It was a joy to behold. The production may have been 8 hours long; but whilst I was tired, I was never once bored. As a production, Gatz is as big, as ambitious, as mind-blowing and as "Great" as the subjects it tackles - Gatsby and the American Dream itself. You'd be crazy not to see it for yourself.

5 out of 5, Karin Lai, 22 May 2010

Director Kok Heng Luen does a magnificent job of creating the play's world, especially with help from lighting designer Lim Woan Wen, costume designer Anthony Tan and music composers Vivian Wang and Leslie Low. This is a work of great majesty and infinite heartache - but Kok handles the comedic moments deftly as well. In the last third of the play, Spirits begins to spin its wheels but Kuo's and Kok's evocative theatrical vision remains an irresistible force to the end.

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 16 Aug 2009

Nevertheless, there are obvious problems: some slip-ups, and an inexplicable lack of energy in the opening piece when Mohana's supposed to be frenziedly dancing to the point that her feet begin to bleed. Theatrical elements of the show are particularly iffy: Felin Jayatissa and Kamini Ramachandran give the tale context as they narrate Mohana's biography, but their dialogue is cringe-worthily didactic – "These mandalas are beautiful", "Very perceptive, young scholar", etc. The direction's also very static, with Priya limited to the same tiny dancing space over two hours (save for a very cool moment when she's flirting in a train cabin). A little exhausting for non-veteran audiences of traditional dance.

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Jul 2009

To be fair, Noor Effendy Ibrahim's menacing and physically aggressive take on Ovidia's Yu's light and witty comedy is not entirely irrelevant: Yu's script does have dark undercurrents of frustration, claustrophobia and hopelessness and it can be said that Effendy's version is simply bringing these to the fore. However, it makes for an uncomfortable theatrical experience for the audience because the director is not even re-imagining the work as a black comedy. Instead, he makes it earnestly and insistently intense, somber, and painful - all ominous lighting and actors violently attacking one another.

Effendy's expertise in installation art and physical theatre helps to create some evocative visual poetry. For example, each actress begins the play by slowly using bandaging to secure a plastic stiletto at the base of her feet which she then has to walk on throughout the rest of the show.

Ultimately, however, some things are just not meant to be. I definitely applaud the director's moxie but this felt like a goth rock remix of a bubblegum pop song gone wrong.

Also, I'm not sure if this is the best choice for an acting showcase because, aside from Sara Caputo's lead performance (particularly impressive for its physical work), the artful poses struck by the rest of the ensemble cast show only commitment and passion but not breadth and depth.

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 10 Apr 2009

I think it's wonderful that canonical Singapore plays like Invisibility and The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate S Machine are being revisited this year (especially by student groups). It is an opportunity for newer audiences to experience them as intended - performed on a stage and not just read off the page. I look forward to LASALLE's staging of Three Fat Virgins Unassembled next week, this time by another guest director (and another inspired choice), Noor Effendy Ibrahim.

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 4 Apr 2009

In between, there are excursions into melodrama, psycho-horror and absurdism set in euthanasia clinics, Sichuanese restaurants and political press conferences. One actor who deserves a shout out is the totally adorable China-born newcomer Fish Shi Linping – he's refreshingly natural, warm and funny in both his roles. Be forewarned, though, that the second half of this decuplebill is a little bit slower than the first.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Jul 2009

Seriously, this is the first play I've seen about maids in Singapore in which the maid isn't portrayed as a victim, and I think that's bloody amazing. Sure, Wati has problems: her father in Indonesia is sick, the man who employs her verbally abuses her and her Bangladeshi boyfriend has a slightly dodgy character. But she's strong and makes (mostly) intelligent decisions in each case. Counter to stereotype, her relationships with the women of the household are cooperative rather than competitive - in fact, the mother of the household, Linda, envies the independent culture that Wati embodies as a member of the matrilineal Minang tribe.

I'm quite a fan of the set-cum-multimedia design: though keeping to the Projek Suitcase premise that all props must be able to fit into one bag, Shida nonetheless manages to fill the space, using clothes that she hangs on hooks suspended from the ceiling. Lights and video projections also help to enrich what might otherwise be a pretty bare stage. Costume doesn't work so well, though: her shifts between characters are impressively performed but look sloppy when kebayas and scarves are left half-hanging from her clothing. Also, the ending is sudden and unresolved – though at least this means that the writer isn't forced to close the play in tragedy, as happens in far too many plays about strong women.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Mar 2009

My complaints? Well, the play sags a little in the middle of the second half, Veronica's catchphrase of "Oh lordy" is annoyingly repetitive, the language feels a little too hip for the elderly, Lee Weng Kee's a little wooden, a few issues with volume… But you see, these are mere details. Compared to the glaring problems in many of the company's previous plays, this is gold.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng

Acting-wise, Rebecca Lee and Benjamin Wong have good chemistry in their roles as Max and Max, usually succeeding in their dramatic/comedic routines about what it's like being gay in university. However, Wong trips up a little on the high-paced, London rhythms of his lines, and can't quite command the stage when he's going solo. Lee, on the other hand, is in her element: strong, crisp and charismatic, she asserts a physical and emotional presence that's often very impressive. I'm ambivalent about the set: it's functional but a wee bit messy. Ultimately, though, I approve thoroughly of the decision to set this show in a bar rather than in a conventional theatre space.

