Swimming with Sharks: Our verdict? One hell of a play!

PUBLISHED September 24th, 2012 12:24 pm | UPDATED January 21st, 2016 08:44 am

I’m usually skeptical of film to stage adaptations but my cynicism was firmly washed away recently having seen Pangdemonium’s production of Swimming with Sharks, currently running at the Drama Centre Theatre.

For those of you who didn’t catch our interviews with the cast (see here), it’s all about a Boss From Hell movie producer (Adrian Pang); a sexy, ambitious film maker (Janice Koh); a fish-out-of-water wannabe screenwriter (George Young)… each with a secret agenda. In the shark-infested waters of showbiz, it’s a matter of life and death. And someone is moving in for the kill…

Now for crunch time. What did we think?

Now there’s no need to beat around the bush on this. This is one hell of a play. Brilliantly humorous with tension that builds until you can’t take it anymore, hitting you with a massive twist at the end.

Though I did think it could be a tall order for Adrian Pang to fill the shoes of one of my favourite Hollywood actors, by golly did he give Kevin Spacey a good run for his money!

From the moment he bursts on stage, Pang gives a perfect performance as the nasty piece of work that is Buddy Ackerman as he expertly delivers the fantastic one-liners that the production is practically fizzing with. The stage is charged up with his character’s cheeky, sarcastic, brutal, megalomaniac, philandering and comical ways as he spits out brilliant belittling one liners like “you snot faced punk if you were in a toilet bowl, I wouldn’t bother flushing” as if it was absolutely what he was born to do. Though somehow despite being an absolute jerk, plus the sheer audacity and the snake-like ways of this character, you can’t help but love him for all his horrid Hollywood ways.

George Young as the naive, goofy and seemingly wet blanket of an intern Guy practically oozes pathetic foolishness out of his every pore and has it down pat right all the way to his slouchy posture, allowing for his spirit to be bashed and bruised under seemingly endless bullying and manipulation by Buddy.

Janice Koh plays the at-first-look cougar like, man-eating, uber-woman ways of Dawn Lockhart brilliantly before revealing other layers beneath, thanks to her relationship with Guy, leaving you wondering quite who she is screwing both metaphorically and figuratively until all is revealed at the end.

As the layers, twists and turns of the lies, betrayal, and backstabbing build up throughout, the systematic crushing of Guy’s character in the first half…
will seem absolutely tame in comparison to the craziness of the second half which is Guy’s payback time. I’d hate to give too much away here but let’s just say that George Young owns it in the superbly executed payback scene as he gets to play out the torture scenarios he has been dreaming about throughout his time as Buddy’s punch bag.

And yes it does get a little bit gruesome but despite all this you will be laughing at times and secretly cheering Guy on at others (am I wrong to admit this??) as he gets his own back on a lying, squirming, swearing Buddy who will try every trick in the book to save his backside.

Against the backdrop of great characters executed brilliantly by the leads, the scenes are brought together with imaginative transitions using snippets from iconic films like Fight Club which pull you back and forth between the stage and screen – a very nice touch.

Running until Sunday 7th October, I would definitely recommend you don’t miss a chance to see Swimming with Sharks for all the reasons above (because come on folks, it’s not like we are awash with lots of choice when it comes to the theatre here and this production’s right on the money!), but also because I give it a massive hats off as it entirely proves that our local theatre scene and actors can kick it with the best of them.

Swimming with Sharks is showing at the Drama Centre Theatre until Sunday 7th October. Performances run Tuesdays to Thursdays: 8pm, Saturdays: 3pm, Sundays: 3pm & 8pm – S$50, S$40, S$30, Fridays & Saturdays: 8pm. Standard – S$60, S$50, S$40. Please add to above price $3 Booking Fee (via Sistic here).

Tickets and photography compliments of Pangdemonium Productions.