoyed the way in which the corporate-speak slogans that were initially emblazoned across the stage backdrop ("Creating a compassionate society", "Nurturing young minds", "Empowering students") were slowly replaced by quotes from the play ("Where was my education?", "You can't change the past, but learn from it and change the future"). And at the end of the play, a screen was lowered in front of the stage where we could see that the initial slogans had been actually printed over not only with quotes from the play ("The older you get, the more you remember; the younger you are, the more you forget") but also with quotes from Thomas More, Auden, and Yeats.

It's a bit hard to explain why I liked this element of the staging, despite it being (quite literally) in my face. Yet as the closing music played on to asked the question, "Are we human? Or are we dancers?" and I read Auden's determination to "Let the more loving one be me", I could not help but feel touched. It was not rational; it was engagement on a purely emotional level and based, perhaps, on all my memories of my own teachers and what they have meant to me.

There is no doubt that Teach successfully answers the question it sets out to. It should be staged more often, I suspect, in order to remind us constantly of what we expect of our teachers and to honour and celebrate them instead of condemning them as incompetents.

Of Hangings and Coalitions

2010-05-11T19:07:00.026+01:00

And so it ends. The Conservative Party effectively won Election 2010 but could not muster enough of a swing of the vote to secure an outright majority in the Commons. The Labour Party lost nearly 100 seats, whilst the Liberal Democrats put in a shockingly disappointingly performance. Despite the hype of Cleggmania, they didn't make any gains and in some instances, ended up losing seats to the Tories instead (poor Lembit).

The result? A hung parliament - one that has now produced the strangest political marriage one could possibly imagine. A Con-Lib coalition; the Dave and Nick Show ("Bring Us Sunshine!" ordered the Sun); the potential Osborne and Cable punch-up. Call it what you will - it was an astonishing outcome to one of the most interesting (because no one quite knew what would happen) elections ever.

It was also one of the most interesting elections ever because this was the first election - anywhere - that I took enough of a real interest in. For the first time in my life, I was engaged enough in the political discourse to not only understand the choices on offer, but hold my own views as well. I had enormous fun keeping up with various "live" coverage of the election: from the post-debates media speculation to the results of the election as they came rolling in on the BBC website. My Facebook newsfeed was on fire - I posted up article after article about the election, delighted at the range of journalistic opinions and articles. On the day the election results were due out, I could barely tear my attention away from Dimbleby & Co. long enough to focus at work - so caught up was I in the pleasure of not having to (like any other Brit) stay up "overnight" in order to see the results come in. It was, I think, one of the few times I've appreciated the 8 hour time difference.

One aspect of UK elections that I thoroughly enjoyed was the "alternative" coverage proferred by the satirists. It was comedy gold for a whole month: Have I Got News For You had a fantastic episode recorded the morning after the election (poor, poor Lembit); The News Quiz's coverage was also brilliant; and I derived great pleasure for many weeks from Radio 4's The Vote Now Show. While it was a pity Bremner, Bird and Fortune was not on air, these other satirical avenues more than made up for its absence.

For all the fun of keeping up with events, however, the result was bittersweet. Yes, I had wanted Brown and Labour to go (though I admit, this photograph of Brown taking the "call of death" from Clegg by Martin Argles of the Guardian made me feel terribly sorry for the man - it's not really his fault that his public relations skills leave much to be desired, and the photograph captures the intense loneliness he must feel as a result of being so disliked); but not in this way. Labour had been in power too long; had become blind to anything but the imperatives of power and government.

But I feared a pure Tory government as much as anyone else - the rolling back of state care and welfare, tax cuts for the rich funded by the poor, and more than anything else the soulless, ideal-less PR machine that was David Cameron. I hoped for a strong enough swing to the Lib Dems to bolster their negotiating power as a minority coalition partner. As it was, sadly, the Lib Dems actually lost instead of gained seats - when there had been, for a fleeting moment, the hope of capturing up to 100 seats in parliament. Instead of a strong Lib Dem partnership in coalition with the Tories, therefore, the Lib Dems were weakened and many of their policies ended up being watered down or subordinated to the Tories' own.

It was a great pity. I do find myself subscribing to about 70% of the Lib Dem's policies and about 30% of the Tories' - the maths of this coalition, however, mean that the actual deal struck between the two reflected the percentages the other way around.

Will this coalition survive? I don't know. Perhaps it will last only 2 years; perhaps the whole 5. I've always thought of Cameron and Clegg as remarkably similar (indeed I can barely tell their accents apart). They could be cut from exact same cloth and both are clearly "heirs to Blair." Given that, I don't doubt their ability to work together. But their parties are a completely different matter. The two are completely opposed ideologically. How, one might ask, can this kind of coalition politics ever work? The best answer, I suspect, is only that time will tell.

