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| Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Theatre > The Beckett Project by Theatre Training & Research Programme If Christian artists are to grow in their crafts to 'redeem the arts', they had better be relevant. One way is to constantly engage our philosophies against well produced work in the arts scene. For this reason, Backstage is pleased to publish a review on The Beckett Project by the Theatre Training & Research Programme (TTRP).The Beckett Project is TTRP's third cohort's latest production. Yang Ming and Dawn Fung write a side by side review that ponder on this Irish playwright's presence in Singapore. Esplanade Theatre Studio. 24 August - 27 August 2006, 8pm. Reviewed on the opening night. Beckon the Real World Writer: Yang Ming   I understood a little of why a friend of mine fell asleep during Lao Jiu by The Theatre Practice. This is because The Beckett Project almost did that to me. It is a serious production of five of Samuel Beckett's plays, and the first time the graduating cohort performed Beckett. And I did not doze off because we were blessed with three intermissions for set changes. Director and actor Phillip Zarilli was notably absent due to immediate health issues. I believed those who anticipated "Act Without Words I" were sorely disappointed. This then cut the performance to four serious plays - "Not I", "Footfalls", "Play" and "Rockaby". "Not I" was dark. The stage was illuminated with only a simple beam of light that showed off the mouth within a small hole. Stage right, the Auditor played by Sankar Chindavalap Venkateswaran waited impatiently as the Mouth spoke. Award-winning actress Patricia Boyette was a fantastic Mouth. She spoke rapidly, fragmentedly, about her haunting experience on that fateful April morning and insisted - 'Who? No! She!' - that all that did not happen to her, because Mouth is unable to identify herself in the first person. "Footfalls" was done entirely in Mandarin. Felix Hung Chit Wah portrayed the daughter in the one-woman play who has an awkward relationship with her elderly mother. Against a rectangle perimeter of light on the floor, she shuffled back and forth. Behind her were the English subtitles, white on black. Towards each segment, her hunchback body lowered to illustrate age, culminating with the story of a Mrs Winter and Amy that intertwined with her recurring life story. Perhaps it was the slowness of the speech between the audio, actor and the rhythm of each line projected, or the helpless response of the audience that clapped between each blackout - unintentionally. Unable to comprehend, my body slouched with hers onstage. "Play" woke me up. Three heads appear out of each urn. They belong respectively to Sia Ee Mien, Xu Jia Li and Sankar Chindavalap Venkateswaran. The rapid-tempo speeches were directed by a hardworking spotlight. If you listened intently, you could make out the story of three accounts of adultery and betrayal. A difficult piece, nontheless, that shone with effort and intensity. "Rockaby" is an old lady played by Amelia Tan Seok Chin, sitting on her rocking chair. Throughout, a repetitive, monotonous voiceover resonated like words in her head. 'Sitting at the window, the only window' stuck to my lips. Being the last piece it also had a fascinating conclusion, in that the calmness you thought was an unshakeable subject grew to subtle anger and a stop. Beckett was the man who gave up religion for the sake of his art. His writings on the dark portrayal of human conditions contained universally true depictions of life, for which I admire Happy Days and Waiting for Godot. TTRP's choice of staging The Beckett Project shows us the enduring challenge of theatre's relevance. Under Zarilli/Boyette's directions, the cast followed closely to the script, from speech patterns and speeds, to exact costumes and prop measurements, ensuring the authenticity in The Beckett Project. Thus it is not without respect that I say the production was rather difficult for this reviewer to get into. Reality Bites Writer : Dawn Fung I have never watched or read a Beckett play but have been raring to so that I can say I was acquainted with a canonised theatre weight that one ought to respect regardless. Therefore The Beckett Project, another of those things that everyone has heard of at least, is a good claim for conversation. The irony is that The Beckett Project is not easy for the average aged drama student to imbibe, many of whom sat on the left and right of me. If they came already with the advantage of having read any of the plays, I wish I had asked for a summary before the production began. Just as our minds are renewed daily by