[SPHBHT: BT-NEWS-PAGES <BTS-052> [FIRST -57 ] ...
09/04/10]
57 ARTS
The art of alchemy
Sam Mendes’s The Tempest is not only a beautiful, melancholic play,
but it also gives us a chance to see theatrical magic develop along with
the Bridge Project, says CLARISSA TAN
S
OMETHING wonderful
is happening on the
world’s stage, and we
should catch it while
we can. The three-year
Bridge Project, which
seeks to bring together
the best classical ac-
tors of the US and the UK, gives us
a rare opportunity to witness a cer-
tain artistic vision – namely that of
director Sam Mendes – develop
over time. Thoughts get to flower,
ideas swirl, talents ripen. It’s a
kind of gentle evolution, a tender al-
chemy.
Now in its penultimate year, the
Bridge Project brings us Shake-
speare’s The Tempest, after pro-
ducing a lucid, heartfelt The Win-
ter’s Tale in 2009.
To be sure, these plays can be
appreciated on their own terms –
as well they should be – but it’s also
gratifying to see a theatrical rich-
ness intensify.
Minimalist stage design
For starters, Mendes keeps to Tim
Piper’s minimalist, stylish stage de-
sign, which serves to distil the
play’s action to its crucial essence.
The costumes (Catherine Zuber) al-
so generally remain subdued, with
men in Victorian-style suits and
women in dresses almost as re-
strained. This doesn’t always work
– in The Tempest, for instance,
there are many men-only scenes,
and half a dozen black-and-white
garbed males occupying the stage
does not exactly an exuberant pic-
ture make – but we do get the feel-
ing of people moving about in visu-
al blocs, melding and re-melding
as the plot develops.
The intriguing Stephen Dillane
plays Prospero, the rightful Duke of
Milan who has been usurped by his
brother Antonio and Alonso, the
King of Naples. Put on a boat with
his daughter Miranda, they land on
an almost deserted island where
Prospero practises and perfects the
art of magic.
Dillane portrays Prospero as a
kind of wry, almost world-weary in-
tellectual. When one considers that
this man of learning has been ban-
ished for 12 years to a lonesome
land, there seems no other logical
way to convey the character. Still,
when you first encounter him, mut-
tering barely-audible incantations
and doddering about in a musty li-
brary, you get a sinking feeling:
you could be spending the next 2.5
hours (without intermission) with a
man who is tired of life.
But Dillane, too, works a
strange alchemy. His Prospero
moves about with a kind of inner-il-
lumined self-knowledge, as though
aware that things will end with
AROUNDTOWN
Magic of pre-war houses
THE Societe Generale Private
Banking Gallery presents Black
White Blinds watercolour art works
by French artist, Didier Bayle.
These impressionistic works are
based on the iconic pre-war houses
in Singapore, most noticeable by
their blinds of black and white
strips, often termed as “Black &
White Houses”.
The old bungalow-style houses dating as far back
as 150 years were built during the colonial era and are
still preserved as part of Singapore’s heritage. They
are often positioned in beautiful sceneries and within
rare plantations of trees. Bayle’s brush strokes capture
the architecture contrasting with the freer and more
Explore a new
visual language
VALENTINE Willie Fine Art
presents a solo exhibition by
San Francisco and
Shanghai-based
Chinese-American artist
Zheng Chongbin titled
Emergent. Zheng shows his
signature ink paintings as
well as new large-scale installation
works. In this body of work, Zheng
merges ink wash with acrylics
expanding on the medium and
presenting a new visual language
(like in his work, Matrix No 7,
above). Through his monochromatic
abstract ink paintings, he explores
notions of self-value, existentialism
as well as the practical and
non-practical.
Zheng’s installation work in the
show is inspired by the fact that so
much of South-east Asia’s heritage
and culture is entombed deep
beneath the sea as relics. The work
explores the relationship between
Author:NAVEEN
Captivating: Camargo’s Ariel (above, at right, facing Dillane’s Prospero) flies away with some of the most
moving scenes; Dillane’s Prospero with Rylance’s Miranda (below) – though nothing is wrong with either
of the actors’ performances, at times father and daughter do not seem to be occupying the same play
him breaking his magician’s staff.
