My Struggle: Moments Later
I have to say, I have never “struggled” this much in play/performance.
While I am eager to be acquainted with The Struggle through this play, moments after entering the theatre, I begin to get second thoughts.
Yang Shi Bin is seated on a chair beside a radio player and he engages in a light-hearted conversation with fellow cast members (notably of a younger generation) Chong Woon Yong, Doreen Toh and Felix Hung. This is a beautiful image – the younger generation spending time with the previous generation and finding out more about what has come before.
Regretfully, this beautiful moment is intentionally obscured by the low voices and the obstructed view. After a while, the audience revert to their own private groups chatter, muttering, “nothing is happening” and “haven’t start yet”.
A significant portion of the play is shrouded in a thick & dreary silence. I am not too sure about Okorn-Kuo Jing Hong’s Noh-worthy speed of walking in the background either; no doubt it requires great discipline and technique. Perhaps it is in these silent interludes where there is space for reflection – on commentaries projected on the wall and on repeated lines such as “we only see one side of things, and not the other perspective”. However, this becomes problematic when the excessively long silences are badly paced and instead of being poignant, they become distracting.
The lighting also poses great problems. The light-emitting table stresses the creative space and impulse of the original “STRUGGLE” but the intense light from that one source is trying for the audiences’ eyes. On one hand, I do like how this cast deep shadows on the actors face, alluding to the dark internal conflicts of their times. On the other, it is undeniably strenuous on the eyes.
This heavily retrospective take on the struggles of Singaporeans, enslaved by the rapidly changing environment and circumstances of the industrialisation days, reduces the emphasis on Kuo’s active representation of the issue.
To this reviewer, this particular approach does not work. This play is an apparent result of a younger generation’s struggle to understand the struggle of Kuo’s time. Consequently, we are ensnared in a similar struggle, one which we have not signed up for.