Fever dream portrayal of a family in the pursuit of happiness and finding a place in the world.
All around us, the cost of living is ever-increasing. For the modern Singaporean person, purchasing and owning any kind of property feels like a far-flung dream, with many resigning themselves to the fact that we’ll likely still be staying with our parents for some time yet. Such an existence then brings up the question – how do we, or how should we live with each other?
First staged in 1994 as part of the Singapore Festival of Arts, The Necessary Stage (TNS) have now revived Haresh Sharma’s play Three Years in the Life and Death of Land for the Esplanade’s 2023 season of The Studios. Performed at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre, and directed by Haresh Sharma, the play revolves around two neighbouring families – the Lims and the Mulchands, whose lives become intertwined when Shalini Mulchand gets married to her long-time boyfriend Eric Lim, who has just returned home from studying abroad in the USA.
But with a myriad of characters occupying both houses, each with their own hangups, burdens and crises, the Lims and the Mulchands soon learn that the pursuit of happiness goes far beyond simply having a roof over their heads. As we follow their lives playing out over the next three years, we watch as these characters grapple with loneliness, loss and existentialism.
As much as there are so many characters onstage, each one is given enough time and backstory to fully understand their personalities and hangups. Eric’s father Lionel (Julius Foo) is a big-time property developer who’s given up romance and nostalgia for the sake of building bigger, investment-worthy buildings. Eric’s mother Elizabeth (Karen Tan) no longer sees the point of her job, and regrets all the time that has been lost, while carrying a secret of her own. Their daughter Regina (Tan Rui Shan) is a wild child university student who throws herself into meaningless sexual encounters to stave off her crushing loneliness.
Meanwhile, Mrs Mulchand (Daisy Irani) spends all day at home watching reruns of Ramayan and Mahabharat, dressed in her widow’s garb of a white sari and speaking to her late husband at night. Shalini (Sharul Channa) deals with her loss of independence and fear of not having any power of her own once she becomes a mother, beholden to both her husband and child. And Eric (Lian Sutton) constantly complains about Singapore and Singaporeans refusing to talk things out, and the impossibility of changing anything, always dreaming of his time back in America where he participated in protests and marches.
And then there’s the non-human characters as well. There’s Sharifah (Siti Khalijah Zainal), a regretful ghost who died from a failed love-suicide, and takes up residence in Regina’s room after being inadvertently summoned by her. Regina’s cat Scooba (Ghafir Akbar) is haunted by the memory of his mother killed by hooligans, while wondering where his sisters are. And finally, there’s multiple generations of male mosquitoes (all played by Joshua Lim), who move into a flowerpot at the Lims, developing a peaceful co-existence with the rest of the household, but all burdened by the prospect of their 5-day lifespan, and how to make meaning out of it.
Despite having been originally devised in 1994, there are plenty of themes and ideas in Three Years that still ring true even today. For one, the idea of close-knitted living space is an experience almost everyone watching the play is likely to be familiar with, particularly with the lockdown conditions during the pandemic for the better part of the last three years. All this is reflected in Wong Chee Wai’s multi-tiered set, where each individual room is tiny, all literally steps away from each other, making it feel slightly claustrophobic. At choice moments, tiny, neatly arranged squares of light appear on the set, resembling countless HDB flats across the island going through those same struggles.
In terms of direction, both Haresh and assistant director Deonn Yang have done well to manage the large cast of characters and ensure that the play always feels like there is a strong forward momentum, in spite of the three year ‘period’ the play takes place over. No part of the stage is left unused, with clear demarcation of space that makes it easy for the audience to follow the action and focus on the right characters at any one point. There is very strong onstage chemistry, where we understand exactly how every character feels towards each other at any one point in time, and it is clear that this is a play that has become near and dear to the entire cast and creative team’s hearts.
Not only does each actor capture the essence of their character in physicality, but also in the emotions they bring, whether it’s the tiredness of Daisy Irani’s Mrs Mulchand, the exasperated complaints from Lian Sutton’s Eric, or even the protectiveness of Joshua Lim’s mosquitoes. Little details, such as Scooba’s cat-like behaviour trying to squeeze into an empty box, or little smiles characters give to each other, make us fully believe in the realism the underscores the surrealism, and endears us to this family we grow to love and understand over the course of the ‘three years’.
Characters may be located within the same space, but each live their own independent lives, finding it difficult to communicate or simply being too busy to make time for each other, to the extent that both of Eric’s parents can’t meet him at the airport. The beauty of Three Years then lies in its execution – while fundamentally being a melancholic play that deals with serious issues, it instead explores these via a more irreverent approach, where characters break into song (originally composed by Hossan Leong) and dance numbers, feeling like a heady fever dream that speaks of the characters’ feelings of entrapment and coping via escapist fantasies. These are delightful breaks in-between the heavier segments, and the cast show off some strong ensemble work, where flight attendants perform choreography while welcoming Eric home, or Eric’s mother is lifted into the air by her cast mates as she reflects on her life.
Against the lightness and surreal humour however, the sobering truth hits even harder when it all comes crashing down. Amongst all members of this family, there is a deep-seated unhappiness that follows them for all three years, weighing them down as they try to find balance between their various responsibilities to themselves and society. Safuan Johari’s atmospheric synth music against pouring rain does plenty of legwork here, as the characters are haunted by their pasts or mourn their losses, constantly seeking some form of connection amidst the packed yet lonely space of the stage.
It perhaps takes a tragedy for the cast to finally see how their individual isolation has only served to imprison them in their own sadness, and Three Years offers hope to the Lims and Mulchands at the end of their ordeal. For the Lims, this means finally talking to each other and checking in with each other in an attempt to at least better understand where they’re coming from, while for Mrs Mulchand, there is solace in accepting her life as it is, rather than constantly dwelling on the past or what could have been. For Eric and Shalini, this is resolved in the decision to remain steadfast in their love for each other, against all odds, but always together. Above all, it is the non-human characters that have the most profound journey of all, in the comfort derived from their new found family and friends, taking opportunities where they can, and even showing Regina that there is joy in the presence of others.
As characters make major decisions that will determine the course of their lives for the near future, there is a sense of relief felt across the theatre that there is more to life than just wallowing in the same pit of sorrow for years on end. Change is the only constant, and rather than being afraid of it, we should do what we can do capitalise on it as a means for bettering our lives instead. Most of all, Three Years is a reminder that communication is everything, that rather than keeping to ourselves and journeying through life alone, we must reach out to share in the weight of existence itself with those closest to us. This is a play that makes you believe that happiness is somewhere on the horizon if you seek it, and to give your own family a hug when you get home, and to let them know that through all the arguments and pain, that they are loved.
Photos by Crispian Chan, courtesy of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay
Three Years in the Life and Death of Land played from 5th to 13th August 2023 at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre. More information available here
The Studios 2023 runs from July to September 2023 at the Esplanade. Full programme and tickets available here
Production Credits:
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