Good luck to them both, and to the UK at large. The country, unfortunately, needs it.

Andrea Bocelli in Singapore

2010-05-08T22:34:00.019+01:00

It was sheer dumb luck (and the generosity of a good friend) that saw me scrambling today to get my stuff (picnic mat - always remember the picnic mat) together and rush out of the house to the Botanic Gardens to see Andrea Bocelli's performing live in Singapore. Originally I hadn't known about the availability of (free) tickets for this event and by the time I did, balloting for the event had already closed. I had therefore resigned myself to the fact that this was one event I would be missing out on.

There was never much hope of getting a ticket to the coveted "live" and seated performance at the Swan Lake stage, so Vivienne and I had to make do with the grassy slopes of Palm Valley facing the Symphony Stage instead - where a large screen had been set up with a live feed through from the Swan Lake. The sound got cut sometimes and the screen even blip-ed out once or twice, but it was as close as we were getting to the live event. One can hardly complain when, in addition to a free show, we received a goody bag full of water, biscuits, light stick (light stick!) , wet wipes and a free KFC meal with Cornetto ice cream to boot.

However, we were there for the music and not the food (as much as we appreciated it). And what an enjoyable set it was as well. The first half of the concert covered a range of light opera, with famous arias ranging from favourites La Donna e Mobile (Verdi's Rigoletto)and Brindisi (Verdi's La Traviata) to duets such as O soave fanciulla (Puccini's La Boheme). The second half was dedicated to Italian semi-classical folk music - ranging from Granada to the famous Funiculi, Funicula. I admit, I was thrown listening to the latter - despite my familiarity with the song, Bocelli appeared to be performing a version of the lyrics that I did not know and I was mightily confused for a while.

Truth is, however, that the concert only really took off after the official program ended and the encores began. There were five encore songs in total - an astounding number, when you think about it. But they were the songs that Bocelli was most famous for and what the audience appeared to have been there to see to begin with. I admit: I didn't recognize the first song. But when Bocelli came out to sing The Prayer with special guest Delta Goodrem (my word, that girl can sing to put Celine Dion to shame) it brought a lump to my throat and my heart soared to the rise and fall of the chorus. I much prefer The Prayer to Time to Say Goodbye, which followed it. Also in the encore set was Elvis Presley favourite I Can't Help (Falling in Love with you) - the only song in English that evening and which got a huge reaction from the listening crowd at Palm Valley. The evening was finally - and naturally - topped off with Nessun Dorma.

"Nessun Dorma" - none shall sleep.

None shall sleep indeed, without continuing to hear the songs and sounds of this concert in their ears for the rest of their lives. Many, many thanks to Vivienne for the tickets. It was an excellent night out, and one that I was grateful to have caught.

Rafta, Rafta (All In Good Time)

2010-04-30T23:53:00.042+01:00

One of the first English comedy sketches I remember watching as a child (even before, I think, my teenage staple of Mind Your Language and Monty Python) was the famous "Going for an English" sketch off Goodness Gracious Me. Naturally, in those days, I couldn't completely understand why I found the sketch hilarious; but I did. And nothing since has marred that early memory of how excellently funny British-Indian comedy can be. When I realized, therefore, that newcomers HuM Theatre would be putting on an Olivier award-winning comedy by a British-Indian playwright, I scrambled for my reviewer's ticket.

This was the first time I was attending the opening night of any play and I found the experience slightly bewildering, to say the least. It was disconcerting being a small unknown amidst a crowd of theatre types who all already knew and greeted each other with recognition.

And there was much about opening nights that I just don't know. For instance, even before show began, the cast is out at the front-of-house in full force, welcoming audience members as guests to the wedding and distributing samosas and other delicious-looking nibbles. Was this Ringside-like pre-show offering an opening night-only feature? I never quite found out the answer to that question.

The set-up of Rafta, Rafta mines one of the richest possible wells of comedy black gold. Short on cash, Atul Dutt (Shabir) and his new bride, Lisa Lim (Glory Ngim) have decided to live with Atul's family while they try to save up enough to find a home for themselves. But it is a universally acknowledged truth that living with the parents or in-laws is a recipe for mortifying embarrassment (if not disaster), and Ayub Khan-Din's script gleefully drives this point home. From having flushing toilets scuppering the couple's first moment of passion to having the couple deal with a sabotaged bed on their wedding night, the play subjects its newlyweds to every conceivable hazard of living with one's parents possible; and it did not stop there.