Note: Yi-Sheng recently worked with director Claire Devine in W!ld Rice's The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng

What I didn't count on, first of all, was that this would be a forum theatre piece - and this worked well with the mixed audience of regular joes, activists and migrant workers, who ended up being pretty gung-ho about their interventions into the anti-play about a maid who struggles with an unreasonable agent and employer, a boyfriend and an unwanted pregnancy. The talkbacks allowed for genuine insights into the laws and perspectives of maids in Singapore - with even a little disagreement thrown in. Plus, it didn't hurt that the piece incorporated humour, cruelty and bhangra dancing - plenty to watch and to feel.

Second of all, I didn't expect there to be so much talent involved in this piece. While most of the migrant worker cast spoke too softly and had trouble improvising, actresses Unmairoh and Sulastri were outstanding, and there was a whole load of professional local artists backing them up: emcees Sha Najak and Kok Heng Leun, playwright Haresh Sharma, director Rei Poh and actors Joanne Ng and Joey Chin. Not without its slip-ups, but definitely a fun show.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Dec 2008

Shanghainese choreographer/performer nunu banishes the notion of stage presence from her initial movements - she and twin performer Liu Ya Nan walk across the space with their bodies casually slack, their faces assuming the dullness of stupid children (quite unlike their everyday expressions, as seen in the talkback). And once the more dynamic movements begin - wiggling in red cloth skirt-like objects, showering in rice, masochistically slapping their hands on their thighs, their insteps and ankles against the floor - they are deliberately non-representational, unemotional, unaesthetic, almost ugly. All this against a heavy sonic backdrop of spiky piano and peristalsis.

Definitely the least accessible of the works in the Fringe Festival this year - which, one supposes, should be the very point of a Fringe Festival: to allow such weird acts to flourish.

No rating given, Ng Yi-Sheng, 18 Jan 2008

The most fully realized of the three main story arcs is that of a couple who marry young and stay alive for centuries through artificial means ("all our friends have already died," says the wife, spiritlessly) because the husband does not ever want to be separated from her and does not know what would happen after death. His is a natural fear (though taken to the extreme) that is only too easy to empathise with and it evokes powerful questions about the nature of loneliness and human companionship, what it means to really love someone and whether love should be measured by time. Unfortunately, the other two threads, though striking similar emotional beats, prove less effective. I could not give myself completely to the stories and the characters because I was distracted by a lack of clarity sometimes in what exactly was going on and why.

I have no complaints about actors Siti Khalijah and Muhd Najib Soiman though, the former again proving why she was my Special Mention for 2008. Loo Zhihan's multimedia also deserves much praise, especially in how it intersected with the action onstage in often surprising ways. The technology has always been there but I have not ever seen the possibilities of it being optimized as they are here and in a way that feels so organic to the work as part of a whole.

Frozen Angels is not the best Necessary Stage work of late - but even TNS' second best is well above average for other companies.

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Jan 2009

The first play in this double-bill, Akan Datang (2.5 out of 5) is charming but ultimately forgettable. The two young lovers played by confident newcomers Glory Ngim and Conan Choong are endearing but while the actors do little that is actually wrong, they are also clearly acting rather than inhabiting their parts. It doesn't help that the story, set in a 1970s cinema, is overly simplistic and some of the dialogue is clunky - this is the sort of play that has, as its denouement, a line that goes something like, "my eardrums were damaged in an industrial accident".

Wife #11 (4 out of 5), however, is a compelling work which showcases veteran actress Tan Kheng Hua at the height of her powers - it is remarkable how she subtly transforms over the course of the play from a young woman married off as a businessman's tenth wife in 1946 to a weathered heroine in 1962 who, emboldened by changes in the social landscape (e.g. the Women's Charter), nonetheless sacrifices everything for the man (and extended family) she has grown to love. Desmond Sim's script, like Tan's performance, is insistent, fiery and complex beneath the sepia tones of its nostalgia. This bittersweet romance challenges assumptions about the true nature of love in the fiercely patriarchal and / or polygamous marriages of the past, and, in so doing, daringly veers into political incorrectness. This carefully constructed work is sometimes limited by its form - all the dialogue in the play consists of Tan and actor Casey Lim reading aloud letters they have written to each other over the years - but it is nonetheless amongst the best of Sim's writing, getting, as it does, to the beating, bleeding heart of its characters.

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 14 Feb 2009

The first piece in this doublebill just doesn't work for me. Akan Datang (2.5 out of 5), set in the 70s, tells the story of a young man and woman passing love notes to each other written on movie tickets. The two actors simply don't have the stage presence and physical training to play their roles well - though to be fair, the huge chunks of third-person narration in their lines are hard on such young actors (they're both still in junior college!) and they do manage some rather cute physical comedy. The video sequences from classic movies end up eclipsing the action as much as enhancing it, and the massive white space of the set makes it impossible to capture the intimacy of a battered cinema. Plus, the story is really pretty sappy.

Thankfully, the second piece, Wife #11 (4 out of 5), is wonderfully solid. Theatre veterans Casey Lim and Tan Kheng Hua play a rich Chinese tycoon and his English-educated bride, who discovers to her chagrin that she's actually to be his tenth wife - though over the course of 16 years from 1946 to 1962, their relationship blossoms, matures and splendidly develops. The two handle the bare space beautifully, negotiating their changing relationship through the letters they exchange and the distances they maintain between each other (a friend was counting the number of subtly different ways in which Tan falls down from her chair). True, there's a little too much blabber about the Women's Charter at times, but the sense of character and emotional trajectory of this story will definitely win you over.

