28 Mrach
2014
“A Beautiful Chance Encounter of a Sewing Machine
and an Umbrella on an Operating Table”---Beauty
from Inelegance
Country: Singapore
Company: Teater Ekamatra
Director: Irfan Kasban
Cast: Farah Ong, Hanz Medina, Lynn Yang,
Nabilah Said, Nur Khairina, Rohana Akhbar, Ruby Jayaseelan, Tan Jia Yee, Vignesh
Singh, Zul Mahmod
Location I watched: an open field on
Victoria St. near Bugis MRT station
I went to a performance by Teater Ekamatra
at an open field in Bugis. The performance was presented for 3 days and it
started at 8 pm every night. It was free. During this period, a two-story
building with steel framework suddenly appeared at the part of a field in the
centre of Bugis town. It was the performance site. Around the building, vinyl
sheets for the audience were laid down, and around the sheets, fences were set
up, surrounding them. At the building, about 10 performers were using sets or prepared
properties and showing each movement freely. The sets and properties were
clothes, stones, a chair or a mirror, made by ordinary things. The audience
around the building could watch them freely from anywhere. There did not seem
to be any story or a performance with a flow on the whole. So, the audience
could come or leave anytime. The running time was for about 90 minutes in
total. I came there 10 minutes late and stayed until the end of the
performance.
I was bitten by mosquitoes, so it was quite tough
to stay there. But I did not give up. Because the performance was something
that made me happy even at a glance. Such a raw unrefined performance I can see
in Singapore! (I am praising, of course.)
Each of the actors played a character and
seemed to be performing freely as they wanted to. They were performing on their
own, regardless of other characters, but sometimes interacting with the others.
A man is putting clothes on the back of a chair and holding it like a child or
a lover. A woman is ringing little bells tied up on her feet and parading like
a queen, making an old cloth flutter like a gown. A character is playing on a
swing, using cloth tied to the steel framework like a hammock. There is someone
splashing water from a pail. A character who arrives from the opposite end of
the building with a travel bag, starts cleaning up the mess on the ground to a
shopping trolley. A character is walking around thrusting a mirror in the faces
of the audience. A character ties her hands with a string held by another
character. And they both started walking around the building, etc.
Is this a moving tableau vivant for 90
minutes? Or a metaphor of a mental hospital? Or a parody of our daily life,
human history from ancient times to the present, or theatre arts?
This performance’s title is taken from a
phrase of poetry by Comte de Lautréamont,
who had an influence on Surrealism. I felt that the main
purpose of this performance was to find unexpected beauty and stimulation from
a vulgar and unreasonably messy surface. Especially in theatre arts, beauty that moves the audience
does not always arise from something stylish, fine or clean. When someone is expressing something, exposing his/her body in
front of another, the unrefined touch and energy fresh from the body can strike
him/her watching it, and beauty is also created from there, I think. That is
why I was pleased that the performance ambience was unrefined and cheap. For
that, or precisely for that reason, a moment is quite impressive and
outstandingly beautiful without any logical thinking.
In the
audience, there were a few people bringing a bottle of wine and drinking
merrily. Since we did not have to concentrate on the performance storyline or
meaning, it was possible to relax and watch it casually. I thought, we should
not think too hard about this performance. Although I could have left halfway
through the performance, I stayed as I was curious how it would end. It did end
when the director, Irfan Kasban appeared and tapped each actor on the shoulder,
signaling to stop their performance. The actors put on a hat similar to a
bamboo strainer with a screen covering their face, and walked out of the venue
one by one. Maybe they walked back to their company office near Arab Street. By
the way, the publicity flier of this performance had a design using only
letters. It is quite beautiful, like the Russian Avant-Garde design. (7 April
2014)
Click here to read the Japanese review