PUBLISHED January 5th, 2015 10:00 pm | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 03:16 pm
With a theme that’s so close to our hearts (who hasn’t experienced a sense of loss?), this year’s M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is set to be slightly depressing and incredibly thought provoking. The annual festival returns with theatre practitioner and head of School of the Arts theatre faculty Sean Tobin, at helm. Having signed on for a 3-year term, we know that next year’s theme, Art & The Animal, was picked by him, and we’re quite psyched to see 2016’s offerings!
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Here are the five – with a total of 18 events from 8 countries, it was very difficult to pick just five – explorations of the theme we’re looking forward to this January. And don’t worry folks, it’s not entirely doom and gloom, you can expect plenty of humour, comedy, and redemption.
The Duchamp Syndrome
All immigrants lose something, being it identity, self-esteem, or quality time with family. Featuring an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner and a foul-mouthed cockroach named Tony in standup comedy routines (yes, really), Antonio Vega is Juan, a lonely Mexican janitor living in New York City. His loneliness, coupled with an imaginative mind, prompted him to create friends and companions out of bits and bobs. And things become more complicated when Juan’s mother obtains a tourist visa to see her son living the American Dream.
The Duchamp Syndrome runs 14-15 January 2015, 8pm, at Gallery Theatre, Basement 1, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897. Tickets are priced at $22.
With/Out
A tribute to Singapore’s first person to come out publicly with a HIV-positive status, With/Out is a faithful interpretation of Paddy Chew’s autobiographical monologue, Completely With/Out Character. Staged in collaboration with The Necessary Stage in 1999, Paddy died a few months after the performance concluded. It might not be the same, but through the use of multimedia and taped performances, we can relive Paddy’s ephemeral existence and his awareness of his own fragile mortality.
With/Out runs 14-18 January 2015, 8pm, at Black Box/Rehearsal Room, Centre 42, 42 Waterloo Street, Singapore 187951. Tickets are priced at $22.
How Loneliness Goes
Vacant and lonely, void and loss – while these qualities pervade this photography series by 41-year-old Tan Jun Nguan (who goes by Nguan), there is visible beauty in the sadness of his work. This is everyday life in Singapore captured through a melancholic lens.
How Loneliness Goes runs 14-25 January 2015, 10am-10pm, at ION Art, #04-01 ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn, Singapore 238801. Admission is free.
Mosaic
A lovesong to the Generation Y, Mosaic opens with a group of 20-somethings turning up at an 80s mosaic playground slated for demolition the next day. The production is funny, poignant, and nostalgic, addressing the continual loss of cultural, social, and historical heritage (very apt for SG50, we think). Ultimately, the tension between nostalgia and progress, the political and the personal, as well as holding on and letting go is one artistic intervention in the background of the larger Singaporean conversation every Lion City dweller should be interested in.
Mosaic runs 22-24 January 2015, 8pm, at Gallery Theatre, Basement 1, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897. Tickets are priced at $22.
White Rabbit Red Rabbit
Written by indie Iranian theatre maker Nassim Soleimanpour, White Rabbit Red Rabbit was his attempt to travel the world when he (physically) couldn’t after his passport was revoked for his refusal to complete compulsory military service. The festival’s unique presentation format will see four Singaporean actors – Lim Kay Siu, Pam Oei, Benjamin Kheng, and Karen Tan – read the play for the first time when they step on stage the night of the performance.
White Rabbit Red Rabbit runs 21-24 January 2015, 8pm, at Esplanade Recital Studio, 1 Esplanade Drive, Singapore 038981. Tickets are priced at $22.
Top Image: With/Out