Oddly enough, both pieces are directed and written by the same people - Samantha Scott-Blackhall and Desmond Sim. So much for consistency.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-sheng, 5 Feb 2009

2.5 out of 5, Amos Toh, 20 Feb 2009

The Chestnuts series has never quite achieved the mainstream name recognition of The Dim Sum Dollies but it is nonetheless reliable for more than a few laughs if you are looking for a comedy sketch show that is distinctly not for a family audience. Chestnuts skews younger - at one point, Joanthan Lim quips that the audience won't get one of the jokes because it relies on an 80s reference - so expect laughter built around contemporary pop culture ("Lea Salonga" singing Rihana's Umbrella, for example) and for things to get more than a little cheeky: there's an incredible amount of sex and swearing, for one thing - you'll never look at Wall.E and Eva the same again, believe me. As always, the show could do with some tightening, Dark Knuts being very hit and miss but, to be fair, when it hits, you'll laugh till you cry. I especially enjoyed the parodies of Mamma Mia! and The Little Nyonya and the newsroom segments. The Bats and The City and Twi Knight mash-ups, not so much. The addition of puppetry (inspired by the Avenue Q set-pieces) to the team's colourful repertoire of irreverent spoofs and songs works extremely well, with the team's deft handling of the puppets particularly impressive.

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 11 Feb 2009

The play tells the story of three people living in a Garden, all fanatically eager for the approval of their Master (visible only in the form of political quotations projected on the back wall), all striving to outdo each other in tasks to please him. Actors Anwar Hadi Ramli, Rizman Putra and Nur Suhaili Safari Wijaya work dynamically as an ensemble as they scramble, romp and fight their way across a blood-red set, their battles punctuated by a painfully ringing bell suspended above the performance space. It's a hell of a ride - in fact, my main complaint is that the intensity level is so high that it begins to exhaust you after a while. Frighteningly apt ending too, by the way.

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 21 Feb 2009

Suap was starkly different from the childlike narrative of playwright Zizi Azah's earlier work Why Did The Cat Get So Fat, although it incorporated elements of a children's tale in its dark allegorical structure. An elaborate set resembling a playground was painted entirely scarlet, which set the tone for the blazes of brutality that punctured the production with unfailing regularity. Suap, which had three people living in a Garden and competing with one another to win daily competitions, was a passionate indictment of our modern day society. Suap's deliberate allegorical overtones focused on the competitive ethos we live in today, as expressed through a wildly physical style of performance, with vicious acts of violence symbolising the bloodthirsty nature of our daily striving. The three actors delivered breathtaking, intense performances: at times with stylised movement for a Kafkaesque sense of alienation, at other times raw with emotion. Tight direction and an aesthetic coherence across script, set, sound and acting distinguished Suap. At the end of the day, however, the Garden, devoid of all hope, was very much a two-dimensional social critique, albeit one with much power and intelligence.

4 out of 5, Deanne Tan, 20 Feb 2009

But the odd thing is that it doesn't feel new - it's just a nice evening out with an interesting, eccentric foreigner (perhaps the fact that he's from abroad diffuses his transgressiveness). The autobiographical sketches ought to be sordid stuff, involving clinical depression, schoolboy molestation and transvestitism- but in this era of televised confession and sexual acceptance, it doesn't feel like we're breaking any taboos. Remarkable dramatic form, but the power just isn't there.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 20 Feb 2009

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 28 Feb 2009

4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 1 Mar 2009

4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 2 May 2009

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 May 2009

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 28 May 2009

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 27 May 2009

Noor Effendy Ibrahim's direction possessed a kinetic energy that kept the wordy play on its feet and he was aided by spirited performances from Rizman Putra and Shahril Wahid - they literally took to the air with their martial arts sequences. Tay was more successful as a writer than an actor, though - her performance was unpolished and while this was sometimes charming, at other points, she somehow came across as both guileless and self-conscious at the same time which made it difficult for us to empathize with her.

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 14 May 2009

Director Danny Yeo makes the most of his actors. Most impressive is Mindee Ong in her role as a ghost - she places subtle expressiveness in every lines she speaks, gradually revealing the layers of her identity through the course of the play. Doreen Toh, meanwhile, manages to inspire both derisive laughter and pathos in her role as a grieving mother, while young actors Toh Wee Peng and Neo Haibin are fearless and physical in their parts as gay ah bengs.

It's tougher to appraise Loo Zihan, who plays the lead role of Qiang. He's more than competent, with a great physical presence (his virtuoso dance sequence might take out your eyeballs). Still, he doesn't really milk the nuances of his twisted character: a policeman who moonlights as a Taoist medium, talks to the dead and abusively seduces schoolboys into dominating him in hotel rooms. Despite the big obligatory confessional scene, we feel as if we don't truly understand him by the play's end. Also unfortunate is that this conclusion involves an oh-so-cliched plea for understanding for gay people, complete with a maudlin series of echoed lines from earlier scenes.

