Theatre

The Essential Playlist
The Second Breakfast Company
M1 Singapore Fringe Festival
Esplanade Theatre Studio, Wednesday (Jan 12)

Should you clap to show appreciation for front-line workers? Is it actually of tangible benefit to them? Or is it just a way to make you feel good about yourself?

The Second Breakfast Company sets out to unpack the issue of performative versus practical help in its Esplanade debut, co-written by Zulfiqar Izzudin and Adeeb Fazah, who also directs.

It is heartening to see a headlining spot at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, at a prime venue like the Esplanade Theatre Studio, given to a young theatre company.

The play's starting point is a 2020 survey published by The Sunday Times, which asked 1,000 respondents what jobs are most crucial in keeping Singapore going. The list of non-essential roles was topped by "artist" at 71 per cent.

Four millennial comedy content creators, enraged at being tarred with the "non-essential" brush, decide to rebrand by producing videos about "essential" workers.

They rope in a nurse, Fatin, and a delivery rider, Sam, by promising to tell their stories. But their self-serving efforts result in superficial content that backfires.

While the play means well, it is rough around the edges.

Watching content creators snipe at one another grows stale very quickly. This group, dubbed the Lunch Bunch, range from Amanda (Kimberley Ng), who started volunteering during circuit breaker and made sure all her Instagram followers knew about it, to the insensitive, callous Henry (Angeal Chong).

Danielle (Zara Sophia) complains at one point that she ought to make a "cringe video" about her co-workers. The Essential Playlist is essentially a "cringe play" that mines the behaviour of its unpleasant characters for comic value. But effective comedy cannot hinge on cringe alone.

Despite its auditory title, the play suffers from its sound design, chiefly the annoyingly peppy and repetitive soundtrack that persists in the background of nearly every scene. The cast sometimes wears masks, which rub audibly against their mics.

Flamboyant show host Leon (Rino Junior John) keeps energy levels high, especially in a rap sequence that is the funniest part of the play.

Meanwhile, the monologues by Sam (Misha Paule Tan) and Fatin (playwright Zulfiqar) provide some much-needed insight into the struggles of nurses and delivery riders, while also pushing for nuance in the way they are depicted.

The problem that The Essential Playlist cannot escape is that, as a work of art by the so-called "non-essential" about the "essential", it is also subject to many of the challenges it levels at those it parodies.

How should arts practitioners tell the stories of front-line workers? Where does saviour complex end and authentic support begin? How can art effect real-life change - and is that the only metric by which it, too, can be considered "essential"?

The play does not have all the answers to these questions. Instead, it throws them back at the audience.

"Would you clap?" the actors ask the audience ironically at the end. A disingenuous question. They are actors. They definitely want the applause.