The Substation
ran a series of intimate performances at the Substation Dance Studio
over a week in June. These were low-key affairs with admission by donation
and, as the programme says, were "simple, spare, physically based
productions". Both Still Flight and 3 Women were
restagings of monologues that are headed in August for the International
Festival of Women in Contemporary Theatre in Rhode Island, USA.
This context is important in assessing the productions. If I was asked
whether these productions were the height of theatre, the best that
I had ever seen, the answer would most definitely be "No".
Neither was wholly satisfying, offering only glimpses into characters
and situations rather than fully formed stories. They were certainly
not the most professional or complete works I have seen. However, ask
me if I was glad to have watched them and proud for them to be representing
Singapore in this international festival, and my answer would most definitely
be "Yes".
For me, what both pieces lacked was more than made up for by the palpable
passion that went into the writing and performance. I believe the importance
of the pieces lay in the fact that these quiet stories about the lives
of ordinary women were being told at all rather than how they were told
("without fuss", says actor/writer Verena Tay). This is not
to say that there was no merit in the theatricality and craft of the
pieces but it cannot be denied either that the International Festival
of Women in Contemporary Theatre is as much about politics as it is
about theatre. The festival is not simply looking for the best theatre
the world has to offer - its name makes that very clear. It is looking
for a particular type of theatre that tells a particular story for a
particular audience. And so while I feel that both plays, and Still
Flight in particular, may not be everyone's cup of tea, there are
definitely those who will draw purpose and pleasure from them and these
will include the audience at the festival.
I also include myself in that number. Still Flight (23/06/2005)
is a monologue about a mentally unstable woman working through her issues
of memory, mothering and madness as written by poet Cyril Wong and performed
by Elizabeth De Roza. Although I found it meandering in places, I could
still appreciate it as an example of its genre, a modern fairytale of
sorts, with its repetition of key lines and mythic symbols - the jar
of pills that De Roza held so reverently reminded me of Jack's magic
beans, for some reason. And there were undeniable truths, poetry and
even laughs to be derived ("I've not lost my mind, it's just gone
shopping"). While the piece had little that was truly original
or fresh to say, what it did say was often phrased into well-crafted
meditations ("It is easier to forgive when you cannot remember,
because when you forget, it is a kind of forgiving") and carefully
constructed staging (De Roza's complex love-hate relationship with her
mother was beautifully represented by an over-watered plant which she
pulled painfully slowly across the stage towards her with a piece of
cloth). The play also opened with a powerful metaphor for the journey
towards greater awareness that the character would undertake: De Roza
was wrapped in, and emerged from, a cocoon of silk. These were enough
to sustain the piece over its 60-minute length but, admittedly, no more.
In terms of performance, De Roza's clearly took a lot out of her. I've
seen De Roza in a few productions now, and in every one, there is no
doubting how much she invests in her character. There is no laziness
in the way she digs so deep into herself and brings everything out onstage
for the audience. It is exhausting just looking at her as she contorts
her body and face, flails, jumps and even twirls chairs around to give
her emotions a physical vocabulary. However, I felt that she needed
to hold back more. Everything could be seen in her performance; the
anger, the frustration, the confusion were playing across the very surface
of her skin for all to see but a little more subtlety and softness would
have given her character more light and shade and therefore have made
her less one-dimensional.
The three monologues that made up 3 Women (30/06/2005) were
rather pedestrian stories about Singaporean women experiencing the trials
of everyday life and, as with Still Flight, there was nothing
particularly revelatory about what they had to say. Having said that,
both Jiving on Java and The Perfect Shoe were easy
to identify with and fitfully funny, although actor Verena Tay (who
also wrote all three pieces) did not quite have the theatrical flair
and charisma to give the comedy the extra lift it needed; especially
in Java, as the text meandered around the drudgeries of working
life, unreasonable bosses and the horrors of public transport in busy
Singapore, so too did her performance flop around without much conviction.
Shoe, about a woman with big feet looking for her perfect pair
of shoes, had a stronger narrative and Tay was able to handle this better
but she shone most brightly in Good Girls Don't Wait, in which
she played a simple-minded, insecure girl who is waiting (and waiting)
for her ah beng boyfriend who never shows up - except he finally does,
but in a way that is a bittersweet surprise for the character and the
audience. When I first saw Good Girls Don't Wait in an an
earlier staging it lacked the tautness of structure and focus on
character that Tay gave it in this version. In writing and performance,
Wait was well-handled and came alive with an honesty that gave
this simple story the x-factor it needed.
So while neither production is likely to make my top ten list, there
is a lot of potential in both that could well be fully realised after
a few more stagings or even an approach that takes them out of their
"experimental theatre" roots. Both certainly deserve to be further explored
and developed, and, admittedly, stronger actors would help. But even
as they are now, there is much to appreciate. These are stories that
are worth telling and are being told reasonably well, but more importantly
they are being told with a lot of heart and sensitivity, which is what
matters most in intimate productions of this nature.
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"These are stories that are worth telling and are being told reasonably
well, but more importantly they are being told with a lot of heart and
sensitivity, which is what matters most in intimate productions of this
nature"
Credits
Still Flight
Playwright: Cyril Wong
Director & Performer: Elizabeth De Roza
Costume Designer: Radhiya Aljunied
3 Women
Playwright, Director &
Performer: Verena Tay
Stage Manager: Foo Kok Lim
Sound Designer: Stephanie Kwok
Sound Operator: Audrey Wong
Technical Coordinator: Anand V. Pillai
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