One final shout-out to the play's set designer, Nicholas Li. It was a remarkable set to begin with, but when it tipped over and became an S&M rack in the end? Magic.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 9 Aug 2009

Paddy Chew's Completely With/Out Character finally finds a successor ten years on with Leona Lo's Ah Kua Show. The former was a 1999 performance by Chew, the first person in Singapore to come out openly as HIV positive, of his own life story while the latter sees Lo, a transsexual, recounting her personal journey transitioning from Leonard to Leona. Both tell compelling stories about the strength of the human spirit and its ability to come to terms with the past and look ahead to the future, whatever the odds - and with good humour. They also remind us that in a nation where every Singaporean is supposed to matter, some, it seems, still matter less than others.

Ah Kua Show, a modestly budgeted production at the Substation Theatre written by Lo herself and directed by relative newcomer Emeric Lau, lacks the more professional polish of Completely With/Out Character which was created and staged by The Necessary Stage. However, Lo's amiable script never loses its audience - in this case, the advertising says it best: at turns, the inspirational and life-affirming Ah Kua Show is "tender, raw, amusing, naughty and nostalgic".

True, the momentum is disrupted by too many unnecessary costumes changes and I feel that the show could have reached for greater poignancy with more thought and time. Lo is also not a professional actress and, if I were to put on my serious critic's hat, I must admit the show suffers in places as a result. However, in the (many) moments where she connects intimately with the story, delivers a throwaway line, or deadpans, the natural warmth of her personality shines through and this genuineness and lack of guardedness endear her to the audience.

It is rare for me to actually wish a show were longer but this 60-minute production is one such example. Especially funny are her witty sideway digs at everything from self-proclaimed Feminist Mentors to lothario DJs. These are countered, however, by sobering accounts of real-life persecution, discrimination and struggle - even when she tries to dismiss them with a "So Mediacorp, right?".

When her parents rise to wild applause from the audience at the end of the show and present her with a bouquet of flowers, it is a reminder that, thankfully, at least Mediacorp dramas usually have a happy ending - as does Lo's empowering story.

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Aug 2009

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 12 Aug 2009

First, the shortcomings. Large ensemble movement was often pretty underwhelming, lacking real grace and cohesion even in celebratory dances and battle scenes. The sets occasionally verged on being tacky (and what the hell are American cacti doing in a Chinese desert?). The prologue and opening act, The Departure of Xishi, were also pretty slow and predictable.

After that, however, the quality just builds and builds: Jiang reveals impressive theatrical movement in The Love and Betrayal of Diao Chan, in which she locks horns with a smashingly swaggering Guan Yu, played by Peng Chiquan. Then, with Concubine Yang's Drunken Stupor, she manages to combine delirious physical comedy with truly heartbreaking poignancy.

Zhaojun Crossing the Border features probably her best singing, as well as a refreshingly revisionist take on the story: perhaps the heroine might actually have learnt to be happy when married off to the barbarians. Truly a tour de force performance.

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Oct 2009

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.

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 1 Oct 2009

Some interesting decisions: actors are allowed to keep their native accents, a decision which is surprisingly unjarring: American, Australian, Singapore/Malaysian, Filipino, Finnish. Jaclyn Tan's evocative set rises almost out of nowhere: sacks of sand become the square borders of the stage, a colossal crucifix covered in flowers is wheeled in, boys in lumberjack shirts sharpen axes, generating real sparks of fire in the background as Death pulls the black cloth curtain towards the very front of the stage. Live music works beautifully: the use of trained singers results in unexpectedly thrilling renditions of Lorca's song segments.

Acting-wise, Simon Thompson stands out as a taut, tortured Leonardo, chilling the performance space with his very presence. Frustratingly, the Bride, Rummana Yamanie, does not quite bring out the vocal subtleties of her crucial role. Other small complaints: recorded music doesn't work in Scene One, over-long epilogue of mourning, and of course, the constantly falling flower petals. Still a truly breathtaking production.

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 26 Sep 2009

Granted, the show isn't as sharp and aesthetically gripping as the New York / Chicago group Neo-Futurists' Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which inspired much of the format. Nevertheless, it's fun: the genre ensures high-energy and instant-gratification, and the writers have decided to go heavy on the comedy and (slightly out-of-date) current affairs commentary.

Very few pieces fall flat: Very Anal Cheerleader doesn't register many laughs, nor oddly enough, did the rather cute Ode to Youtube (basically a live performance of Daft Bodies). Much more giggleworthy are the extended Korean, Beijing Olympics – Budget and Ah Beng and the Bee (in which spelling bee contestants are challenged to spell things like "kao peh kao bu"). A few rather anarchically eccentric pieces such as Dead People Don't Hoola find their way in too, along with more serious turns like Do You Like Your Work.

Perhaps most importantly, every member of the cast pulls her/his weight – this is probably the most polished piece of youth theatre I've seen, barring the semi-professional Young & W!LD team (which didn't create or direct their own pieces, after all). Hopefully How Drama can become a sustained presence on the performance calendar, bringing in some newer voices into the scene.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 29 Aug 2009

Still I have to complain - and somehow, this feels like a minor quibble - that the epic monologue about a mad scientist proposing an alternative theory to global warming makes very little metaphorical sense, has a tenuous relationhip with current events, and follows a sequence so unbroken, prolonged and unclear that it does make me drowsy. Please tighten, separate, clarify and vary the voice.

