Production
Company
Reviewer
Date Seen
Quote
Rating
Production
Company
Reviewer
Date Seen
Quote
Rating
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Let Me Off!
Migrant Voices
Ng Yi-Sheng
14/12/08
I didn't have high hopes for this piece. Migrant Voices, in
case you haven't heard, is a group that gives foreign domestic and construction
workers the chance to create music, photography, literary and drama
projects - and as noble as social work-related art is, it's not necessarily
very good.
What I didn't count on, first of all, was that this would be a forum
theatre piece - and this worked well with the mixed audience of
regular joes, activists and migrant workers, who ended up being pretty
gung-ho about their interventions into the anti-play about a maid who
struggles with an unreasonable agent and employer, a boyfriend and an
unwanted pregnancy. The talkbacks allowed for genuine insights into
the laws and perspectives of maids in Singapore - with even a
little disagreement thrown in. Plus, it didn't hurt that the piece incorporated
humour, cruelty and bhangra dancing - plenty to watch and to feel.
Second of all, I didn't expect there to be so much talent involved in
this piece. While most of the migrant worker cast spoke too softly and
had trouble improvising, actresses Unmairoh and Sulastri were outstanding,
and there was a whole load of professional local artists backing them
up: emcees Sha Najak and Kok Heng Leun, playwright Haresh Sharma, director
Rei Poh and actors Joanne Ng and Joey Chin. Not without its slip-ups,
but definitely a fun show.
***1/2 (No full review planned)
Simon Says
Richel Xie
Ng Yi-Sheng
08/12/08
Richel Xie's embarked on a noble project to stage seldom-performed
winners of the Singapore Young Dramatists' Award. The problem is, Alex
Ye Kentang wrote this particular play as a teenager in '99, and boy,
does it show. Besides the hair-raising, trapped-in-a-black-box adolescent
angst, his characters' language is hopelessly overwrought - their
speech doesn't even remotely resemble the way people communicate in
real life. And predictably, the young actors aren't doing a great job
humanising the clunky verbiage, occasionally mispronouncing the words
and waxing operatic way too often (although granted, their physical
acting is pretty decent). Surprisingly, however, the core of the piece
is solid: it's a striking allegory for religious mania, and the characters,
if annoying, are well-distinguished and their interactions make for
a meaningful, gripping plot. Kinda makes you wonder what the playwright
might be capable of now, given that he's nine years older and wiser.
**1/2 (Full review coming)
Site last updated 1 Jan 2009 - Inkpot Picks 2008 uploaded
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