laremy.sg

The police officers called my home after they couldn’t contact me on my mobile, and as luck would have it, they reached my mother instead.

Now, my mother is prone to over-reacting, and her first thought was to start crying when she heard the words ‘police’ and ‘your son’.

When I called her back to tell her that the police officers had passed my keys to me, I hung up the phone feeling extremely irritated – and for good reason.

I understand why she was upset, but I don’t think it was justified for her to get so upset over something like this. Plus, this isn’t the first time she has over-reacted to something like this, and she has a tendency to overly-dramatise not-so-significant situations. Most importantly, even if the worse had happened, what good would crying do?

I don’t think I’ll be able to tell her this, because she’ll probably over-react while I am trying to explain all this to her. I don’t know if I’ll have the patience to explain all this to her, either.

But what I am going to do is to bring her to watch this play. Hopefully it might open up some space for us to discuss what happened.

Recalling Mother
Presented by Checkpoint Theatre

Dates: Wed, 26 Aug – Sun, 30 Aug 2009.
Time: 8pm – 9pm.
Venue: ARTSPACE@Helutrans (39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark #02-04)

In this funny and moving piece written and performed by Claire Wong and Noorlinah Mohamed, two women tell stories about two other women – their mothers – and the complexities of living with (and not living with) Mother.

The performers discuss the genesis of the piece:

“Neither of our mothers has much formal education, but they’re both highly intelligent, capable and strong women. Both are wonderful cooks and love to feed us.

“But they find it difficult to talk to us – and we to them. Neither of them is fluent in English. We, on our part, have only functional abilities in our “mother tongues” – Cantonese and Malay, respectively. So, we get by, functionally. But we can’t share our deepest, most complicated thoughts and ideas to our mothers in a common language.

“Yet through our telling and re-telling of stories about our mothers – and about ourselves with our mothers – we discover a kaleidoscope of memories, and of insights into ourselves, and into that strange, complicated and wonderful relationship that we think almost everyone has with their mother.”

Performed in the intimate setting of an art gallery to an audience of just 80 people per night, Recalling Mother is a unique and engaging theatrical experience. Nuanced, compelling, honest and surprising, Recalling Mother is a celebration of the joys and challenges of motherhood – and daughterhood.

Tickets: $28 (excluding SISTIC booking fee).
Discount of 15% for groups of 15 or more.
Buy your tickets starting August 6th through the SISTIC Website: www.sistic.com.sg, the SISTIC Hotline: (65) 6348 5555 or SISTIC Authorized Agents islandwide.

Supported by Valentine Willie Fine Art.

When I walked into the Drama Centre on Saturday evening, my aunt came up to me with a look of utmost sombreness upon her face and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Aunty Janki’s son is here.”

“Who is Aunty Janki’s son??” I asked.

“The… Kamal,” she said.

“Who’s Kamal???”

Turns out ‘Kamal’ was none other than Kishore Mahbubani, who had come to watch OTOT with his missus, because both their sons were in NS and Mrs M felt that the Ms had to watch OTOT to better understand NS and what their sons were going through.

That’s what I gathered from the Sindhi side of my family who were huddled around me, as they’d also come to watch OTOT as well. Just then, ‘Kamal’ walked by and we talked for a minute or so – I told him that there was going to be “some strong language” in the play; he joked that he was going to leave then.

During the intermission, I joined my family where they were seated, in the middle of the theatre. Coincidentally, Kishore was sitting one row behind us.

He jokingly said that he thought the language wasn’t strong enough. He also added that the French ambassador was around, and was asking what one word in particular meant. No one dared to tell him what it meant in English, but a clever soul told him that the word translated to ‘la chatte’ in French. Nice work, diplomats.

We were discussing our annoyance at how people relentlessly compare OTOT to Army Daze, which is, in our humble opinion, missing the forest for the trees. Julian’s words (edited for clarity) are contained within the inline text; my replies in normal text.

~

…I guess people use the Army Daze thing because they have nothing to compare it to. If someone else wrote a play about transsexuals, the audience might compare it to Private Parts too.

That’s true. People are always looking for familiarity and something to relate to so they can make sense of the world. Hence the use of stereotypes, which we are both also guilty of using in our plays… Hehe

But as a friend of mine said, there is space in the hearts of most people here to accept another play about the NS experience. If people can’t open their hearts and minds enough to accept that OTOT is different, then they’re missing out on a lot.

NS is experienced by every person here (for every guy that enlists, his whole family and circle of friends go through it with him in their own way) – surely it deserves to be shared and celebrated in more ways and more plays than Army Daze!

P. S. If we’re getting this comparison now, think how terrible it must be for the next person who comes along and writes something about NS!

In this short video clip put together by yours truly, that shows half the cast rehearsing the Prologue.

It’s one of the more ‘serious’ moments in the play, so don’t be fooled by the deadpan acting. Alternatively, check out some pictures of the cast warming up before rehearsal.

Brendon and Terry

Koey, Dwayne, Ghaz and Rodney

Qian Chou and Nelson

More pictures here.

It’s gonna be a great show everyone – I personally guarantee it. Make sure you’re able to say, “I watched Own Time Own Target and was blown away” i.e. buy your tickets now.

I think? Or maybe Ghaz created it. I don’t know. But it rocks, so please watch it!