a labour of love and laughs

I generally like musicals and I'm pretty patriotic, so there was no hesitation to take up an offer of free tickets to watch A Labour of Love, put up by NTUC.

The music was grandiose and inspiring, almost like a local version of Les Miz with its revolutionary themes of self-sacrifice and hope for a better age. I particularly liked the scene where they opened the first NTUC Fairprice, which would certainly make a perfect TV ad.

But the real gems were in the script, which had me doubled up in laughter on more than a few occasions. It was like watching a dramatised version of a national education textbook. Where else do you here "little red dot" and "against all odds" used in the same sentence? They certainly don't fit into common parlance. It was totally hilarious because the characters are all speaking in rather colloquial Singlish, but every now and then you would get snippets lifted out of the PAP phrasebook like "our effective and efficient government".

Some of the humour was contextual too. Like this dialogue towards the end:
Union Leader: Are you feeling better today?
Dying Wife: I'm ok. Did you attend the union meeting this morning?
(Followed by a lengthy schpiel on the importance of the unions and the ideals they all espouse, macham like deathbed speech.)

And when the grandfather relates the tragic event of her death to his grandson years later, he remarks, "It wasn't all bad. At least we had NTUC Income Shield."

But probably the funniest comment was from the person who brought us to the show. "I want to tear my NTUC membership ..."

the JBJ campaign

I caught The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ over the weekend, and must say I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. The synopsis from the playbill writes:

David Lee (Rodney Oliveiro), NUS student and President of the Association of Students for Self-expression (ASS), takes it upon himself to launch the Campaign to Confer The Public Service Star on JBJ. His plucky project takes him on an adventure with both expected and surprising twists and turns.

Clara Tang (Pam Oei), rising star of the Civil Service, is tasked to exercise damage control. In the most challenging mission of her career, she finds herself navigating the maze of New Singapore and Old Constraints.

Join us for a tongue-in-cheek look at the boundaries (perceived or otherwise) of fearless expression in Singapore! This fantastical account of an unlikely petition to publicly recognise an unsung hero unfolds into a wildly imaginative “what-if” exploration of possible official reactions!

This play does not have much by way of a storyline. It is extremely simple, but it sets the stage for the playwright's real agenda which is to provide a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of numerous situations that the protagonists face, first in trying to run a campaign in staid Singapore, then on how the government has to manage civil disquiet. Pam Oei, in particular, is quite hilarious with her feisty portrayals and many accents.

The scenes are extremely witty and very up to date on recent happenings, from an appearance on Singapore Idol to the podcast studio of the Mrs Brown Show. Many of the main players in our civil society scene are also portrayed: the media, the artists and even the police. And through it all, we are given Eleanor's portrayal of how the civil service really works behind the scenes.

I wonder what it is about artists that seems to place them necessarily at odds with the establishment. Or maybe the anti-establishment types gravitate to the arts as a form of free expression. Or is art the only platform from which they can find an audience?

Next on my arts calendar is Tick Tick Boom. It is also a rock musical by Jonathan Larson of Rent fame. How can I miss that? Maybe I will also catch the Vienna Boys Choir.

quidam and seperation

Here are my thoughts on two shows I caught recently: Quidam and Seperation 40. It is not a review or a summary, just some things that crossed my mind.

Circe du soleil's Quidam is an amalgamation of top cultural performances from around the world, repackaged in thematic costumes and performed against a terrific musical backdrop.

One performance that perfectly demonstrates this point was the ce3 ling2 (Chinese yo-yo) act. As a former practioner myself, I'm always interested to see what magic can be wrought from two sticks and a string, and Quidam's mix of tricks and acrobatic stunts was the best I had ever seen. I suspect this is more due to their showmanship than the actual difficulty of the sequence.

They also had two hilarious skits involving 'audience participation'. At the end of the show, I asserted that the participants were planted, while my friend disagreed. I then pointed out that the male performer was taking physical liberties with his 'volunteers' that would probably be a bit risky and offensive if they were not forewarned. To this she agreed - but I was amused to realise that her logic was "if her boyfriend was there, he would be offended", whereas I had thought the lady herself would be the affronted one. Maybe I have an overly conservative view of women in modern society.

Seperation 40 had a really good start and end, but the in-between was rather drawn-out and even painful at times. The first act was set in 200X with the Islamic Republic of Malaya celebrating its 50th Anniversary, while Singapore (now an independant country located in Suzhou Industrial Park) celebrated its 5th year of independance. In the Singapore celebration, the commentator declared, "... and now we will see a display of 120 colourful floats to symbolize 120 of our achievements in the last financial quarter ..." That really cracked me up, talk about hyperbole.

The rest of the show took place in various settings over the past 40 years, and largely fell under 3 different themes: "agree to disagree", "celebrate our differences" and various portrayals of "seperation personified". Of these, one particular sequence that stood out was the dialogue between a Malay mother and her son who was to be executed the next day. Half in English, half in Malay and crackling with emotion, it was very enjoyably piecing together all the meanings from the English bits and the body language.

Finally, the other really enjoyable part was the meet-the-cast section at the very end, where we had the chance to query the directors and actors on why things were and what the hell was going on. As one audience member succintly described, Seperation 40 was more humanistic than thought-provoking in any socio-political sense, leaving me mildly disappointed. After this weekend, they will be heading to KL to perform the exact same thing.