Theatrex Asia

Velocity, where narratives are non-existent, leaving a concept of speed in movement in the dance space. In Taiwanese dance writer Zhou Zhi-Mu’s ( 鄒之牧) words in her nomination statement for the group in the 2008 Taishin Arts Award (as translated): the work has departed from the traditional narrative structure of dance, boldly using a concept as a hinge to creation, through the use of theatre design, fusing with concept and body, formulating a feast of abstract and realistic images.

There is no fair review in this world, for it is written by a biased individual, with his/her own aesthetic taste. To review Singapore theatre company Theatreworks Artistic Director Ong Keng Sen’s newest work-in-progress Red Ballerina as a non-event is in itself an uneventful endeavour. For I would be totally missing the point by going on to talk about the execution of the work by actors Karen Tan and Lim Kay Tong. How could I review a work-in-progress? It is not even completed yet. But the performance was presented to an audience, quite many of us actually, not to mention a performance run over the next one or two days. The work spoke to us. To respond to it seems fair.

The closeted intellectual bigot in me told me that it would be meaningless to write a review for Chestnuts (a mainstream play, for it would have nothing for me to write about, except for frivolous acts STAGES made at the expense of others. It is with this hypocrisy I held to my heart, I was finding ways of justifying my paid trip to STAGES’ Chestnuts 2009 on 29 November: from the inane reason I wanted to know what STAGES had up in their sleeves, needing a good night’s out like the middle-class, to supporting my friends Jonathan, Terence and Keng Kiat. But I never wanted to admit that I loved the production. The truth is I am secretly in love with STAGES’ Chestnut series. I have watched many of them in the past, but never wrote down my reflections on them.

A Singapore writer travelling up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to catch a theatre production that dealt with Delusion harbouring the idea that theatre in Malaysia was more real than the ones in Singapore was in itself a deluded affair. As if there was a difference between delusion and reality on both ends of the causeway. After watching the production, what the writer said of Malaysia theatre collective, managed by Loh Kok Man, Pentas Project’s The Year In A Word: DELUSIONS was that when artists got all involved in making theatre, the world seemed to stop revolving around them. On the face of it, the writer seems to have given a bad comment, but on closer look, it might prove otherwise, especially through the eyes of a deluded theatre writer.

Action Theatre’s latest theatrical offering Streetwalkers made me realised that no matter how important dramatic structure is in a play, it is still after all just the building block of an art-work.

Late Singapore theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun’s famous line, “better a worthy failure, than a mediocre success.” could be aptly applied to The Theatre Practice actor Kuo Jing Hong’s attempt to present late British playwright Sarah Kane’s infamous play 4.48 Psychosis.

The title Bumiputra Cina is highly political; first, “Bumiputra” in Malay means The Prince (Son) of the Soil, while “Cina” : The Chinese. From the outset the title suggests that Verena Tay’s play – directed by Singaporean cross-disciplinary theatre artist Noor Effendy Ibrahim – might be a highly charged political play about Chinese being the child of the soil in Malaysia (Bumiputra is widely known as a politically charged term used by then Prime Minister of Malaysia Tenku Abdul Rahman in the fifties.) If it were a play about Chinese being the son of Singapore soil, it would be of a different ball game altogether; the national language and culture of Singapore has always been a source of confusion for many, both locals and foreigners, for the Chinese-majority has hegemony over Singapore language culture for a long time, burying Singapore’s Malay roots. These two premises both give rise to interesting cultural and history theatre.

Image: World-In-Theatre

Date: 6 May 2009
Time: 8pm
Venue: Play Den, The Arts House at Old Parliament

by Terence Tan
16 May 2009
It’s not easy to stage a Samuel Beckett play in Singapore. Not unless you’ve got a household name or a company with a large enough reputation to pique an interest. World-In-Theatre had neither, and coupled with possible swine [...]