Taking Notes

I stayed for the post show talk of A Note Went Off In My Head by A Group Of People. I was curious about their process.

Unlike other conventional theatre performances created by playwrights and directors, which my interest as an audience is more on the end product than the process,  A Note Went Off In My Head was created by 4 actors with no playwright nor director except for a ‘helm-er’.

Interesting choice of word.

In the post show talk/Q&A, Oliver explained the role of ‘helm-er’ as one who oversaw the individual creations and raised questions to each actor when they were brought together (my impression).

Another question was asked on how Suzuki Method of Actor Training influenced the piece. A: While there were traces of Suzuki method deployed by actors, it was not deliberately used to shape the final piece.

Another question on how light and sound designs were incorporated into the piece, especially during later part of the piece when a series of tableux were flashed out between elaborate light and sound scape. A: other than the minimum time required for actors to move from one tableu to the next, it was left to the light and sound designers to decide on the length of each tableu (and the black out in between). Got to mention that the pairing of Darren Ng (sound designer) and Lim Woan Wen (light designer) has increasingly become a reason by itself to attend a performance (see also suitCASES).

Each actor took the opportunity to explain the journey of their character. While that explained some of the flow of the piece for me, but it was not essential.

Did I like the end product?

I did enjoy it. The concept of overlapping 4 spaces into one has a lot of potentials to raise questions on our usually isolated space in modern living. While AGOP’s effort was fun to watch, at times I did yearn for more details and more organic flow.

Two instances. When Edith first ran into her apartment on high heels, we saw another character watching upwards towards the ceiling following the directions of her loud foot steps – she lived upstair. Nelson repeatedly lie down on a bench in the living room before getting up and out of the apartment, until the last time when he came back to the bench with two other characters already on it – to which he sat down without lying down, and they took turn to switch on their TV. In both cases, the not-so-clear motivation of Edith and Nelson gave me the feeling that the sequences were more designed than a character journey.

But I did like the mails which Tim as a home based radio DJ received … especially the last one which was actually the suicide note prepared by Edith –> the rare moment when we saw the space connected. I would have preferred to see more of that.

I’m afraid I’ve digressed. Referring to the production note, AGOP said that ‘In this lastest production, we set out to explore the relationships that describe our living conditions, the sounds around us, the sounds within us, and the sounds imagined by us. More importantly, through the conscious removal of perceivable links between seeming “narratives”, A Note Went Off in My Head attempts to pay attention to the experience of incoherence and, by extension, the beauty of discordance.’

Ah, so the exploration was on the sound and not the space. And the not-so-clear narratives were intended.

Something for this audience to think about.

Bird a cage

The Thai restaurant which friends and I went to prior to the show was so generous with the portions and ingredients that I worried I won’t have sufficient blood in my brain to keep me awake throughout the whole show.

That did not happen.

A Group Of People, which is what they call themselves. Each of them is an experienced practitioner in local theatre scene, officially/unofficially working for different theatre companies but would come together regularly for training based on the Suzuki method of actor training (which they learnt via a workshop in New York conducted by SITI company). I understand that each of them would take turn to lead/direct a public performance each year.

This form of exploring/showcasing auteurship is not common here where most theatre companies’ auteurship is highly determined by the Artistic Director. This presents immense possibilities to what audience could expect to see – expect the unexpected.

I missed their first installation: Liv, conceived and directed by Nelson last year. So I was looking forward to catch this one

The opening sequence set the tone of the performance for me. Without words, the four characters went through their daily routine as office workers, often making identical gestures or sounds even though they were not looking at each other. The mundane and repeating postures of them formed a dance like sequence, and carried a weird sense of absurdity with the playful lighting and haunting music.

Slowly words came into the performance … and there were a lot of words. According to the performance programme, Edith (who conceived and directed this piece) used and incorporated texts from names such as Samuel Beckett, Friedrich Nietzsche and Charles Bukowski. They were beautiful texts to read.

But long texts have always been a big challenge for actors, especially texts which were not originally written for performance (poetry, prose, thoughts). Here I found myself fighting to separate the uttered words from the background music … either the volume of the music was too high or the energy of actors to project the lengthy words was not high enough. The shortage of conviction from the uttered words presented challenge for audience (me) to construct a smooth flow of the performance for myself.

Fortunately there were plenty of segments without words … which were my favourite parts of the performance. Playful and humorous (e.g. Nelson talking to a driver of a tiny toy taxi , simulated rain scene outside the theatre), they revealed much more about the characters than words.

Still I found myself yearning for more … the title and texts of the play prepared me for something philosophical or absurd, but the performance was somewhat ‘too normal’ for me. It might not be the intention of the team but I wished the interactions among the characters were more wacky or chaotic. The emotions of the piece – I speculate them to be emotions arising from a search of the meaning of our existence via the mundane daily routine, seemed to be somewhat caged by the cautious/introvert characters.

Judging from the high number of theatre practitioners I saw among the audience, I suspected it presented particular interest/value to fellow practitioners – shall we have more collaborations of this form? Certainly a worthy exploration to me and I’m already looking forward to their next installation … presumably totally different from this one (just like i was told that this was totally different from Liv).

Maybe next time they would find a bird searching for a cage to fly into.

Just a thought.