Goodbyes seem to be the hardest words.
At time it is because there are too many fond memories of the past. Other time, it is probably because we have fear of the unknown future. As illustrated by two recent performances.
The first was a local Chinese musical entitled Remember To Say Goodbye (记得说再见). A musical largely based on, and probably written for, the journey of a local music production house/cafe – TCR Music (弹唱人).
The songs? Most are from the era of XinYao 新谣 (in the 80s) with some newly written songs and a few Taiwanese MinYao民谣 (songs written by young people in Taiwan, mostly students during 70s – which inspired the XinYao era in Singapore).
The story? Coming-of-age journey of three close friends who formed a XinYao group in the school. One of them left for Taiwan to pursue his music career but back eventually when it failed to take off.
The audience? I attended a matinee show on a Saturday afternoon in Esplanade Theatre. I estimated a near 70% house – which would be considered a great success. Based on the facial expression and words after the show, many were touched.
The performance? Not unlike another local musical on Xin Yao – If There’s Seasons天冷就回来 , what most audience will take home with them from the performance are the warm revisions of the songs they grew up with. Not the story. Not the acting. Not the characters. In other words, just the songs.
When the character journeys are generic and interchangeable (i.e., if you interchange the story of any characters and the play still goes on), or if you feel the storyline is heading no where and yet it is still no ending, you know that they are there to allow more songs to be sung. One might wonder why not have a concert instead.
That’s not to say that the story of the XinYao pioneers are not worth telling in a theatrical form. Quite the opposite. But letting nostalgia takes the centre stage, regardless of how many good songs and great singing packed in, does not make the story telling compelling. Saying too much, sometime, is not telling enough.
(PS. I strongly suspect this writer’s view is biased because he did not get to hear the one song he wanted to hear the most – 唇边的笑意).
The second performance is Gemuk Girls by The Necessary Stage.
It is not everyday that one would come across a play that not only is strongly written, but equally strong in performance.
For people familiar with Gilmore Girls, Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit and Siti Khalijah bounced off each other rapid and witty lines similar to the TV characters. The fact that they were doing it live just add another notch to the wow factor.
But the similarities with the TV show ends there.
The playwright chooses a subject that is certainly not TV friendly; a subject that started in the past and continues to haunt those affected while (probably) ignored/forgotten by the great majority of the members of this society – Internal Security Act (ISA).
And among the story telling of how the character grandfather was detained under ISA and its impact to the rest of the family, the playwright gives Siti’s character (the grand daughter) some frank, loud and clear arguments against the use of ISA. So frank and in-your-face are the arguments that I stopped and wondered if the audience were caught surprised (or even shocked). But putting this performance along with the fact that an ex-detainee (Teo Soh Lung) had contested in the recent General Election as well as publishing a book detailing her detention, I begin to see these as efforts to bid farewell to not just a past but also very much a presence of ours. However, for a nation whose majority have been taught to believe that the society has been made safe by the ISA, expect this goodbye to be an even more difficult one to wave.
As for emotional depth that the cast delivered, it made me want to read the script and watch the play all over again. That is what good actings do to you – they make great writing desirable.
