I've
often wondered with plays like these whether your ticket should not
get you into two or more performances, because a single performance
is never enough to appreciate the richness of the offering. In any
case, here is my attempt to make sense of what I saw in my single sampling
of this eclectic piece.
Animal Vegetable Mineral was a series of disparate scenes - vignettes
really - pulled together by an underlying thread about a man trying
to find his identity, while coping with the grief of his sister's
death.
In it I saw a multitude of absurd characters trying to discover their
voice - whether it was the shrill voice of a Chinese opera diva, or
the defiant voice of an Indonesian maid scrawling graffiti on the wall,
or the voice of a man standing up to idealised images of sister, mother,
wife.
I saw images of frustration of characters in captivity and their explosive
desire to break loose. Wild animals escape from the zoo and run amok.
A cat pisses and vomits uncontrollably. A gecko crawls out of the mouth
of a sixty-year old baby.
I saw plenty of discordant images that were both playful and disturbing
- nursery rhymes turning suddenly violent; Buddhist monks grooving
to Buddha Bar beats; the perfect bride with Sailor Moon hair chewing
on a chicken leg; a sweet Catholic nun in sneakers who should be healing
grandma, but may instead be responsible for the lump on her skull;
a man walking around with a cleaver on his head, prepared to risk his
life in pursuit of God in a brinjal.
And I saw bits of text and images constantly being re-contextualised,
the way one ponders a jigsaw piece from all angles to gain a better
sense of its place within the larger whole. The line "I am going
to climb a mountain, walk across the desert and swim in the ocean," appeared
both as a declaration of resolve and a desperate plea. The reply, "When
you reach the end of the world and find nothing, just come back," was
both the bitter retort of a skeptical mother, and the consoling response
of a dead sister.
The performance appears to come full circle in the end when we learn
that the protagonist's sister died, not from being devoured by
a tiger as we were told in the beginning, but from having jumped from
the 16th floor. Perhaps this real-world event is the launch pad from
which the protagonist leaps into an imaginary hyper-world of nonsensical
characters to try to come to grips with his grief. Perhaps we are to
understand the entire performance in the context of this event.
Or perhaps the scenes all stand on their own, and knowing the "truth" about
the death of the protagonist's sister is unnecessary for us to
glean meaning from them. What seems clear to me is that the underlying
emotion of loss and separation has inspired a wandering of the mind,
over mountains, deserts and oceans, in contemplation of what it means
to let go of something you love. "You made me suffer," the
actors whisper in unison in the end. It is the suffering that comes
from separation that these performers have tapped into for creative
expression.
The performers are all extraordinarily gifted, but some deserve special
mention. Young Tseng's physical movements are crisper and more
nimble than the rest in the ensemble. Richard Philip has a gruff, raw
energy that helps to anchor the mood of the play. Jean Ng switches
from one character to the next with the ease of a chameleon. And Noor
Effendy Ibrahim's cat-about-to-pee pose should be a standard
asana of yoga classes everywhere.
The set was kept simple, with mod music, outlandish costumes and colourful
props to spice up the scenes. The use of chalk was especially interesting.
In chalk the performers traced the journeys of the protagonist. A chalk
drawing on the wall of an airplane morphed into a tiger with the shape-shifting
agility of clouds. The ladder in a corner of the stage created interesting
variations in height, and seemed to reinforce the recurring image of
lizards running around the room and scurrying up the wall.
Several markers in the play seem to point towards the events of playwright
and director Natalie Hennedige's own life. Hennedige is 30, like
the protagonist. This is Hennedige's maiden play in a theatre
company all her own so the production of it was surely an intensely
personal journey for her.
And to be sure, it is a very commendable debut. There is always a
kind of raw, adolescent appeal to Hennedige's work. My only fear
is Hennedige may lapse into that self-indulgence all artists are prone
to once they invest too much of themselves into their art. But if Hennedige
can avoid this, then Cake Theatre is set to be a delicious new addition
to the theatre scene here. |
"Noor Effendy Ibrahim's cat-about-to-pee pose should be a standard
asana of yoga classes everywhere"
Credits
Playwright and Director: Natalie Hennedige
Set conceptualised by Natalie Hennedige
Set Consultant: Chong Tze Chien
Lighting Designer: Suven Chan
Producer: Sharon Tang
Technical Consultant: Patrick Wong
Stage Manager: Grace Low
Lighting Operator: Jeff Yeo
Crew: Mohd Firdaus
Cast: Jean Ng, Noor Effendy Ibrahim, Richard Philip,
Wong Young Tseng, Ang Hui Bin, Goh Siow Yune, Kenneth Kwok and Low
Kah Wei
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