Meet the in-laws: Atul's boisterous, loud, unintentionally insensitive, pompous and fiercely competitive father Eeshwar Dutt (Subin Subaiah) and his well-meaning but interfering mother Lopa Dutt (Daisy Irani). Combine the antics of those two with the incessant intrusions of Lisa's overprotective father (Gerald Chew) and shrilly, nosy mother (Debra Teng), and the result is a rojak of dysfunctionality and recipe for post-nuptial hilarity.

The play opens with the Dutt and Lim families and their friends coming together for some post-wedding celebrations marked by the downing of whiskey, bhangra-dancing, and arm-wrestling – the latter complete with "special" moves named after Cobras, Pythons, and the gods only know what other snakes. The laughs come fast and furious after that - at the asides implying that Chinese people don't "get it on" as loudly as Indians do, at Eeshwar's ever more ridiculous pronouncements, his fumbling attempts to set up a good excuse to "talk" to Atul, the fantastic comedic chemistry between Subaiah's Eeshwar and Irani's Lopa ("Lopa - door!"), and at the various euphemisms deployed to stand in for talk of Lisa's continuing virginity ("She is not yet a woman") and for the couple's ultimate success consummating their marriage ("The rain has come" - "You mean, the drought has passed?").

At one point, I actually ran the risk of suffering a stitch in my side from chortling at Eeshwar's characterization of Atul's bad mood: "He stomped through the house like he was going to make tati in the field!" I suspect a good half of the audience tonight had, like myself, no idea what making tati in the field was - but the tone, delivery, timing and the sheer number of times Eeshwar repeated the phrase was enough to send the audience into fits of hysterics even before he had completed the sentence on the sixth or seventh time.

For all the laughs, however, the play does delve into and develop more serious ideas. As the audience watches on, it becomes apparent that the young couple’s lack of success in consummating their marriage is beginning to take its toll on Atul's pre-existing insecurities and Lisa's good nature. Six weeks later, their marriage is facing real difficulties and Lisa is on the verge of leaving the Dutt family home entirely.

Atul and Lisa's unhappy marriage is not the only one on show. As the play builds to its conclusion, the audience learns about Eeshwar and Lopa's "honeymoon for three" and the Lims' own fractious and unhappy marriage - an unhappiness borne out of a long-standing fight for their daughter's affection. The ending turns out to be a happy one for Atul and Lisa, who, having finally "got it on," leave for their honeymoon in a whirlwind of parental joy and shy smiles. But the play's end is, in fact, bittersweet as Eeshwar suddenly realizes the painful secret that Lopa has been keeping from him for all these years. As he collapses into a chair from shock and sorrow, he leaves the audience with one last observation before the curtain falls: that Life is capable of giving you much cause to laugh and be merry; but it can, at other times, also give you very, very good cause to cry.

Rafta, rafta: all will be resolved, and all will be revealed, but – as the words imply – only slowly and in good time.

Therein lies the true strength of Khan-Din's work. It is a script that is as filled with laughter, bhangra and jokes as it is filled with small moments of bittersweet human tragedy: Eeshwar’s speech about the unthinking cruelty of men who looked through him, a newly arrived immigrant, as if he didn’t exist; Lopa’s account of how she forbade Eeshwar from seeking out his best friend after the latter disappeared; and the apology offered by Lisa’s mother to her father, for having been so spiteful as to hurt them both in the past. It delivers a penetrating and intensely real account of marriage with all its stresses, trials and tribulations. From the lack of privacy accorded by clueless parents or in-laws, to the well-meaning attempts to meddle and "help" - there are probably many young people (and even young couples) in Singapore to whom Atul and Lisa's experience will seem familiar. More so, perhaps, than in the UK, where many young people leave home or are thrown out of the home once they turn 18 years of age.

This, therefore, is where HuM Theatre deserves to be congratulated - for recognizing the potential for localizing an otherwise very British-Indian script and carrying it out in a wonderfully subtle and successful manner. Even the production's double-storey set reflects a light and subtle touch in localization. An Englishman sitting next to me tonight remarked on how similar the set looked to the kind of houses he'd lived in before – and he was right. The set looked not only like the real houses one finds in the UK but the houses and rooms that have inhabited the stages and sets of Alan Ackybourne and Neil Simon plays in the past. But the set was also clearly "local" – adorned as it was with small shophouse-type ventilation windows in the walls and rattan furniture in the living room. There were just enough indicators to flag this house and this play as being set in Singapore as opposed to the UK. And whilst distinctions based on class, wealth and immigrant status might carry particular resonance with the British-Indian community the UK, these were played down for the Singaporean audience. Instead, an interracial element was added; all the better to underscore differences in culture, outlook and increase both dramatic and comedic tension on stage. The bhangra scene would have been far less funny had both the families on stage been Indian. Instead, the sight of a Chinese man attempting to dance to bhangra music sent the audience into fits of laughter at his ineptitude and initial discomfort.