Why am I being so lenient on the substance of this show? Because I really love the style. Mux breathes new creative energy into the world of performance here - and we need that, badly.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 11 Aug 2009

Broadway 4 Suakus is well-named. It is a dummy's guide to the most popular songs from some of the biggest Broadway musical hits. You get to tick off the songs and musicals that you recognize as the cast sing their way through Broadway history.

But it is really the comedy and not the songs that drives the show. The best part of Broadway for Suakus is how the characters earnestly try to clean up the raunchiness of some of the Broadway songs. The most memorable performance is the simultaneous singing of My Heart Belongs to Daddy and When You're Good to Mama by Lim and Lau, and de Rozario and Tan respectively - especially because of the way the show played with the cheeky innuendo of Lau singing the song to Lim as his "Daddy".

Drinks are available while the 5-people comedy sketch show provides the music and laughs so the show is very much like a dinner theatre performance. All in all, Broadway 4 Suakus proved to be a delightful night, perfectly timed to last no longer than it needs to entertain you.

4 out of 5, Vivienne Tseng, 16 Oct 2009

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 16 Oct 2009

Several works stood out. I thought Adeline Ee's Echo had a high level of complexity in the movement vocabulary, concept and production – it was also well danced by a group of articulate young performers. Another well-performed and -structured work was Loss by dancer-choreographer Seow Yi Qing, while Chiew Pei Shan's dancers also revelled in the complex rhythms and movements of her Gasp. B by Kiran Kumar incorporated highly original theatricality and explored entertainment and performance in terms of exchanges between audience and performer. Mohd Rizwan Bin Kamis's Malay-influenced Jalinan Darah Putih included some original moves danced with a lot of energy. A pleasing aspect of all choreography was a lack of pretension. The pieces were honest and well rehearsed, and the ideas were clearly portrayed.

Inevitably there was a high level of predictability, with most of the choreography derived from the young artists' training or the companies that they have performed with. In response to this, I feel many of the works would have benefited from some intense mentoring during the creative process rather than the participants having to create a finished product for a competition. Young artists need platforms for taking risks and an environment that fosters process development – perhaps a simple "show and tell" showcase of works-in-progress would promote creativity and throw up some real surprises. Nevertheless, contemporary-dance choreography in Singapore certainly needs a boost and this is a wonderful opportunity for new talents. There should be more of such choreographic platforms in a variety of formats.

Stephanie Burridge, 3 Oct 2009

The bilingualism of the play gives it some wonderfully subversive strength: besides the natural tension that arises from a character speaking in Mandarin and another replying in English, the casting runs counter to our expectations of language: a mother speaks English to her Mandarin-speaking daughter while emphasizing the importance of shark's fin soup to Chinese culture, and the President of Singapore is a Mandarin-speaking woman. It also provides an occasion for us to see the PRC students of NUS at their artistic best: Yang Meilin stood out as a spoiled bride, while Luan Haoran consistently earned laughs as a hyperactive salesman whether advertising products in operatic Mandarin or rock-lyric English.

Tech work is also particularly good - lighting designer Lim Woan Wen and sound designer Darren Ng conspire to create a thoroughly uncanny visual and aural soundscape for the fable, and set designer Wong Chee Wai's gargantuan aluminium snowflake of a tree has to be seen to be believed. My complaints? Actors weren't always as nuanced or lively as they could've been, and the play's ending was an anti-climax. Still, an impressive show – this kind of collaboration should happen more often.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Mar 2009

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 10 May 2008

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 23 May 2008

Hamletmachine, as staged by the cohort of graduating actor-students from the TTRP, pounced with much ferocity but I found little that really captured my imagination or even attention. The sparse text of the original script was expanded by way of forceful repetition and movement sequences of great kinetic energy but I did not feel that these cohered to create meaning or offer new perspectives. Even when considered as individual vignettes inspired by the text, I felt that the images created, while striking and well-executed, were less than compelling: there wasn't the sense of any new ground being broken, something to be hoped for due to the nature of the work. The international cast proved to be charismatic and fiery performers but I was also disappointed that the production did not really give them the opportunity to showcase much range.

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 31 May 2008

4.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 4 Jun 2008

Unfortunately, most are simply too pedestrian to affect – the play ends, for example, with the cast holding candles which they then place around a darkened stage to symbolize hope for a better age – and do not really work together to create a strong and clear message either.

The play is also not helped by the repetition and dragged out movements which mar the pacing of the play, and the copious amounts of melodramatic shouting and wailing of lines that, at least in translation from Manipuri to English, are reductive pronouncements and truisms which add little to the content. Nine Hills is interesting as an insight to contemporary theatre in India and as a peek into some ethnic cultural arts but, on the whole, I was left unimpressed and unmoved as the play droned on.

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Jun 2008

But about halfway through the show, somewhere in the rotating-shadows sequence, I got bored – rather than any sense of intensification or progress in the insanity, I was experiencing simply period after period of chaos, with no truly new elements introduced to make me gasp and wonder - not much of a resolution at the ending, either. Summary: cool concept and tech, and some amazingly talented dancers, but this show needs some structural dramaturgy, quick.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 25 Jul 2008

Here, we've got scenes of an insane Chinese Singaporean stage magician trying to stop his dead mother from doing the "tak boleh tahan" dance, or engaged in a schizophrenic hawker centre conversation with a well-brushed Indian man, with violence and racial tensions bubbling alongside a bizarre sense of tolerance and mutual good humour. Or there's that scene in a school office where a Malay principal confronts a Chinese girl who refuses to sing the National anthem because her mother was robbed by Malay gangsters and she can't bear anything in the language. Aarrrgh, it's not written with polish, but it's all urgently strange and unabashedly discontent with the way Singapore is today. Quality aside , it's impossible to watch this and come away feeling nothing.

