Theatre vs theatre
Conflictual obligation languishes in confusion.
It should be said, right off the bat, that you're watching a Cake Theatricals production. So yes, re-tune your logic, withhold your skepticism and abandon all reason.
Versus is commissioned as part of this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). It explores the festival's theme of Post-Empires, with the repeated refrain of "this world is not our home". As with any Cake production, the characters run the gamut of eclectic: from a Mao-like power-hungry dictator to a know-it-all woolly mammoth.
Within the first fifteen minutes, the tone for this show is set: abrupt amalgamations of characters, dressed in different shades of alienation, deliberated on the dilemma of being “post-”; a discombobulated ensemble locked in eternal conflict, with each other and; collectively with the present and the past.
But, the performers tackle their roles with gusto, always coursing in motion. Halfway into the show, I can see Rizman Putra’s naked torso gleaming with sweat as he clambers up and down vertical structures. (The echoes of his impeccable Lady of Soul performance three months back is worth at least a silent chuckle.) The performers’ stylized movements are backed by a throbbing soundtrack (that verged on being too loud at times) and garish multimedia visuals (photosensitive epilepsy warning!) - to call it a sensory overload is a massive understatement.
But right as the mood is sinking into Sarah Kane-depressed levels, an unexpected comedic segue brings the show back to life. Special mention must go to Edith Podesta for carrying the comedic weight of this segment, with little slapstick moments that actually feel spontaneous and inspired. Alas, this segment ends way too soon (with an appropriately comedic ending), and we are right back in depression territory.
The stream-of-consciousness text revels in its disconnected, disjunctive imagery. Words and movements juxtapose opposite meanings against each other, like when the spoken line "to live" is accompanied with a finger drawn across the throat. The plot, if it barely exists, loosely strings together themes of dictatorship, female identity, and war trauma, amidst a post-lapsarian landscape. There are glimpses of past Cake productions: ideas that resurface, and a post-modern treatment of the text, most noticeably in the recitation of a portion of the script backwards - word for word.
Post-lapsarian, post-modern, post-Empires. Anyone get the links yet? (Me neither.)
Don’t bother making sense of it all. There is no grand point to be made here - and I suspect that this is Versus’ biggest flaw: giving you all of the avant-garde, but none of the theatre.