Rafta, Rafta does not offer rose-tinted view of marriage, love or life in general. Nevertheless, it is still a play with a positive message at its heart conveyed through the medium of comedy: that slowly, in time, and with enough love, the differences between a married couple can be successfully ironed out.

Animal Farm

2010-04-24T23:51:00.028+01:00

Everyone (including myself) had heard only good things about the initial run of W!ld Rice's production of Animal Farm in 2002. I was not surprised, therefore, when the company decided to revive the production as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, to find the Drama Centre at the National Library packed to its brim. The crowd was one of the most mixed that I have ever come across here - made up of expatriates, locals, adults, teens, and even young children. Could this production successfully appeal to such a broad swathe of Singaporeans and Singaporean residents alike?

George Orwell's Animal Farm captured the fate of the Bolshevik revolutions and the establishment of the Russian Soviet regime with chilling detail: the grand revolutionary scheme of Old Major (Karl Marx/Lenin) inspired the overthrow of Farmer Jones (the Tsar), the defeat of other farmers who come to his aid (the oft-forgotten western invasions of Russia in 1918–19) and the setting up of a new model state. Yet within a short time, the ruthless and intelligent pigs had the other animals under their dictatorship. The social forces represented by different animals are easily recognized: Boxer, the noble horse, was the embodiment of the working class; Moses the raven, the Russian Orthodox church. Even the rivalry between Stalin (Napolean) and Trotsky (Snowball) was replicated in precise detail - with Snowball's final exile and the subsequent attempt to erase him from the memory of the farm.

Despite having been written to mirror exactly the events of post-1917 Russia, however, Animal Farm has proved itself timeless, transcendental, and eminently transplantable into the context of nearly any society or state. It was not only Ukranian and Polish socialists living in refugee camps in post-war Europe who sympathized with its message of revolution, totalitarianism and betrayal; Zimbabweans living under the rule of Robert Mugabe did so as well. Now, and for a second time following the play's initial run in 2002, Ivan Heng's production brings Orwell's satirical "Fairy Story" of the cycle of tyranny, revolt, freedom, corruption and tyranny home - by situating it squarely within the uniquely Singaporean context.

If there were any doubt about the play’s localization, these were swept away by the opening tableau depicting Singaporeans going about their regimented, daily lives. Businessmen and nurses moved alongside those dressed in the familiar army uniform and blue-coloured schoolgirl pinafore. The clothes were then ripped off to reveal the rags and shreds of clothing that the animals on Animal Farm wore, but the image and its message was simple and effective: underneath, we are all animals; underneath, we Singaporeans were these animals. Other touches as the play went along served to remind the audience of this link drawn at the play’s start: the oppressive Farmer Jones (played by the Caucasian Daniel Jenkins) was, in a clear nod to this country’s colonial past, revealed to have been wearing Union Jack boxers underneath his safari suit; statistics about H1N1 and SARs popped up suddenly at the end of a long list of percentages concerning corn and wheat production; and the “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better” slogan was transformed into a “national campaign” – complete with leaftlets bearing the slogan translated into all four official languages.

The invitation to make comparisons between Animal Farm and Singapore, therefore, was there. But it remained just that - an invitation. One to the audience to make what it would and draw its conclusions from perceived similarities between their own experiences of life in Singapore, and the lives of the animals on stage.

There was the way in which the pigs cow the animals into submitting to their leadership with the spectre of Farmer Jones’ return. How similar is that to the paranoia Singaporeans have been conditioned into feeling about the opposition getting into power or being attacked by Indonesia or Malaysia? Or the way in which the pigs’ justify keeping the milk and apples produced for the farm for themselves, only to ration out a mere slice of apple to the animals as a “reward” when the windmill was completed - how might that resemble technocratic arguments made for minister’s pay or the way in which “bonuses” and rewards are allocated to the people in the national Budget?

Most of all, there was use of statistics – all tailored to give the impression that life for the animals under the pigs was getting better and better year after year until the animals themselves could no longer tell for themselves if their lives were actually better or not. What conclusion, Ivan Heng’s play asked, should a Singaporean audience draw from a comparison between that and the Singapore government’s tendency to justify its arguments and policies with statistic after statistic? The play posed the questions, but it was for the audience to find its own answers – and that is how good satire should work.

