Monologues marred by uneven performances, bad writing

Bridget Fernandez (above) shone as a comical auntie in Tan Suet Lee's Love In A Time Of Covid.
Bridget Fernandez shone as a comical auntie in Tan Suet Lee's Love In A Time Of Covid. PHOTO: SINGAPORE REPERTORY THEATRE

The Singapore Repertory Theatre's maiden venture into Covid-19 programming on social media was a vivid demonstration of the promises and pitfalls of digital theatre, technical hiccups and all.

The premise: Nine writers and nine actors equal nine snappy monologues.

In theory, this was a good way to short-circuit the lengthy production process for a full-length play, and a format that seemed tailor-made for the short attention spans of an online audience.

In practice, the bite-sized brevity of each monologue proved to be a hard pill for some writers and actors to swallow. The production as a whole felt patchy, with uneven performances and some writing that struck wrong notes.

Some actors inhabited their personae effortlessly, but others could not settle in the short span needed.

Neo Swee Lin got things off to a rocky start in Jacke Chye's pedestrian Work/Home Balance, told from the point of view of an auntie who reconnects with her husband during their work-from-home routine.

The claustrophobic confines of the camera made her constant fringe fiddling extremely distracting. The visual joke of her dressy black top and necklace paired with sloppy too-short shorts was a cheap shot.

The weakest link in the writing chain turned out to be Dick Lee.

His work was meant as lyrics, not a spoken word piece, and it showed. Even the talented Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai could not rescue the mawkishness of the writing, which also boasted for its opening line a straight steal from William Wordsworth.

Wheelsmith's You've Been Here... All Along was raw but had potential.

Its clever use of the circuit breaker as an allegory and demonstration of the permanent challenges faced by the differently abled was a powerful message.

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The directorial choice of a blue-lit semi-darkness as a setting created an otherworldly mood, which set the piece apart. Unfortunately, the technical error during this piece meant some viewers missed the segment entirely after the livestream was reinstated in a different feed.

The standout pieces were the ones which used the intimacy of the "speaking directly to camera" format to create an emotional connection with the audience.

They included Sharul Channa's not-so-swinging single in Rishi Budhrani's Avocado Oil for whom circuit breaker is a breather from her nagging parents; Serene Chen's subtly haunted housewife in Dora Tan's deft sketch of domestic abuse in I'm Fine, Really; and Bridget Fernandez's comical auntie, complete with clumsy mobile phone angles, in Tan Suet Lee's Love In A Time Of Covid.

These three vivid sketches, melding seamlessly acting and writing, were reminders of the gift of good theatre craft.

But all that served was to remind this one audience member that nothing could replace the electric thrill of a carefully considered work shared in the live intimacy of a real theatre space.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 29, 2020, with the headline Monologues marred by uneven performances, bad writing. Subscribe