I love the premise of this to death. Actress Nora Samosir delivers a lecture explaining how she discovered a lost collection of paintings and documents belonging to the forgotten Singapore artist Huang Wei (1914-unknown). The catch of course, is that Huang Wei of course never existed: the paintings are the work of Alan Oei, based on photographs of children by the Lee Brothers Studio in the early 1900s.
Playwright Kaylene Tan does an intriguing job of recreating what it must have been like to be a creative person in a vanished age, living through the trauma of war. Still, her text isn't very focused – the constant shuttling back and forth between art criticism, art history and personal anecdote dilutes the true emotional impact of the piece, and Samosir's casual style of presentation just makes the problem worse.
Nonethless, the play boasts some powerful moments, both moving and disconcerting – none more so than the conclusion, which manages to be both a catharsis and a mindfuck.