Indeed, that would be my reply to those who would say that there was “not enough” satire in this play. A good piece of satire should offer connections and comparisons, but not make them in their entirety. It is for the audience to make and appreciate the final leap of understanding. W!ld Rice’s Animal Farm did not need Napolean to be dressed up recognizably as any particular Singaporean leader; nor did it need to insert a Hokkien song into the play in order to “localize” the story. Subtle cues, such as the setting of the opening lines of Beasts of this Land to Singapura (Sunny Island set in the Sea) or the song written to herald Napolean to Ai Pia, Jia Eh Ia, should have been enough.

Had W!ld Rice needed to show us in visual detail who they were satirizing, they would have been too direct and blunt – the equivalent of treating its audience like the stupid and foolish sheep for whom the Commandments had to be simplified into one infantile and drillable line (“Four Legs Good, Two Legs Baaaaad”). Had they completely changed the story of Animal Farm in order to closely and completely “fit” Singapore’s own history, they would have been paying a disservice to the text itself. The point of Orwell’s story was its universality. To have over-localized the production would have been to undermine that very universality – or to have patronized its audience with the assumption that we would not understand the values and ideas propounded by the play simply because it wasn’t “exactly the same.”

Thus, Ivan Heng’s production found and successfully treaded the fine line between “too much” and “too little” satire. The message of the play was clear, obvious and unmistakable. While Orwell’s Animal Farm might be more closely associated with Baron Acton’s maxim that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," W!ld Rice’s message was just a little different. This might have been due to the compression of time that any theatrical adaptation of a book inevitably brings to the story – we get a very weak sense of the pigs having been gradually corrupted by their position of power. Instead, from the way in which the milk and apples were appropriated from the very start of the revolution, we get a different, but equally simple message instead: that oppression is still oppression, no matter whom under.

If there was any gripe I had about the level of satire in the play, it would have less to do with focus or amount than with their intrinsic quality. Satire is at its best when it has lit upon a connection that no one else has yet seen, but which, with a little thought, you realize is both apt and capable of throwing a new light on the issue under examination. Heng's production, whilst enjoyable, rarely hit upon that combination of random, unexpected connections that would make one feel like laughing, clapping and shouting "Brilliant!" to the actors onstage with the same breath.

There was one moment in which this happened: during the Battle of the Cowshed scene when the attacking Jones fired his gun and shot one of the geese who were defending the farm. The gaggle of geese looked confusedly around, trying to identify which of them had been the one shot, before one of them suddenly burst out into a melodramatic ballet death dance whilst the famous Tchaikovsky overture from Swan Lake blasted at the audience. The sudden introduction of a musical and ballet reference into what was otherwise meant to be a serious death scene sent my companion and I into fits of hysterical laughter that we took ages to recover from - the continuing deliberate silliness of a randomly inserted ballet connection on stage rendering it impossible for us to stop. Of all the hard-hitting political satire that night, it was this utterly random but brilliant poke at the expense of a fellow art form that I enjoyed the most.

The other memorable reference was one that took place (quite literally) outside the theatre. As we were waiting to enter the theatre itself proper, those members of the audience wandering around the exhibition of W!ld Rice's productions over the last 10 years would have come across cardboard animals scattered about the atrium. One particular grouping amused my friends and I no end: a few pigs, chickens, and other animals were gathered in front of a television playing a recording of the National Day Rally. The star? Why, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. As a little pointed reference made to the plays' localization before the play even began, it was effective; as a joke, it was utterly hilarious.

I have never been so heartened upon seeing a play in Singapore before. To see some evidence of hard-hitting satire taking root in this country warmed the cockles of my satire-loving soul. While the element of the unexpected, random and silly was still not entirely there, it was far too minor a point to detract from the fact that W!ld Rice's Animal Farm is an excellent production and one that any Singaporean (or Singaporean resident) should catch - whether they have yet read the book or not. The staging was excellent and the acting of the highest possible quality. Pam Oei's Squealer was a joy to watch, whilst Gene Sha Rudyn made for a wonderfully funny Benjamin. Denise Tan shone particularly as the air-headed and vain pony, Mollie (more concerned about her ribbons than revolution). But it was Yeo Yann Yann's turn as Clover that gave the play its heart and soul. It was gut-wrenching to see the horror and confusion in her eyes when, at the play's end, she saw that the pigs had become no different from the human beings they had once fought against. And when Daniel Jenkins as Pilkington casually offered her a cube of sugar (sugar having been the one treat that the horses on Animal Farm had under Farmer Jones but lost following the revolution), the sight of her - broken, disillusioned and hungry for any sort of luxury or treat after so many years of deprivation and starvation - taking the sugar from his hand and allowing him to stroke her hair broke my heart.