the word of God, purposeful repetition in theatre works because its nature emphasises something that ought to be noticed. For me, this is a rightful attraction of The Beckett Project and Beckett's world at large. In the first play, "Not I", a ball of light the size of a fist holds the same spot. A mouth (Patricia Boyette) and its body is unseen but it speaks rapidly. Its tones articulate clearly the disturbing autobiography of a woman unable to authenticate her identity through a denial of herself as a first person. A cloaked person, the Auditor, ( Sankar Chindavalap Venkateswaran ) steps up conspicuously although he wears dark hues. He is the one juxtaposed to show impatience while the Mouth never stops talking. Boyette's narration belies an authority of one who has done Beckett more than a few times and still discovering why. Venkatswaran as the Auditor fails to measure even in minimal gestures, because I only thought he was losing his balance from standing too long. "Not I" left me with a certain sweetness, more by the strength of the narration watching the monologue take the space by its liberty to own it. The second play, "Footfalls", is a conversation between May (Hung Chit Wah), a woman wrapped in tattered garments pacing back and forth, talking to the voice of her mother (Amelia Tan Seok Chin). May takes on the voice of her mother and ends up with a story between a mother and daughter. In this production, Singaporean audiences did not know how to respond to four darkened moments between the scenes - we all clapped, thinking it was the end. This comedic effect did not benefit the original confusion underlying the text. Furthermore, Hung and Tan's accents were largely impeded by the weakness of their Mandarin. Although this play was adapted into Mandarin to aid the actresses' paucity of English, I had the feeling that a better medium would have been Cantonese, their dialect. There is nothing as disconcerting as a displaced language when it is not meant to be. If nothing else, "Footfalls" was a commendable work by a solo artist challenged to hold the audience's attention to offer the images of age and uncertainty - two things that we loathe to wait upon these days. The third play, "Play", is a high rapid text of three heads talking out of huge urns (Sia Ee Mien, Venkateswaran and Xu Jia Li) about broken, adulterous relationships and their role in it. A spotlight provokes the head to speak, even through multiple short lined staccatos. Beneath the rapport of lights and sounds are in reality, the desperate remains of speeches, hysteria and mutters trapped in cages. As Anthony Minghella says of Beckett, "There's huge amount of farce in his work. It's a farce in repetition – first time round, you laugh, and next time round it's harder to laugh. I assume if it kept repeating it would get more and more terrifying." I found the crowd pleasing 'Play' the most problematic because it earned the most laughter from the audience and at the end, a rapt applause. I wonder on hindsight if "Play" was something that Singaporeans took for granted to be easily understand but which has been tragically assimilated into our national psyche. Sia, Venkateswaran and Xu performed fantastically as talking heads. "Not I" claimed the spotlight of easily being the strongest of the four but the last, "Rockaby" moved me to the world of soundless regret. A old woman (Tan) sits in a rocking chair and rocks herself through memory. The narrative is an audio recording (Tan) 'to and fro' while the live person comes out for 'more' intermittently. The hypnotising effect of the repetition sent me to lie down on the empty seats next to me. For I was not bored - I was loving the play. The search by the human for 'another creature like herself' is existential and beautifully done. This was the play that I would have liked to purchase the audio CD and have it play again in the space and comfort of a day. It was with a tinge of regret that I sat up eventually. Tan delivered with her faltering English because it was focused. The result was that the significance of what is unsaid became as loud as its narrative. If I could watch The Beckett Project by TTRP again I would. The Beckett Project is a sterling effort by TTRP students on their journey to throw all hindrances away. I want to listen again to the words and watch the same cast mature with the work. I love it that a production like this leaves me desiring to tackle the simply stark and illuminating world of Samuel Beckett. For me at least, the production is an intensification of life, albeit from a more secular perspective, but nothing that the Christian cannot passionately engage in.
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