M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Spacebar Theatre (The Utama Spaceship)

If there’s one thing Singapore theatre seems to lack, it’s more companies willing to go down the irreverent route, having fun with their craft and taking theatre to its extremes. For Spacebar Theatre, comprising Eugene Koh and Lee Shu Yu, the NUS Theatre Studies graduates are about to do just that with The Utama Spaceship, playing this January as part of the 2020 M1 Singapore Fringe … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Spacebar Theatre (The Utama Spaceship)

Review: The Shadow Curriculum by Jelaine Ng (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★☆☆☆☆ (Performance attended 11/1/20, 2pm) Attempt to satirise motivational speakers unclear in its motives and falls flat.  In Singapore’s results-oriented society, success is everything. So it comes as no surprise that parents will try any ways and means necessary to give their children a leg up in the place that will most likely make or break their future: school. From countless tuition lessons to enrichment … Continue reading Review: The Shadow Curriculum by Jelaine Ng (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

Review: Beside Ourselves by .gif (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★★☆☆☆ (Performance attended 10/1/20) Great songs from .gif stitched together with a premature theatre production unable to fully capture the theme of displacement with its form.  While primarily known as darlings of the local music scene, local electronica duo .gif has also recently dabbled in mediums such as theatre, having provided the lush, trippy soundtrack to Checkpoint Theatre’s Displaced Persons Welcome Dinner (2019). Their iconic … Continue reading Review: Beside Ourselves by .gif (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

Review: Secretive Thing 215 by Secretive Thing (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★★★★☆ (Performance attended 9/1/20) Intricate, introspective experience with only our phones and a mysterious communicator. Going in to a performance of a secretive nature, knowing absolutely nothing about what to expect, feels a little unnerving and very exciting. With Secretive Thing 215, the latest ‘show’ by mysterious collective Secretive Thing, all we know is that we are to come with a phone enabled with WhatsApp, and … Continue reading Review: Secretive Thing 215 by Secretive Thing (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

Review: Contemplating Kopitiam and Kampong Wa’Hassan by Oliver Chong and NAFA (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★★★☆☆ (Performance attended 9/1/20) Alfian Sa’at meets Kuo Pao Kun meets the Millennials in this well-directed but conceptually disjointed reflection on belonging and identity.   There’s something incredibly audacious about splicing two unlike plays together in an attempt to better bring out their shared concerns. Where Kuo Pao Kun’s Kopitiam was a naturalistic, three-character work in Mandarin concerning itself with an elderly coffee shop owner struggling to understand … Continue reading Review: Contemplating Kopitiam and Kampong Wa’Hassan by Oliver Chong and NAFA (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

Review: A Tiny Country by ATTEMPTS (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★★★☆☆ (Performance attended 8/1/20) Gamification of a hypothetical nation’s destiny has the right idea in mind. While ATTEMPTS’ founder Rei Poh has always been interested in games, with their latest production, ATTEMPTS finally gets a chance to go full on into the genre, with participatory theatre piece and game A Tiny Country, playing as part of the 2020 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. Directed and designed by … Continue reading Review: A Tiny Country by ATTEMPTS (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

Review: Café Sarajevo by bluemouth inc. (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

★★★★☆ (Performance attended 8/1/20) Docu-drama in the form of a live podcast reminds us how difficult it is to mend deep-set rifts, and the politicised effects these have on the most ordinary of activities.  Part of the joy of Fringe is how it offers a platform to showcase non-traditional theatre forms of all kinds. Of these, it is bluemouth inc.’s Café Sarajevo that plays around with … Continue reading Review: Café Sarajevo by bluemouth inc. (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Jelaine Ng and Jeramy Lim (The Shadow Curriculum)

If you grew up in Singapore, then you’d probably know that of all the currencies viewed as most important to getting ahead in life, the most valuable one is education. But in spite of having a world class education system available to all citizens, there are plenty of other factors that gives some students an unfair advantage over others, from a stable home environment to … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Jelaine Ng and Jeramy Lim (The Shadow Curriculum)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with .gif (Beside Ourselves)

It’s becoming increasingly common these days to feel a sense of displacement amidst our fast-changing world. Life itself often feels surreal, with the sheer amount of tragedy highlighted in the news, while the daily routine works its way into a droll, to the extent we begin to disconnect from our physical bodies and the world around us. It may not always be obvious, but certainly, … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with .gif (Beside Ourselves)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Oliver Chong (Contemplating Kopitiam and Kampong Wa’Hassan)

How closely tied is heritage to place? Local playwrights Kuo Pao Kun and Alfian Sa’at explored this concept of space and identity in their works Kopitiam and Anak Bulan di Kampong Wa’ Hassan respectively, wondering about how beyond the physical, what else would be lost in our relentless move towards national development and progress. Is it really worth it to leave everything behind as we strive to reach the future? … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020: An Interview with Oliver Chong (Contemplating Kopitiam and Kampong Wa’Hassan)