Judging from the quality of this production, W!ld Rice has done well for itself in its 10 years of existence and it will have many more fantastic years ahead. Here's wishing it all the best for the rest of its productions planned for this 10th anniversary celebration. I look forward, in particular, to Ivan Heng's turn as Emily of Emerald Hill next year.

Bebel Gilberto

2010-04-19T22:53:00.014+01:00

It was purely on the spur of the moment and a whim that I bought tickets to watch Bebel Gilberto. Perhaps I was compensating for my decision not to get tickets to watch Tom Jones, but truth be told, Bebel Gilberto is a good artiste and merited my patronage anyway.

The concert, while enjoyable enough, was unusual in a few ways. The set list consisted of songs that appeared to come almost exclusively from her latest album - an album which, from what I could hear, had almost completely moved away from bossa nova she (and her family) was most famous for. The songs retained elements of the South American beat, but if I was asked to classify them I would put them under the label of lounge music instead. In addition to the shift in her musical style, however, was the fact that the concert didn't see the usual mix of old favourites and new songs that most artistes would offer their audiences. Everyone was waiting for a rendition of "So Nice" at the end - but it never came. This, despite two encores (one of which was nearly scuppered by the fact that the house lights went up early by accident).

It was also interesting to find out that Gilberto was in possession of a very quirky sense of humour. From running across the stage (think very high heels) to pick up a rattling instrument she had, after a song, just thrown over her shoulder, to making a joke (unfortunately, in Portugese) about doing up her hair - she was quite clearly somewhat eccentric and just... quirky. In an attempt at being spontaneous, she also tried to sing a song that hadn't been specifically rehearsed for the show. It led to an amusing situation where the Japanese guitarist had simply no idea what song she was trying to sing, and after a while he just couldn't continue playing because he just couldn't remember what came next. It was, as Crystal and I dubbed it, the best example of "Guitarist Fail" we had ever seen - and it was hugely hilarious.

All in all, a nice enough evening out; I was not, however, sold enough on the music to purchase the CD and have it signed by Gilberto after the concert. Quite a few others were, though - and more power to them.

The Tempest

2010-04-08T23:24:00.042+01:00

In the wake of two excellent productions from the Bridge Project last year, there was no way in Dante's Hell that I would allow myself to miss the company's showing of Shakespeare's The Tempest. As the early reviews came trickling out of New York, though, I started to worry a little - the production seemed more problematic and less generally pleasing than its predecessors (or even its co-production As You Like It). Without being in London anymore, the Bridge Project was my best chance of catching a well-staged and properly traditional Shakespearean production in Singapore. I desperately wanted - needed - it to be good.

Critics in New York were agreed on one thing about Sam Mendes's Tempest - the set was simply gorgeous. Tom Piper's design was stark, yet rich with meaning and symbolism. The most notable feature front of stage was a circle of sand, in which nearly all the play's action took place. Flanking the circle, at the rear of the stage, was a shallow pool of water - rarely illuminated, always shimmering darkly as the actors stepped into it to sit upon the chairs scattered across its surface when they were not actively needed on stage. To the right and left of the circle sat the musicians, who provided live sound effects and music throughout the production; and to the extreme right and left of the stage we had Caliban's den (represented by a stack of firewood) and (more unusually, since this is almost never a feature) an entire shelf of books representing Prospero's library.

There is much that could be said about the set and how it tied in cleverly with the chosen interpretation of the play: how the darkly reflecting water mirrored the reflective and quiet tone of the play; how the ever-present library served to remind the audience of this particular interpretation of Prospero as the scholar and academic. But it was, above all, the circle that represented the most important aspects of the play - the circle being, after all, the age-old representation of magic, enchantment and entrapment. The image was apt and befitted this tale of a magician and his woven spells, plots, traps and snares.

While the circle of sand represented one ring of enchantment, however, a second, more metaphorical ring was also created by Mendes with his choice to run the entire of Shakespeare's play without an intermission. The play began with the house lights still up and only the on-stage presence of Prospero (Stephen Dillane) circling around the ring of sand, sprinkling water as he went, casting the beginnings of his spell. With his spell complete, it was not only the King's men who were suddenly caught up in Prospero's summoned storm, but the audience who was dropped straight into the action of Shakespeare's Tempest - the house lights went out, the stage lights up, three doors opened in the backdrop and the stage suddenly populated with actors who then never left it but stayed onstage for its entire duration.