2.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 3 Aug 2008

At the core of Tree Duet is a meditative journey narrated by a wistful Paul Rae about the simple pleasures of living - remembering, contemplating, even something as basic as drinking - and what we stand to lose if we don't stop ourselves from being caught up in consumerism and convenience and don't take the time to just breathe and reflect on our time in the world once in a while.

The second half of the double-bill, Ho Tzu Nyen's House of Memory, however, takes a more academic approach to this theme of remembering and forgetting and is essentially a lecture on the craft of memorization. What fascinates is how the text narrated live by the visual artist and film-maker is accompanied by an hour-long film which stitches together scenes from various old movies. Sometimes the images selected are literal, other times they are metaphorical but they are always well-chosen to accompany the different beats of the text, save in the last five minutes when, I felt, the artist was much too heavy-handed.

4.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Aug 2008

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 22 Aug 2008

(Note: I have not commented in detail about the plays themselves as I am actually one of the judges of the still-ongoing competition.)

No rating given, Kenneth Kwok, 25 Aug 2008

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 7 Sep 2008

Still, I've got beef with the performance. Conceptually, it's just hammering the same point over and over again - we're modern-day people, cut loose from the moorings of our heritage, blah-di-blah - and while this does come to life well as the nervous energy of the displaced, in the middle I started to get quite bored. Not so crazy about the ripping up of paper scrolls at the end, either - it was neither sufficiently elegant nor chaotic enough to generate a satisfying conclusion. Nonetheless, I've gotta recognise the facts: this is a bloody significant work by a locally based choreographer and homegrown dancers. This could change the dance scene as we know it.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 12 Sep 2008

Dario Fo's The Virtuous Burglar, on the other hand, starts off slow and then gets funnier and funnier as more actors crowd onto the luscious set. It's a very good choice for a performance: absurd, salacious and more or less culturally universal – though some effects were spoiled by actors speaking much too fast and garbling their words.

Both plays also share some basic directorial flaws: scripts aren't mined enough to reveal hidden tensions and character tics and actors aren't given enough confidence in or awareness of their bodies, hampering the physical comedy. As it is the show comes off as a rather good student production, but only that. A drama group representing the whole of NUS should aspire to professional standards.

No rating given, Ng Yi-Sheng, 22 Oct 2008

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 Nov 2008

4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 9 Apr 2008

The production was meant as a showcase for LASALLE's first cohort of BA (Hons) Acting graduates and, in that regard, however, Clark was a resounding success. Led by a charming performance by Crispian Chan as the bumbling reporter Clark Cant investigating the troubles in Sarajevo, the ensemble cast of actors impressed with their confidence, clarity and commitment to their various roles with Rayann Condy as a prostitute with a heart of gold the obvious standout (special mention also goes to the precision of Emanorwatty Saleh's dramatic soundscape). It is a pity that none of the cast was Singaporean as, judging by the quality of tonight's performances, our local students are missing out on a real opportunity for quality training through LASALLE's BA (Hons) Acting programme under Edith Podesta.

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 28 Mar 2008

Note to Hennedige: Madonna would like her fashion designer (circa 1989) and hairstylist (circa 2006) back.

4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 7 Dec 2007

2.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 8 Dec 2007

3 out of 5, Malcolm Tay, 27 Feb 2009

Nonetheless, certain scenes stand out for their excellence: you will laugh your ass off in the Oracle sequence, where Mandarin and Korean-speaking actors improvise a discussion over a journey of great danger (in my case, Dr Jeungsook Yoo counseled Patricia Toh on how to climb mountains and defeat villains with kung fu and sub-machine guns). Also terribly funny but also painful is the plastic surgery sequence, where a peppy voiceover administers excruciating treatments on the actors, including skin-bleaching and artificial iris transplants.

Perplexity aside, it's easy to enjoy the infectious energy of these actors, especially Yoo, whom I'll remember for her wild, gimlet eyes as well as her powerful voice and movement work. Once again, yay for intercultural collaborative exercises – they take us to such strange and wonderful places.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 20 Nov 2009

In Meow!, we accompany a mechanic and his salesgirl wife on a car journey. Aside from the young Malay couple's cat (played with winning charm by a charismatic Herman Yadav) which appears in occasional dream sequences, there is no escape for the audience from the endless bickering between the husband and wife as they fight over his impotency, her nouveau riche ambitions, her obsession with her cat and his preoccupation with his past. And yet my attention never wavered over the play's two hours because of the ferocious electricity and surprising humour of Elangovan's script and the engaging, sensitive performances by Dew M. Chaiyanara and Faizal Abdullah who make their crass characters feel like real people and not simply mouthpieces for a treatise on the issue of class in Singapore.

The play's surreal and bloody end leaves an indelible mark and is a potent reminder of everything that is wrong in our beautiful garden city. Meow! is a small, low-budget production that comes across a little raw, a little unpolished but boy, does it scratch your eyes out!

