So you see
what happened was Baba Lim Chin Boon's daughter, Rosalind, had a baby
with her angmoh husband, Michael, and this old-fashioned man didn't
approve (you know how it was in those days) and there was a heated family
squabble, and the couple actually died. Now around the same time a baby
girl called Emma was found at the foot of the Raffles Hotel by an English
couple, and they brought her back to England and raised her. Well, twenty
years have passed, Baba Lim is dying, and Emma has returned, and Baba
Lim's second wife, Ming, and daughter, Alice, are nervous this might
be Rosalind's child come home to claim her inheritance after all these
years.
The only thing is Rosalind had a baby boy, not a baby girl. And the
only one who knows the truth is their maid, Swee Neo...
First produced in 1997 as an intimate, evening entertainment to mark
the 100-year celebrations of Raffles Hotel, A Twist of Fate has
grown into something much bigger, with new songs, a new cast featuring
West End and Broadway talent, and a majestic set weighing three tonnes
and soaring ten metres high.
In spite of this, the play has retained its intimacy, perhaps because
at its core, it is a story about familiar domestic squabbles, spiced
up with plenty of humour and intrigue, like a Cluedo game -
Singaporean edition.
The entire cast was very good. Sheila Francisco as Ming was particularly
endearing in the role of the Peranakan matriarch - a self-professed
victim with a dying husband and a daughter lacking the common sense
to stay away from the kitchen boy. I've heard it said that it's
a bit disconcerting the SRT could not find a true-blue Peranakan woman
to play the role, but to be fair, this is explained away in the script
(she was a gift from the Filipino Business Association).
Others too deserve special mention. Emma Yong played Alice, daughter
of Lim Chin Boon, with characteristic girl-next-door charm. Michael
K. Lee as the trusted lawyer Richard had a powerful voice but a somewhat
diminutive presence onstage. As Uncle Albert, Adrian Pang's comic genius
was evident throughout. And Laura Michelle Kelly in the lead lit up
the stage like a brilliantly plumed songbird that would make any man's
heart flutter.
The weakest in the ensemble was Eleanor Tan, who seemed so pre-occupied
at times with trying to play an older character that she left the role
somewhat bland. It is a shame for Swee Neo to be played this way. As
the keeper of many of the plot's secrets, there is surely great
potential to colour up the role.
The music was good, if not exceptional. The musical style made some
sense. The bulk of the action in the play was set in the 1930s and the
Shanghai cabaret-type melodies fit the mood of the period quite well.
There was also a nice mix of serious and lighter songs. The song Killing
Chickens was a riot of laughs, though sung slightly out of tune.
The ensemble song At Midnight had a lovely Pink-Panther-ish
feel. And Kelly's song Who Am I was simple but haunting, with
a poignant refrain that fit the context of the story very well.
The book by Steven Dexter and Tony Petito was rock solid. Not only
did the plot have enough twists to impress even an Agatha Christie connoisseur,
but the characters were nicely fleshed out, and the writing was sharp.
The final twist, with the heir to the Lim Chin Boon fortune turning
out to be the most unlikely character, caught me pleasantly by surprise.
I especially enjoyed the healthy shots of humour that pervaded the
entire play. Like the feathers and sound effects as Ah See went about
his chores killing chickens off-stage. Or Alice's declaration of undying
love for Ah See that spilled out as the hilarious line "I don't want
pigs, I want chickens." In one particularly amusing scene, various characters
plot mysterious meetings at the witching hour of midnight. Uncle Albert
bucks the trend by suggesting a meeting at 11pm, only to re-schedule
because the timing lacks oomph.
I think what impressed me most about this musical was the relative
simplicity of the entire piece. No forbidding Chinese Empresses or haughty
Admirals. No cast of thousands. A spectacular double storey colonial
bungalow on a revolving stage for a set, but even then, more functional
than lavish. In essence, just eight people and a cleverly thought-out
web of secrets.
It's not often all the elements of good theatre blend together so well
in a Singaporean musical. And I don't know if it's the allusion to Raffles
Hotel, or the Peranakan furniture, or the way the Beng kitchen boy makes
it good in the end, but there's something very authentic about the whole
story. A Twist of Fate is about as close as you can get to
the theatre version of a smooth Katong laksa. This one, I think, can
travel. |
"The book by Steven Dexter and Tony Petito was rock solid. Not
only did the plot have enough twists to impress even an Agatha Christie
connoisseur, but the characters were nicely fleshed out, and the writing
was sharp"
Credits
Music: Dick Lee
Lyrics: Anthony Drewe
Book: Steven Dexter & Tony Petito
Director Steven Dexter
Musical Director, Arranger and Orchestrator: David
Shrubsole
Choreographer: Nick Winston
Set Designer: Francis O' Connor
Lighting Designer: Yo Shao Ann
Sound Designer: Mike Walker
Costume Designer: Hayden Ng
Stage Manager: Grace Low
Cast: Sheila Francisco, Sebastian Tan, Michael K Lee,
Eleanor Tan, Emma Yong, Adrian Pang, Laura Michelle Kelly, Anthony Drewe,
Craig Nagao, Melissa Chiew, Bernd Wing Hofer, Josephine Tan and Greg
Swyny
Musicians: Jenny Chang, Dong Dong, Damien Lim, Colin
Ng, Ng Kim Peng, Julia Toh, Budi Winarto and Brandon Wong
|