Deprived of the intermission, the audience had no escape. The circle - the spell woven by the theatrical production itself - was never broken. Only when Prospero threw down his staff and threw away his books did the lights come up to illuminate, in all starkness, the bare wooden boards of the stage. It was a sharp, almost jarring visual reminder to the audience that this was merely a play, the island a stage, and that there was a world outside to return to.

Strong visual tableaus, set design and production values were things I expected of Mendes after having seen both of the previous Bridge Project productions. The above, therefore, came as no surprise to me. What was unusual about this production, however, was its tone: as deeply reflective, deliberative and still as the pool of water at the back of the stage. All the action and energy appeared to be concentrated in the opening storm scene where Ariel (Christian Camargo) - wielding Prospero's staff - dragged the various members of the King's men out into the circle of sand and flung them around to the sound of beating drums.

Following that, however, the production's energy slowed to the point where it might have been considered nearly static. The play was marked by a startling stillness - even the actors hardly moved to gesture with their arms. Never have I seen a production of The Tempest play up the theme of language and words at the expense of action so much: the production seemed, to me, marked by awkwardness and reluctance. It simply lacked the driving energy or force to propel it forward.

Yet, that awkwardness and lack of driving force appeared to fit with Mendes' and Dillane's interpretation of the character of Prospero. Dillane's Prospero was unusual - a radical departure from the kind of Prospero I last saw in Rupert Goold's RSC Tempest, starring Patrick Stewart. Stewart's Prospero was master and king of his small world - commanding, imperious and a man you could easily visualize as a former Duke. In contrast, Dillane's Prospero was the complete opposite - a reluctant master and an outsider and watcher, distant and caught up in his even smaller world framed by his walls and stacks of books and "secret Studies." As the events of the play unfolded, Dillane's Prospero was ever-present on stage - he never once left it. Yet, he was ever absent as well - spending the time reading by the light of a small study lamp to one side whilst in actual fact it was Ariel who actively supervised the unfolding events.

This was, then, a different Prospero: scholastic; academic; and not a man one would expect to sustain a grudge long and hard enough to plot revenge on those who had wronged him. Indeed, with Dillane's Prospero the move that was most out of character for him was not his sudden resolve to release his charms over the King and his men and restore them to their senses, but the very raising of the storm to begin with.

Though with their high Wrongs I am strook to
th' Quick,
Yet with my nobler Reason, 'gainst my Fury
Do I take part.

With those few words, Dillane's Prospero revealed at once his internal struggle and increasing reluctance to follow through with the plans he had started with the stirring up of the tempest. It explained his detachment from the events he had so deliberately started - the hand-wringing and head-holding that marked his behaviour as the play progressed on.

But it was not merely his reason that explained his increasing detachment from events and reluctance to follow through with his own plans; Dillane's Prospero was also clearly being haunted by the feeling of being excluded from a world that he had built and loved. That he loved his island and his magic was evident as he caressed its sandy soil - even whilst abjuring his "rough Magic" and resigning to break his staff. The feeling of exclusion had been seen earlier (in miniature) when Prospero called upon Juno and her nymphs to bless the union of Ferdinand (Edward Bennett) and Miranda (Juliet Rylance) and play out a fantasy - perhaps a dream of his - of dance and song to celebrate their "Contract of true Love." As the players in this pastoral jubilation danced round and round in a circle, however, Prospero suddenly found himself on the outside. He was - suddenly - excluded from the very dream, the very world, the very spell that he conjured. His anguish, frustration and rage at this was plain to see when with a "strange, hollow and confused" inarticulate cry, he banished the nymphs and goddess he had summoned and brought to an end the dream-world he had built.

It was this increasing reluctance to go through with his plan and the feeling of being excluded from a world that he loved that generated feelings of increasing discomfort, reluctance and awkwardness on the part of Dillane's Prospero. Mendes's Tempest was clearly not intended to be a tale of a king who willingly broke his staff and gave up his kingdom; it was, instead a tale of a man who, over the course of the play, came to regret his initial actions in seeking revenge. As he gradually realized, it was he who had set into motion the very events that would banish him from the world he had built and come to love: his books, his art, his Ariel and his solitude that allowed him the freedom to indulge in his studies and the life of the mind. As events unfold in ways in which he could not have predicted (with Ferdinand and Miranda falling in love, for example - or Caliban's betrayal), he began to realize that he was about to lose it all: daughter, sprite, magic and the island. It was this realization that explained his resignation and the utter feeling of surrender conveyed by his declaration that, with his return to Milan,

Every Third Thought shall be my Grave.

