PUBLISHED July 10th, 2012 12:22 pm | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 03:24 pm
Let me count the ways I love thee Lit Up. When given the opportunity to interview a number of artists and collectives representing at this year’s indie literature festival, I felt like a kid in a candy store. If there was ever proof that creativity is – despite what some people may think – flourishing in Sing, it can be witnessed at Lit Up.
In this feature, I’ll focus in on two of the ‘theatre’ performances that you can catch during Lit Up – which very much demonstrate that the creative writing scene in Singapore is alive and well, and there for the taking. The pieces are very different in subject and form, though both equally thought-provoking. One a devised piece of drama, organic in form and devised through improvisation and work-shopping. The other a scripted piece.
The City of Letting Go, performed by Deborah E. and Jing Yan below is the former.
Inspired by what it’s creators imagine Singapore could be like in 50 years time, the story is based around 2 childhood friends – one self-searching, the other self-deluded – living in a futuristic society governed by technology and development, trying to make sense of the world they now live in.
With class and social differences at the core of the piece, the performance explores and questions the idea of where you live, relationships between people and how they are impacted by living in a dark, futuristic world.
At the heart of this year’s Lit Up – Occupied Art – are the themes of space, memory and architecture, signifying a final bow to yet another iconic building – Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre, as it too is handed over for commercial development.
So it follows that ‘The City of Letting Go’ was devised as a pensive, reflective piece against the backdrop of sound and multimedia, to directly address the industrialization, development and technological advancement of a city. Through drawing from the imaginations of it’s creators, it is truly a cautionary message from their hearts about what may happen to us if we become too reliant on progress and image, and forget that which we take for granted – our surroundings.
The duo promise that, “on some level, audiences will be moved , if not a little bit scared of the potential reality that awaits us. But more importantly we hope it will remind people to keep hold of and remember their human hearts.”
On to the next! One fine Sunday I was lucky enough to actually watch a full rehearsal of Paper Men. Performed by The Common Folk…
Written by budding playwright Luke Vijay Somasundram and directed by company founder and up-and-coming director Christopher Fok (we say Fok is one to watch!), Paper Men is a wonderfully satirical piece that centres around the fact that journalists will do anything for a story or to save their career.
Under an impossibly ferocious, perpetually dissatisfied and quite frankly scary editor, a painfully eager to impress and rather clueless intern finds himself in quite a pickle as he struggles to make his mark. Influenced by his seniors, he finds himself stuck in a surreal web of bribery, blackmail, sensationalism and downright underhanded behavior in the pursuit to get the story out there with a source at all costs, in the name of human rights (can you feel my smirk?). This is a world of snitchers, whistleblowers and decoys where every twist and turn leads to more chaos.
The familiar words ‘don’t believe everything you read’ (in this case, that’s in the news) spring to mind. But how does Paper Men tie in with this year’s theme – Occupied Art? Look closer and you’ll see that once again space has its part to play. ‘Art has always been about context. I believe that for plays to be powerful, they should come in a timely fashion, all about being in the right place at the right time,” explains Fok. “Paper Men is important now in this period of Singapore history because the state media is being lambasted for their opportunistic and skewed portrayal of what is the truth. It is only the context, the space of a black box at Lit Up that allows Paper Men to cut close to the heart of the matter’.
Catch The City of Letting Go on Thursday 26th and Friday 27th July, 8.30pm & Paper Men on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th July, 7pm, Cost: Pay as you like (min $10) as part of Lit Up at Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre. For more information about location and programming see here.
Written by Ms Demeanour