Battered, but unbeaten

The theatre community has been battered, but not beaten, by the pandemic in the past two years.

After a year's hiatus, The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards returns in its 20th edition to celebrate the unbowed spirit of the performing arts community.

Inaugurated in 2000 to recognise the burgeoning theatre scene and celebrated with a glitzy Fullerton Hotel ceremony, the awards have evolved over the years to keep pace with theatre scene developments.

This year's awards recognise shows from 2020, in which the theatre scene suffered an unprecedented shutdown, and 2021.

The Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories have been closed as the past two years produced few contenders for these awards. The best performances in these categories have been folded into the Best Actor and Best Actress categories instead.

During the pandemic, theatre companies were forced to pivot to digital or hybrid platforms.

A new category, Best Digital Presentation, recognises shows that made the most of the possibilities of the digital frontier.

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Production Of The Year

One can track the progress of the pandemic through the nominees for this year's Production Of The Year award.

Kebaya Homies in January 2020 was The Necessary Stage's (TNS) last show at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival before the pandemic closed down performing arts venues for most of the past two years.

Playwright Haresh Sharma, 57, says: "Little did we realise then that it was going to be our final show before the pandemic; that we wouldn't be staging any work for the rest of that year in a theatre; that two years later, life in the theatre would still not return to how it was."

The work, about the lives and loves of two "perempuan joget" (Malay for dancing girls) played by veteran actresses Aidli "Alin" Mosbit and Siti Khalijah Zainal, drew on previous work created by Sharma for TNS.

He says: "Kebaya Homies holds a special place in my heart because it really celebrates the best of Alin Mosbit and Siti K."

As theatre companies scrambled to pivot to digital, actress-playwright Jo Tan's one-woman show King in July and August 2020 shone bright as a production tailored for virtual platforms.

Producer Noorlinah Mohamed, 53, artistic director of Festival of Women N.O.W., crows on learning of the show's five nominations. "I feel vindicated. I set out to show the possibilities of where we can go."

The production used the film medium to tell a story about a mousy woman who learns to assert herself after developing a drag king persona.

Its director, film-maker Jasmine Ng Kin Kia, 49, grumbles about Noorlinah and Tan's insistence that the first show be live-streamed. "Theatre people are insane to walk this tightrope every night. It gave me an ulcer."

But the electric tingle of live performance is evident in the production, which uses tight close-ups and a trio of camera angles to heighten the illusion of seven characters played by Tan.

Noorlinah says: "One of the advantages of digital is the focus on the eyes. You can't get these eyes in a live theatre."

Early last year, there was cautious optimism as more live events returned, albeit to smaller houses. Toy Factory's All The World Is One's Stage premiered last February as part of the Esplanade's Huayi - Chinese Festival of Arts.

The commission, which celebrated the life stories of four veteran theatre actors, has earned three nominations, including Best Original Script.

Veteran director Goh Boon Teck, 50, who is up for Best Director along with co-directors Alvin Chiam and Ric Liu, jokes: "A little bit of love is always appreciated in this cold harsh theatre world."

He notes that the awards have become a calendar event for the theatre community. "We always think it's a focal point of the year."

The brief recovery did not last long. The Finger Players experienced this first-hand with Oiwa - The Ghost Of Yotsuya, originally commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts for 2020. Much of the festival was postponed to last year, but the grand comeback was tripped up by a spike in Covid-19 cases that led to renewed restrictions.

Playwright-director Chong Tze Chien, 47, quips that he had "a heart attack every time I got a notification on my phone".

He credits The Finger Players team for the show's success - it has garnered six nominations, the highest for a single production in this year's awards.

The cast had to relearn body language to play not just puppeteers, but also puppets. To mimic the physicality of Japanese bunraku puppets, the actors were tied to poles to limit their range of movement.

Chong recalls that in the first year of rehearsals, the actors were bruised and needed massages. In the second year, the air-conditioning broke down in the studio and the actors were "swimming" in perspiration at the end of five-hour rehearsals. "It was backbreaking work."

Just as the company was primed to stage the show in May last year, the pandemic tango began.

There was an additional complication as half of Oiwa's cast of 10 were from Japan.

Chong declined festival director Gaurav Kripalani's suggestion to do a hybrid production, preferring a full live staging. "I took a gamble. We had already invested so much effort. I couldn't imagine anything else."

By then, theatre companies had become inured to the constant changes in safe management measures.

The Theatre Practice's whodunnit thriller, The Bride Always Knocks Twice - Killer Secrets, was originally envisioned as a site-specific installation at Hotel Soloha in Chinatown, combined with theatrical elements. But the entire production shifted seamlessly online when restrictions kicked in.

Director Kuo Jian Hong, 55, says: "The past two years have been tough on everybody. I'm very blessed to have a very united team. But even then, you can get to the point of exhaustion and wonder if there is anyone out there.

"The fact that there's a digital presentation category says something about an evolving landscape. It's not just a testament to the work that our company has done, but also what the industry has done."