4 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 29 Nov 2009

Act I: Agamemnon is a decidedly dodgy patchwork, involving poor singing, over-the-top histrionics, a way-too-long-and-static intro monologue and clownery which utterly eludes the logic of theatre. Act II: Elektra, on the other hand, is brilliant and powerful, thanks in no small part to the eponymous star of the piece, Cara Whitehouse, who plays the raving, dynamic anti-heroine with aplomb (and she can sing, too!). Her earthy, violent interactions with the other characters rivet you to your seats – but this drama subsides with the stirring, yet disperse Act III: Orestes, a non-narrative piece imagining the hero's struggles with the Fury and Apollo in his mind. This, one of my friends said, more than anything else you get in Singapore theatre, is the manifestation of tragedy and catharsis.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 26 Nov 2009

(What's it about? Er ... loss, I think, and the senselessness thereof.)

4.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 4 Dec 2009

There's a moment in the play when it seems that Cat, Lost and Found is curling up around a statement about choice and destiny but then it continues wandering, focused more on telling its winding tale than in settling in a single spot.

And what a remarkable tale it is: in a crumbling, soon-to-be-demolished cinema, a cat falls in love with a woman and tries to become a man so that they can be together. Along the way, a series of surreal events unfold - reincarnation, demonic possession.

As expected for the company, Cat is full of surprises, as physical movement, puppetry, props, etc. are used in interesting ways to actualize the wacky imagination of the play's creator. Even the way a simple rooftop fight is staged offers a different perspective from what we normally see. These help construct the realm of magical realism that the play is situated in but, to be honest, not all truly excite or fascinate. Some are amusing in their outsized preposterousness but others are simply bizarre. A few of the off the wall aspects of the play actually annoy - I'm not too keen on the actors' strange voice work, for example. I also doubt that this entertaining but slight work will leave a deep impression on audience members.

Still, the overall experience is certainly an improvement from that of watching director / playwright Oliver Chong's last work, the muddled Pinocchio's Complex, due to a stronger sense of narrative and a more relaxed sense of play.

3 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 4 Dec 2009

Production values are high: the set of naked light bulbs, joss stick and bonsai tree is breathtaking in its simplicity. Overall, however, the effect is once of distance - playwright Bryan Tan assigns no names or cultural markers to his characters, filling their mouths instead with overblown eloquence: metaphors of "misty wilderness" and "strange, forbidden fruit". It's a relaxing one-hour evening of music and storytelling, but don't expect anything raw or gripping or heart-stopping. In short, don't expect anything conventionally dramatic.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 2 Dec 2009

The piece isn't perfect, though: there isn't much action on stage in most of the scenes, the resolution is slightly unsatisfying, and the themes really aren't that revolutionary or taboo-smashing. Among the cast members, only Neo Swee Lin stands out with her garrulous warmth, and the singing of the pantun was generally – ahem - bad. I'm also grateful to dramaturg Haresh Sharma for shaving the play down to 90 minutes – the original length of three hours would've been just too long.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 1 Dec 2009

However, one thing stays the same: you will still laugh your ass off. Highlights include some inspired remixes of Christmas Carols by the choir of the Church of Perpetual Succour (Do You See What I See and this year's National Day theme song, God Rest You Merry Gentlemen and Long De Chuan Ren), as well as a Pondan News Asia interview with MDA representative Amy Chua. The biggest act of the night, though, is the appearance of infamous beauty queen Ris Low, portrayed with a spot-on accent by Judee Tan. Though the scene sends her up and skewers her, it also pays an intelligent tribute to the force of her stardom - and amazingly, the oft-spouted "Boomz" punchlines just don't get old.

Oddly enough, the old-time favourites don't work so well - there are odd, draggy moments in the Christmas Carol send-up and the Madonna musical Nativity. It's also an issue of chemistry: younger actors Tan Shou Chen and Dwayne Lau aren't quite able to match the stage presence of Chestnuts founder Jonathan Lim. Rather, I'm intrigued by the emergence of the non-parodic scenes, which work as miniature plays in themselves, highlighting fundamental divides in our society: mainland Chinese pride vs. yuppie Singaporean Anglophilia, heteronormativity vs. camp gay hedonism. Lim's clearly more than just a funnyman, and it's starting to show in his comedy.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 29 Dec 2009

The format of the production is a sketch show, with some scenes only a minute long while others run for around five. The innocent and playful misadventures on display (catching a ball, falling in love, competing to see who is more handsome) are great for children but I am confident even adults will find these modest narratives amusing and giggle-worthy because of the unexpected ways in which they are presented - though one shouldn't expect big howls of laughter.

Indeed, despite the endless charming little surprises on offer, I must say that I eventually felt the law of diminishing returns kick in as the production (which has no verbal text or musical accompaniment) continued along the length of its two hour running time. Because it is so enchantingly bizarre, Mummenschanz is the sort of show you simply must see at least once in your life! - but not necessarily ever again.

3.5 out of 5, Kenneth Kwok, 18 Jan 2010

Yet it's also this very sense of unorganized play that makes this mini-musical so enjoyable. The ensemble are utterly irreverent in their retelling of King Solomon/Sulaiman's love for Balqis, the Queen of Sheba: they refer to her as "Miss B", show them sharing a joint of marijuana after a feast, and present the famous scene where she tests the king's wisdom as a TV gameshow. Interestingly, the roles of the two romantic leads are rotated among different members of the cast – there's even a female Sulaiman at one point. And all this anarchy is without agenda: the barrage of cross-dressing and tomfoolery is punctuated with heartfelt exclamations of "Shahada!", with a conclusion simply reiterating the fleeting nature of human love in the face of eternity.

