Pulau
could well have been another self-absorbed postmodernist project, like
those plays whose main concern is to make a statement using methods
so clever that the message itself becomes secondary. The warning signs
were there: minimalist staging, witty social commentary, and mystifying
references which seemed vaguely symbolic - such as cannibalistic cows
who feed on human and animal corpses. The plot was spare: two characters,
who are described as "lost souls", are trapped on a tiny island
only big enough for two people. The female character (Judy Ngo) seems
destined never to find the "lost scent" (or "wei dao")
that she is feverishly searching for, while the male character (Peter
Sau) claims he is a creation of her imagination even as he tries to
wheedle sexual favours from her. Nothing happens other than the characters
talking. In the end, the female character condemns the island for being
a place devoid of any scent, and the male character decides that they
must leave the island at once. However, since they are trapped on the
island, the entire endeavour becomes an exercise in futility. Reinforcing
this, the play begins and ends with the same scene: the male character
dozes while the female character stares blankly into the open sea.
With its nihilistic bent and stark structure, Pulau could
have easily been indulgent and ponderous. But Pulau was above
that. Nor did it simply hold up a mirror to society or make sharp critiques
with easy detachment. Instead, Ng How Wee's script opened the seams
of our society to explore its hidden depths with the empathy of an engaged
member of the community, producing a commentary that was as relevant
as it was sincere. The core of the play lay in the two characters talking,
sharing memories, quarrelling and playing. In the process, they relived
emotional experiences that seem to have been distilled from the collective
consciousness of a society. They conjured up personas ranging from the
comic to the ironic to the tragic, the hateful, the small and the embittered.
And the vignettes these myriad voices recounted ranged from throwaway
jokes about the Merlion's contradictory biological make-up to quiet
laments about the demolition of the kampungs to make way for HDB flats.
That the production skipped nimbly from one mood to another without
appearing choppy was testament to strong acting and careful direction.
Any statements about society were woven with pitch-perfect realism into
the voices and experiences of the characters, revealing an emotional
understanding that was grounded in a genuinely interested exploration
of human experience. Aided by unobtrusive lighting and sound, Ngo and
Sau brought to life in microcosm an emotional universe sprinkled with
flaws. Ngo portrayed her character with depth and honesty, displaying
a disarming openness. Sau, although slightly fidgety, switched between
roles with chameleon-like flair and he gave his role heft despite its
clear secondary status compared to the female character.
The actors' sensitive delivery was central to the play's ability to
pass criticism unequivocally but without pretension or vitriol. In a
disingenuously humorous scene, the characters shared their strongest
childhood memories. The appalling racial bigotry displayed by the female
character's family and the cold-blooded vengefulness of the male character
as a young boy were presented as part of a confessional chat, stimulating
the audience to make its own judgements on these memories of so-called
childhood innocence. While the characters responded to each other's
stories with looks of comic puzzlement - suggesting a disjoint between
the warm and fuzzy form of the stories and their sinister content -
each character maintained their morally blind perspectives towards their
own story. This was all the judgement Pulau allowed itself,
but the effect on the audience was perhaps all the more powerful for
its being unspoken.
Pulau reveled both in the high drama of tragedy and the understated
pathos of everyday hurt, creating a varied palette of sentiment that
constantly enlivened the emotional landscape. The actors, who seemed
keenly aware of this dichotomy, switched between exaggerated gestures
and a more naturalistic style as they acted out one vignette after another.
In one of the early scenes, Ngo's character recounts how she had rushed
to the jetty in pursuit of the lost "scent". She proceeded to conjure
up an abstract, grisly image of a beach filled with the corpses of humans
and animals, while cannibalistic cows fed on the carrion. Emotionally
overwhelmed, the character responded with abject horror and desolation.
This contrasted with a later scene (which could have come straight out
of Eleanor Wong's The
Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ), where Sau's
character wrangles with a bureaucratic civil servant from the Registrar
of Deaths (played by Ngo) who refuses to let his father's ashes rest
in a columbarium for the privileged. After a heated exchange, the civil
servant vindictively doctors the deceased's particulars in the computer
system so that he is listed as a "stateless" person, hence having no
rights to rest in any local columbarium. The straightforward helplessness
of the Everyman against the powerful Official was felt in an immediately
sympathetic way.
Pulau was not all gloom, however, and a tender interaction
developed through the growing mutual dependency of the two characters.
Unfortunately, uncreative treatment of the material made this the most
boring part of the play. Another, perhaps related, aspect was the befuddling
treatment of the female character's sexuality. Her continued reference
to female genitalia and the use of the expletive "chee bai"
(a coarse Hokkien term for the vagina) contributed little to the audience's
understanding of her character or the rest of the play.
Whatever Pulau lacked in terms of character development, however,
it more than made up for with a relevant and engaged statement on society,
woven into an emotional portrait that was imbued with all the richness
of feeling that can make one laugh, think and sigh in much the same
way that real life does. |
"Ng How Wee's script opened the seams of our society to explore
its hidden depths with the empathy of an engaged member of the community"
Credits
Written by Ng How Wee
Produced and Directed by Adrian Tan
Actors: Judy Ngo and Peter Sau
Lighting Design: Stage "LIVE"
Music: August Lim
Stage Manager: Fiona Lim
Production Assistants: Stanley Ng and Hatta
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From: The Editor (matthewlyon@myway.com / Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 20:22:27)
Got anything to say about the review or the production? Click the button above to let us know.
From: Yi-Sheng (ng.yisheng@gmail.com / Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 02:18:33)
Just a factual note - "Pulau" was not staged officially by STAGES, although that is Adrian Tan's company. Adrian told me he felt that making it a non-company-linked production would enable it to tour better. (And it *should* tour, hell yeah, it's wunnerful.)
From: The Editor (matthewlyon@myway.com / Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 17:43:32)
Thanks, Yi-Sheng. My fault, not Deanne's. Corrected above.
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