Negotiating Change

TNS' anchor production for this year's M1 Fringe Festival takes a very involved look at change, using three playlets to explore the effect of change on human behaviours. The topic of change of course will call to mind whether or not the change is for good or bad, positive or negative - but the three playlets tried to present as objective a picture as possible with the topics they were dealing with.

Using a foundational backdrop of 'social values' as the bedrock of any society and a communal sense of resposibility to the larger good, the three playlets were: Singles Can Change, Homosexuals Can Change and Marxists Can Change.

The first playlet was about a single woman and her tussle between wanting to remain fiercely independent and wanting not to be told by society to be married and have children, the second about a boy struggling with his sexuality, and the last playlet a short history into TNS' history and negotiations in the political sphere in the 90s with the whole Marxist conspiracy then.

The pieces were generally well-written as stories and the cast of Chua Enlai, Siti Khalijah, Rodney Oliveiro and Nora Samosir did a fine job of bringing out what they could from the short script of each playlet.

On exploring the concept of change however, was something the playlets did not suceed entirely on. While in the playnotes as well as
director's Alvin Tan's comments after the performance, it was revealed that the plays were written as objectively as possible, with as much sincerity and genuine feeling put into them. Irony however was the immediate response of many in the audience to all three playlets, and personally I felt the three stories were not as objective as they could have been, or at least they deserved a further exploration of all other possible perspectives to the issue at hand.

Indeed, I think the weaker story of Singles Can Change even raised more questions than it did answers at all, or point to any direction. One cause of this may have been the rather limited time of 20 - 30 minutes of each playlet, which didn't allow for the topic at hand to fully mature. I did wonder if the three stories were interweaved together as one play, with the different characters and motivations leaning on each other, if that might have had a different result.

One sense I did get out of the three playlets however, despite this (or because of), was the importance and recognition of the 'middle road', or as Tan himself raised after the performance, a 'third option' after the perceived 'tight' and 'wrong' - that change could go the direction not from the 'socially accepted' point A to B, but make a diversion to an unconsidered third path in the course of considered negotiations between the opposing forces. And that, might just bring some 'order out of chaos' of the world.

_______ Can Change is on at the National Museum Gallery Theatre till 17th Jan 2010. Tickets from Sistic.