A few more shout-outs. Junainah Yusoff's set design is fabulous: she's turned the Arts House Gallery into the interior of a Middle Eastern bridal tentage, with swathes of cloth hanging from the walls and ceiling, while we sit on cushions, watching the action and eating sultanas and cakes and sipping rose tea. And although all the actors deserve credit for their energy and creativity (they devised the script themselves), Hatta Said and Gloria Tan stand out for their skills in physical acting and comedy.

An enjoyable evening indeed.

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 14 Feb 2010

The music is fine, very fine - pieces like Haunted and In My Dreams are wonderfully compelling, and cellist Leslie Tan and singer Gani Abdul Karim create surprisingly chilling sound effects to accompany the narrative. These are songs that can stand the test of time, and that deserve to be heard by new audiences in contemporary arrangements. I'm also a fan of the presentation style, sophisticated yet intimate, accentuated by the fact that we've stripped off our shoes to enter the UCC Dance Studio.

However, the story is monstrously melodramatic - are we really still hung up about World War II tragedies? - tempered only by Chan's voice of subtle irony as he describes his this Gothic/kabuki tale of Singapore. Plus, the decision to set most of the tale in 1988 conjures up very few memories for the university-age crowd, most of whom were barely born in that decade (Note: the musical is being staged as part of NUS Arts Festival 2010). We also want more development of character in this very simple plot - showing, not just telling how these characters are "reckless" and "modern". A couple of clashing notes here and there too. But still, a lovely evening.

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 13 Mar 2010

I loved it because it was a picture of ourselves: spirits of late capitalism and technology, yet oddly rooted to tradition nonetheless.

I have to admit, however, that part of the fascination came from the intimacy – the UCC Theatre Green Room had a seating capacity of only about 20 – and I wasn't crazy about the de-sexualised, de-commercialised reprise of the dance in ugly leotards at the close. Still, this is a thrilling work, especially coming from a young choreographer. Hoping for more to come.

4 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 6 Mar 2010

Now for the plays themselves: I was extremely impressed with the beginning of Daniel Koh's Staying Over, and how it communicates the utter ethnological strangeness of the upper-middle class bungalow-dwelling Singaporean nuclear family. The inclusion of actresses from Migrant Voices and The Necessary Stage's Theatre For Seniors programme is an excellent touch, adding Malay and Teochew to the English language discourse. However, once we get to the central plot, the show loses focus – it is never clear why and how the protagonist decides to create a birthday play for the maid, and the actor playing him just doesn't assert enough stage presence. Good movement direction overall, though.

Leonard Choo's Maggie and Milly and Molly and May is lively and well-paced, but unfortunately it's one of those plays about suicidal gay men that rehashes every gay cliché in the book. True, it's extremely self-aware: the protagonist actually mocks the drama-drama nature of the exchanges going on, and there's a big load of comedy in the mix. Still, it gets on an out gay man's nerves. Oh yeah – the two lead actors here need to make their characters more three-dimensional, more human. Too artificial at present.

(I'm not including Nitin Venkateswaran's Rebellion in this review. It's only being staged on Friday and Saturday out of the four nights, but don't feel bad if you miss it, as it's there principally to give Buds acting students some exposure and the quality's still at a school assembly level. Sorry.)

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 24 Feb 2010

3.5 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 27 Mar 2010

The anthology of micro-works – monologues, duologues, a dance item - I saw on opening night was crippled by technical problems and at times awkward to watch: unsurprisingly, the pieces lacked polish and actors came across as over-eager (especially in the limited confines of a Substation classroom). The items were also surprisingly safe; I was expecting riskier, more off-kilter experiments.

But I believe low-key, no-frills spaces like A Seed are extremely important. The very act of being in a public performance can be a great learning experience for these writers and performers, many of whom are students. A Seed deserves our support: the festival which runs for the next three weekends at The Arts House / The Substation with different performances each night, is pay-as-you-want, features a range of different art forms and the evening runs in blocks of 60 - 90 minutes. Take it in the spirit it is intended and have a little fun. There is always a diamond in the rough to be discovered.

(A Seed also reminds me of the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when independent theatre companies were sprouting up all over the place with lots of fresh, young faces. Whatever happened to Thank You Maskman? The small Theatre? Peel Arts?)

Kenneth Kwok, 8 May 2010

And yet there's something hollow about the work. The purported theme is the experience of urban alienation, illustrated by the thread of a narrated tale of a man who transforms into an orchid mantis. And yet the elements of the show don't add up - the images are frequently more seductive than expressive of unease, and the concept of the universal city is jarred every now and then by something oddly specific - a historic photo of Kuala Lumpur, or the singing of Mamula Moon, the Hawaiian love song which controversially shares the same tune as the Malaysian national anthem. Plus, I kept on being rattled by actress Shanthini Venugopal's prim and proper, English teacher-ish style of narration - the occasion demanded something more experiential, more open to the sense of wonder in the performance.

3 out of 5, Ng Yi-Sheng, 7 May 2010

Kenneth Kwok, 4 Jul 2010