Come follow us down the Rabbit Hole

PUBLISHED April 17th, 2013 01:13 am | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 03:22 pm

It’s not easy to give a neat synopsis of  ‘Rabbit Hole’ David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer winning play, which is the opening production of Pangdemonium’s 2013 season.

In a sentence, ‘Rabbit Hole ‘ is a drama that centres on the death of a young child. But it is so much more than that. It is a tale about suffering a devastating loss and the pain of missing what you once had. It’s also about pain that goes beyond the space circumscribed by the person who is gone. Grief is its own planet and everyone who goes there lives alone.  And grief is a difficult emotion to portray on stage.  The actors and director have to tread a fine line between melodrama, manipulation and icy distance.  This is the challenge of ‘Rabbit Hole’.

The play begins eight months after the death of four-year-old Danny in an accident.  The parents, Becca (Janice Koh) and Howie (Adrian Pang) are returning to their everyday existence after their loss. They move like highly functional but very fragile zombies through their lives.  Just eight months ago, they were a happy suburban family with everything they wanted. Now, they are caught in a maze of memory, longing, guilt, recrimination, sarcasm and tightly controlled rage from which they cannot escape. Becca cannot move beyond the preliminary stages of grief. Howie is battling to find a way to remember his son and yet move forward.

The other characters in the drama play members of the well-meaning but hapless extended family.   Becca’s sister Izzy (Rachel Seong Hui Xuan) can hardly get her own life together and her mother; Nat (Lok Meng Chue) takes great interest in celebrity lives and gossip.

Becca and Howie are grieving in diametrically opposite ways and this provides the central conflict of the play.  They are confronted with horrifically painful decisions — should they keep or get rid of their child’s things?  She wants to sell the house while he can barely stand the thought; she methodically strips the house of visual reminders of their son while he is unable to stop watching home movies of him. They attempt various coping mechanisms. But all around them are painful reminders that for others life goes on (Becca’s careless sister, Izzy, is pregnant). Becca tries to find closure by secretly seeking out Jason, the teenager (played by Eden Ang) who was responsible for Danny’s accidental death.

The audience will see Becca and Howie fall apart, have hard days and try to hide their pain. Then, there are good days. ‘Rabbit Hole’ has a sense of dark humour. It is a great script because it is so honest.

Pangdemonium, which claims to provide ‘kick-ass adventures in theatre’ is not a company to shy away from a challenge.  So far, it has presented five very memorable productions since it was launched two years ago: The Full Monty, Closer, Dealer’s Choice, Spring Awakening and Swimming With Sharks.  ‘Rabbit Hole’ launches Pangdemonium’s 2013 season, followed by the eagerly anticipated musical ‘Next to Normal’ and ending the year with the highly original romantic-comedy-drama ‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’.  The 2013 season theme is family relationships and resilience and sticking together in good times and bad.

So why was ‘Rabbit Hole’ chosen?  Director Tracie Pang, who is also the co-founder and joint artistic director of Pangdemonium, said ‘Rabbit Hole was a piece that had been on our radar for some time and this seemed to be the right point in our journey to do the show.’  Tracie also mentioned that the play is ‘a beautifully crafted piece of writing that feels very real. It is neither sentimental nor depressing; the characters are going through a tremendous journey to get to the other end of their ordeal. It is something that every parent fears and can relate to. Hopefully it helps us to understand and learn different ways to deal with grief and life.’

What were her greatest challenges when directing this play?

‘One of our big challenges is working with our UK set designer, we are learning to do all our meetings by Skype, so with the time difference, it makes for a very long day! Also on this piece we have a cast that ranges three generations with different backgrounds and training, and I need to make them a cohesive family unit. It is great to get these diverse talents working together.’

When asked what will attract people to watch this play, Co-Artistic Director, Adrian Pang said, ‘I think Rabbit Hole will resonate with anyone who has a loved one; the possibility of losing this person in unforeseen circumstances is very, very real.  My character of Howie, a grieving father, and a husband trying desperately to salvage his marriage, is one that is actually quite scary for me to play. As a father of two boys myself, there are some very potent and relatable feelings at play. It will be quite a challenge to “keep it together” in performance each night.’

He also added, “Rabbit Hole’ is a brilliant testament to family, to hope, to survival, and to the human spirit. The language written by the U.S playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is real and poetic at the same time; the characters are all very relatable; and the story contains a poignancy that creeps up on you and catches you unawares. And what’s refreshing is that it’s also funny! For a play about people dealing with a tragedy, it really is surprisingly full of humour and wit.  Ultimately, ‘Rabbit Hole’ reminds us all how fragile life is, how precious are those we love, and how every single day we have with someone we love is time to be treasured.”

The other cast members had this to say about Rabbit Hole:

Janice Koh

“I play the role of Becca in ‘Rabbit Hole’, who is finding her own way of dealing with the loss of her young child. What I like about the ‘Rabbit Hole’ is the raw and unsentimental way it looks at grief and mourning – that despite everyone’s best intentions, it is ultimately a solitary journey of recovery for those who are left behind. Having said that, I don’t think it’s a morose play about death. It is a wonderful exploration of family ties and relationships, of things better left unsaid, of what binds family together when there seems to be no hope left.”

Eden Ang

“I play Jason. I think anyone can recall an occasion as a child when we were wrongly accused of something. Jason is a boy who like any teenager, deserves a normal life. However, life doesn’t always go the way we want it to. He is forced to shoulder a responsibility he’s not ready for and has no choice but to mature up to cope with the emotional burden.”

Rachel Seong Hui Xuan

“I play Izzy, Becca’s entertaining sister who always has (in her mind) the best stories. She was the fun aunt who rolled around in the garden with Danny, and brought him toys and candy when she came to visit. She’s sometimes seen as insensitive and rude, but that’s only because she’s just direct and outspoken. She has no filter; her mouth sometimes says things before her brain has a chance to catch up. My favourite thing about the play is the relationships between the characters. Nothing is clear-cut, things are messy, and they don’t neaten up. The characters have to navigate through that mess, and the dialogue reflects that brilliantly. That’s what makes it exciting.”

Lok Meng Chue

“The character I play in Rabbit Hole is Nat. She is the mother of Becca (Rebecca, the protagonist) and Izzy (Isabel, the younger daughter) and is a sprightly and independent 70-year-old woman. Although she genuinely cares for her daughters, she is not the cloying type. Her weakness is she loves the sound of her own voice and therefore talks a lot. She has “theories” about the ups and downs of the lives of celebrities and well-known personalities she has read about in gossip magazines or watched on television. The play is a powerful and touching insight into the hearts and minds of people who have suffered loss. It celebrates the strength of the human spirit to accept, overcome and carry on despite traumatic life changes.”

So, that’s ‘Rabbit Hole’ – you have heard what the director and cast have said about this poignant, bittersweet play.  Don’t miss it!

Rabbit Hole will be on at the DBS-SRT Arts Centre, Merbau Rd, from 25 April to 12 May 2013.  For tickets and more information, visit www.sistic.com.sg and www.pangdemonium.com

Photography courtesy of Crispian Chan.