Square Moon. Nice posters but messy production. That was exactly what I felt as I stepped out of the Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore tonight.
Square Moon, written by Wong Souk Yee and directed by Peter Sau, starts with the escape of an alleged terrorist, Golden Hartono, in a strange land/ country that is very much reflective of Singapore. The Homeland Security Department and its henchmen must find a way to cover up their security blunder. And fast, for Hartono’s lawyer, Kristina Hu, is coming the next day to take instructions from her client to challenge the government for illegal detention. They had another detainee, River Yang, to do a little job for them. When Kristina visits Hartono (unaware that he has already escaped), she herself is detained. In detention, Kristina writes statements which incriminate herself. Six months later, River Yang who is associated with the Liberal Socialist Party gains his freedom when his party wins the general election. He promises Kristina that he will “do his damnedest” to secure her release.
The synopsis was indeed compelling. So were the posters and promotional materials, i.e. trailers, of the play. The casts, led by veterans like Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siu, seemed promising. The arduous task of staging the play was as scandalous too.
First, its venue application to the theatre at the National Museum of Singapore was rejected. Then, after being confirmed early on as one of the highlights for the M1 Fringe Festival 2013, it was abruptly dropped from the programme without explanation. When the play was supposed to have an invite-only private reading at The Substation (alongside launches of two books by political exiles), the event was called off – again, with no explanation given. After six months of rewrites, meetings and applications, Square Moon finally got its performance licence this June, leaving director Peter Sau only a short window of a few weeks to scramble for a team and venue to stage the show in time for the year’s end – before he leaves for a Masters programme next year.
The costume was just as shocking as it was sensational. The entire cast was dressed in S&M gear, an element Sau introduced to go along with the play’s theme of the human need for domination, ensuring the play will be even more sensational than what Wong Souk Yee could have imagined. ‘S&M is about dominance, submission and role-playing,’ he explains as matter-of-factly. ‘The characters in the play take on artificial personas in the captor/ captive situation. Yet, like a couple, once the S&M session is over, they can shrug off these personas as if nothing happened and go back to being normal with each other, without even a sense of animosity. There might even be some sort of master and slave bond arising, with both parties getting some kind of kick from that. There’s some dark humour in there.”
However, all these did not add up to any excitement that would be tantamount to that of an orgasm. The whole staging was messy as hell. With missed sound cues and uncoordinated actions, I am more distracted by the look of the shocked actor/ co-actors on the receiving end of the mishaps. The incessant shouting or raising of voice by Pavan Singh to exert authority and control on the part of his character was as unconvincing as the words supplied by the playwright. Zelda’s performance as the Endurer in the play was weak: Her forced tears, mixed with perspirations and over-the-top gesticulation in many of the overly melo- dramatic scenes, makes her character more suited for a pantomime as opposed to a social-political drama. In fact, I sympathised the actor more than I could ever empathise her character. But the one who took the cake, was Lim Kay Siu. Watching him from the first row in the audience, I was neither moved nor entertained by his performance at all. In fact, half way through, I was more concerned at catching the moments where he was out of character. Needless to say, there were many scenes that were redundant- the torture scene of the lawyer, the scene with the enforcer, and all the violent scenes that involve Pavan throwing punches into the air only to miraculously hit the other characters.
I also felt that when a political play is being staged, it mask or embed its messages into its artistry. Think of The Necessary Stage original play- _______ Can Change. OR Wild Rice’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The lines are riddled with political messages, but done so in artistic manner. Square Moon on the other hand is just a blatant speech about everything that the writer believes in, with not much artistry thought put into it.
On the whole, Square Moon was painful to watch, and not because you empathise with the characters or the story in the play. In fact, the only feel-good moment I had watching the play was when the usher asked me for my ID to check if I was over 18. Oh yes, the play is rated M18.