Benevolence tinges all his dealings,
from his good-humoured protec-
tiveness towards Miranda to his ul-
timate forgiveness of Antonio and
Alonso, a moment of grace that
falls in with his portrayal of Prospe-
ro as enlightened sage.
There is no abracadabra sor-
cery with Dillane’s Prospero, no
whiz-bang bag of tricks; instead of
magic we get esotericism, rather
than a wizard we have a wise man.
But it’s a Prospero made the more
powerful by refinement – by the
time Dillane places his hand over
his cowering charge Caliban (Ron
Cephas Jones) who has tried to be-
tray him, that single quiet gesture
comes to convey the complex web
of feeling that humans can have to-
ward their slaves/servants/wards/
children/friends/brothers.
The effectiveness of the various
relationships in the play depends
on how the individual cast mem-
bers attune themselves to Dillane’s
subtlety (a few shades subtler, it
must be said, and his Prospero
would be frankly introverted).
Juliet Rylance’s beaming,
bouncy Miranda does not always
gel. Nothing is wrong with either of
the actors’ performances, but at
times father and daughter do not
seem to be occupying the same
play. It is hard to imagine that this
Prospero brought up this Miranda,
with practically no other help, for
more than a decade.
Jones’s Caliban fares better.
imaginative tropical flora painting, giving his art works
an impressionistic frame.
On view until April 17 at Societe Generale Private
Banking Gallery Alliance Française de Singapour,
1 Sarkies Road.
archaeological
artefacts and the
art-making process.
On until April 27,
2010, at Valentine
Willie Fine Art,
39 Keppel Road,
Tanjong Pagar
Distripark, #02-04.
Investigating communication
FOST Gallery presents a solo show
by Australian-born
Matthew Bax, known
as “The Man with
Two Aprons - Mixing
Colours and
Cocktails”. Bax, the
bartender and
co-founder of the
acclaimed avant-garde Tippling
Club, will display his artistic flair in
a thought-provoking mixed media
show called Is Text Cheating?
A self-taught artist and a
bartender, Bax’s artwork is
Date:09/04/10 Time:19:52
The African-American actor por-
trays Shakespeare’s creation as a
writhing, half-bestial slave, which
– no matter how many “experimen-
tal”, politically-correct versions of
The Tempest we get – is probably
the most textually sensible thing to
do. Caliban adds a shot of energy to
the play, and his simple-minded
but dogged efforts at gaining pow-
er are laced with pathos. The
drunken tag team of Trinculo (An-
thony O’Donnell) and Stephano
(played with aplomb by Thomas
Sadoski) add levity to a production
that might otherwise be too sedate.
But it is Ariel, Christian Camar-
go’s Ariel, who flies away with
some of the most moving scenes.
influenced by his exposure to
Singapore’s modern and vibrant
social landscape. He investigates the
nature of personal/public
communication in today’s Twitter
and blog-charged world.
His mixed media works using
materials like acrylic, chalk, string
and wood are a visual landscape of
words, ruled paper and smudged
blackboards (like his Y, below). The
imagery draws attention to the
implications and nuances carried in
words and dialogue
embedded in
contemporary
communication habits.
Bax questions how we
manage our identities and
emotions and what we
choose to disclose or keep
private from the world.
At Fost gallery until April 30
at 65, Kim Yam Road.
Compiled by MADHVI SUBRAHMANIAN
PHOTOS: SIR MICHAEL CULME-SEYMOUR
Camargo plays the character with
an affecting blend of avant gardism
and the sort of fairy blitheness
more traditionally associated with
the air spirit. He has the coolest
wardrobe in the play – alternating
between a kind of Mod suit, a mer-
maid dress and manga-type harpy
wings – and yet retains a lyrical del-
icacy. There’s nice voice control
across the tonal varieties of Ariel’s
many incarnations too.