It was Mendes' purport to explore outcasts, power and magical lands through this play. But the production's interpretation of Prospero's outcast status was hardly traditional - Dillane's Prospero is not an outcast returning to his former life in triumph. Instead, his outcast status was inflicted on him by his own machinations. It was his actions that culminated in self-exile from his world - a world he would rather remain in. Thus, at the end of the play, when Dillane's Prospero exhorted the audience to send him on his way, his speech was not to be seen as an invitation spoken in triumph. It was a plea for help as he truly could not bring himself to leave of his own accord.

Yet for all its cleverness in re-imagining the character of Prospero, Mendes' Tempest never quite took off the ground. For in the end, it is Prospero who forms the heart of Shakespeare's play. It is his tempest that sets in motion the events that unfold; it is his story and his revenge that provide it with the driving force it needs. Yet with Dillane's Prospero channelling increasing displeasure with what he had done and growing alienation from his own story, the play lost its force and its face. Prospero's absence and distance fed subconsciously into the minds of the audience - they could not be drawn into its action, but remained (like its protagonist and architect) outside and on its fringes.

It was a great pity. Normally, I'm be all for interesting and unusual interpretations that highlight different and below-the-radar themes raised by Shakespeare's plays. And this production did raise several: the relationship between Ariel and Prospero, for instance, that rather reminded me of the Wilde-Bosie "Love that dare not speak its name" dynamic; the same relationship was then mirrored darkly by the master-to-slave relationships seen between Prospero and Caliban and then Caliban and Stephano. Whenever Ariel gestured or moved, Prospero would mirror him exactly, almost dreamily - the same mirroring of actions was evidenced between Prospero and Caliban, though in a more base and energetic form. The tenderness demonstrated by Prospero to his almost-son Ariel was also mirrored by Stephano to Caliban, when the latter swore allegiance to him. The latter was also one of the most colonial depictions of the Caliban/Stephano dynamic I have ever seen. Using drink to secure the allegiance of the "natives" of a country and plotting to supplant the existing ruler was, after all, one of the oldest tricks in the book employed by the Great Powers during the height of colonial expansion.

Unfortunately, some interpretations make for better stagings than others. This reading of Prospero was not one of them. There was nothing wrong with Dillane's acting - indeed, he did a fine job with the role. His Prospero was gentle, feeling, tender and bookish. His delivery of the final epilogue, too, was incredibly touching and emotional. As a friend of mine said after, she'd never sensed so strongly before the voice of Shakespeare himself bidding his audience farewell as she did with Dillane's final speech. Yet for all the validity of Mendes' interpretation and the skill of Dillane's portrayal: this did not a good Tempest make.

I described The Winter's Tale last year as "sublime." It was to my greatest regret that I could not apply the same label to The Tempest this year. Despite the undoubted vision behind the latter, it simply did not convey the same power or "wow" factor as the former.

I also doubt much could be done during the production's tour to improve things before it hits London this summer - the problems are just too inherent in Mendes' chosen interpretation of the play to be addressed by then. There is nothing left to be said, therefore; I can only hope that the Project returns to Singapore again (despite the empty seats I saw around me this year) with an even stronger offering next year. That, and the hope of seeing Kevin Spacey with the group, will have to sustain me through another year in this Shakespeare-barren landscape.

Quarter-Life

2010-04-06T23:28:00.013+01:00

One was never really going to look forward to turning a quarter of a century years old; yet I think this year has been the most drawn-out set of celebrations I've ever had: from having been thrown a surprise dinner (well, attempted surprise - it got accidentally blown thanks to me) a whole week before my actual birthday by my close colleagues and ex-boss, to brunch with good Oxford friends and dinner with the family the Saturday before, to lunch, myriad gifts and the now-traditional office birthday cake on the day itself, and finally a combined April babies' karaoke celebration with the rest of the JLCs.

It's been, quite simply, amazing and I so very touched and grateful to have so many friends who wish to celebrate my birthday with me. Yes, even though they did their best to embarrass me by setting me up to have to collect a huge bouquet of flowers from the reception desk during the peak hour rush out of the courts for lunch :) Nice try, guys...

But thank you all, for it all - you guys are the best and I love you all for it. Despite the work (god, the work) and long hours that overshadowed the entire period, this was probably one of the best birthdays I ever had. Domou Arigatou.

P.S. (20/04/10) My god, it really hasn't ended yet! Cake in Malaysia more than a week after and - the bestest present yet - long riding boots that fit me from the riding gang! I'm over the moon! And promise of belated birthday drinks this Friday - it's truly a whole month of birthday celebrations! I think I really must slap myself soon, in case I'm dreaming. Either that or time's finally looped in on itself and gone all wibbly wobbly and timey wimey - Doctor Who style...