A Beautiful Campanion (Plus Singapore Gaga)

Today spent half the day at Arts House @ Old Parliament

In the afternoon, watched Singapore GaGa by Tan Pin Pin, a Singapore Feature Film that collected the sounds and sights of the long ignored yet prominent Singapore.

A very interesting short film which brings my attention to things that I always ignore. Things that Singaporeans ignore.

Six dollars well spent

In the evening, after dinner with tan gekleng at foodcourt, I stayed back to watch 'A Beautiful Campanion' by Theatreworks Writers Lab. Tan Suet Lee wrote the play and Jeffrey Tan directed it.

The story is about the lives of two women, Vivian and Rosemary. Vivian is a desperate pregnant woman whose husband was killed by a bus. She wanted to commit suicide but was counselled and saved by Rosemary, a lonely teacher who is kind but a destined old maid.

Rosemary then goes on to put up vivan in the house. After that vivian gave birth to a girl named catherine (after rosemary's mother). To complicate matters further, rosemary accidentally cause the death of catherine and vivian's friendship with rosemary was broken.

Finally the story had to come with a twist. Rosemary was a lesbian and in exchange for all the support she gave to Vivian, she got vivian to go to bed with her.

The story looks complicated, but yet, when laid out on the few scenes were simple to understand. The lines and the narrative carried the story well, a third but rather peripheral character, acted by Sonny Lim was used to propel the story forward. Generally i would say that the story is quite solid and well written. The narrative was fluid enough to swallow, the characters safely round enough to believe. There were many stabs at Singapore and jokes about Singaporeans, but these elements were incorporated so well in between the lines that it does not feel forced. I think that is one of the more clever parts of the script.

However, I felt that some parts of the narrative started to sag and the scenes can get abit draggy at times. Things cross into melodrama at times and I keep looking forward to the next joke about Singapore. But once the pace start to pick up, things get all right again.

The most regrettable thing about this play is that it does not really let me bring away much, as with many plays nowadays. Playwrights seem to just want to tell a story, not at all concerned with the lessons and themes that audiences bring away with them. Either that or they are too concerned with exploring relationships that they forget what they want to tell the audience.

Anyway, lighting was quite well designed and set design was quite well thought of. Acting was great, tempo wise, body language wise, language wise, expression wise.

Some idiot keep clapping after the end of every scene. And the best was that some of the audience were induced to clap with that idiot. Dont these people know that clapping is only at the end of a show? Basic theatre ettiquette has gone to the dogs?

I enjoyed myself though. There was no pressure to understand anything because both film and play were not hard to understand at all. In fact, the play gave me enlightenment on how i would design my set for august.

This is a fruitful trip, though I had to sacrificed a birthday party invitation from huayguan people to go. Sorry guys.