Corresponding sensitivities
His Ariel also works because it com-
plements the qualities of Dillane’s
Prospero: where Prospero is logi-
cal, Ariel is moody; where Prospe-
ro has a dry wit, Ariel sings poetry;
where Prospero’s clothes are dark
and ragged, Ariel’s are shimmer-
ingly glamorous. It is a beautiful
play of corresponding sensitivities,
and one that reaches its height at
their melancholic parting.
This is an intelligent, poignant
production, on the whole even
more captivating than The Win-
ter’s Tale. It’s a treat to see a cer-
tain idea of Shakespeare grow and
transmogrify over several years.
These events, notes Alonso to-
ward the end of the play, “strength-
en from strange to stranger”. And,
as The Bridge Project evolves, mar-
vellously so.
There are three more stagings of
The Tempest at the Esplanade –
tonight at 8 pm , and tomorrow
at 3 pm and 8 pm.
Tickets from Sistic
A Singaporean’s take on crime
By CHEAH UI-HOON
WITH slogans like “Low
crime doesn’t mean no
crime” about the Republic,
it’s pretty evident that petty
crime isn’t one of Singa-
pore’s problems. Although
there are isolated cases like
the recently reported inci-
dents of luxury bag theft in
fancy restaurants, our
crime-free streets are prac-
tically a given, unlike
across the Causeway where
stories of petty and violent
crime abound.
So, for a Singapore thea-
tre company to create a
work on crime certainly
begs the question if the writ-
er would find enough mate-
rial to work on. Or why it
even chose this topic, espe-
cially since it was commis-
sioned by a Malaysian com-
pany celebrating its anni-
versary and which pre-
miered in Kuala Lumpur
last year.
Natalie Hennedige, artis-
tic director of Cake Thea-
tre, chuckles in a way that
says she was expecting
such a question. But she
counters: “Yes, crime is def-
initely more prevalent in
Malaysia, but we wanted to
take the idea of crime fur-
ther, and look at the broad-
er issue of violence – of
which there are examples
in Singapore.”
Cuckoo Birds is a collab-
oration between Cake and
Malaysia’s leading theatre
company Five Arts Centre.
The Centre had invited
Hennedige to present a
work for its 25th anniversa-
The path and
patterns of Sun
By MADHVI
SUBRAHMANIAN
ARTIST Sun Yu-li shuffles
the four small coasters de-
signed by him around on a
coffee table. Fitting them to-
gether like a jigsaw puzzle,
he reveals a colourful im-
age of patterns. While the
patterns on each coaster
are complete in and of
themselves, they are but a
microcosm of the larger pic-
ture that comes together
when the four coasters
unite in an order.
With simple dots, lines
and planes colliding and
merging into one another,
the patterns look much like
doodles one may find left
behind on a napkin on a cof-
fee table.
However, these seeming-
ly simple patterns are not
arbitrary but the result of
an in-depth study into what
Sun refers to as the “univer-
sal language”.
His work is based on a
visual research of “The The-
ory of Everything”, a term
used in quantum physics to
describe a theory that
would explain, through a
single model, the fundamen-
tal principles underlining
nature.
The well-known Chi-
nese-born Singaporean is
an architect who turned art-
ist – a painter and a sculp-
tor – so that he could devote
his life to the pursuit of the
“universal truth in space”.
While Sun has been re-
searching this subject for
nearly 30 years, he is not
alone in his pursuit. Sever-
al philosophers, mathemati-
cians and scientists like Al-
bert Einstein with his theo-
ry of relativity and Stephen
Hawking, the great cosmol-
ogist and physician, have
all been trying to under-
stand the fundamental
truth.
As Hawking says: “The
whole history of science
has been the gradual reali-
sation that events do not
happen in an arbitrary
manner, but that they re-
flect a certain underlying or-
der, which may or may not
be divinely inspired.”
“I have been influenced
by various writers and sci-
entists,” explains Sun, refer-
ring to the source of his in-
spiration.
Broadly, the path he
treads is one where sci-
ence, art and philosophy
Playful: (From left) Mohd Fared Jainal, Kukathas and Anne James in ‘Cuckoo Birds’
ry last year. When brain-
storming ideas, it emerged
that practically everybody
from Five Arts were victims
of random crime – from
having their houses broken
into to having car windows
smashed at the traffic
lights, recounts Hennedige.
“But violence can be ex-
pressed in different ways.
In the Singapore context,
there may not be outright vi-
olence, but there is a strong
undercurrent of discontent
and strong feelings on cur-
rent issues. There are is-
sues which ruffle the feath-
ers of society even if it may
not be as prevalent,” she
notes.
Cuckoo Birds then be-
came a play made up of a
series of these episodes.
“Some are funny, some are
quirky and dramatic, or qui-
The Business Times, Friday, April 9, 2010
Where science, art and philosophy meet: Reaching
Out (above), Cosmic Dance II (below left), and Into
Dream Land II (below right) are part of the visual
representation of Sun’s pursuit of universal truth
meet. A visual representa-
tion of these ideas and
Sun’s quest can be seen in
the show titled Quest:
Where Heaven and Man
Meet – paintings, digital
prints and sculptures that
are priced in the range of
$1,800 to $25,000 at The
Gallery on Circular Road at
tcc, the coffee outlet.
Through his painting ti-
tled Reaching Out, Sun un-
locks the symbolism in all
his work.
He says: “While we may
not be the only ones in the
universe – using the univer-
sal language of the dot sym-
bolising the congregation of
people, the lines symbolise
the paths they take and the
planes represent the places
they inhabit – once man
has gained self-conscious-
ness he can then become
one with the infinite
space.”
For Sun, all things in
this world can be presented
as patterns, from shooting
et and lyrical,” explains
Hennedige, who’s best
known for her wildly inven-
tive plays which could be
described as surrealistic,
absurdist theatre.
“There’s a strong sense
of Cake Theatre in this – the
sense of playfulness, the fo-
cus on contemporary issues
– all presented in an unpre-
dictable style,” she adds.
The cast of four compris-
es one Singaporean and
three Malaysian actors, in-
cluding Jo Kukathas, fa-
mous in Malaysia for her In-
stant Cafe Theatre socio-po-
litical satires and better
known in Singapore for her
role as the widow deliver-
ing her husband’s eulogy in
pro-family advertisements.
Cuckoo Birds, incidental-
ly, did so well in Kuala
Lumpur that it got nominat-
stars in the galaxy to the
traces left behind on the
sand by wind. Using the pri-
mal shapes, he allows pat-
terns to emerge from his
subconscious mind, giving
birth to “Miro-esque” work
that looks a bit like an aeri-
al view of a civilisation.
The results of Sun’s on-
going quest have also wil-
ly-nilly seeped into the lives
of Singaporeans as the fa-
miliar patterns made of
dots, lines and planes can
be seen in his many sculp-
tures that inhabit the public
spaces in Singapore.
With his work represent-
ed on an ezylink card and
sand-blasted on the floor
tiles of the Dhoby Ghaut
MRT station, thousands of
commuters cross paths
with it daily.
If any of those commut-
ers were to stop for coffee
at tcc, they would have tak-
en a step further into Sun’s
universe and discovered
their place in it.
Sun Yu-li’s ‘Quest: Where
Heaven and Man Meet’
will be shown till June 30,
2010, at tcc The Gallery,
51 Circular Road.
Tel: 6479-2445
ed for five awards in Malay-
sia’s Boh Cameronian arts
awards.
If you’re wondering if
this is a play that Singapore-
ans can relate to, Henne-
dige says yes. “In theatre,
we shape issues so that
they become universal,”
she adds.
So, you might think
crime is an issue in Malay-
sia and not Singapore, but
here’s a Singaporean take
on it. It sure beats the usual
cross-border themes that
are more political like a
third bridge and water sup-
ply.
‘Cuckoo Birds’ is part of
The Esplanade’s The
Studio Series and will play
from April 16-17, 8pm and
3pm (Sat only) at the
Theatre Studio. Tickets of
$25 are available
from Sistic