I admire Nine Years Theatre's effort in adapting foreign plays into Chinese, and Artistic Director Nelson Chia's focus on grooming actors for the Chinese theatre scene here. The staging of
Tartuffe by French playwright Moliere at the National Museum theatrette was however tame. Maybe it was the difficulty in the translation, or the cast trying to speak with a posh accent. The costumes also reminded me of those Chinese theatre productions staged in the 1980s. It took a while for the cast to feel warm up to the play on the Sunday evening (last performance). Of the cast, Jalyn Han had the best comic timing as Dorine the maid, and Darius Tan was convincing as the foolish master Orgonl.
The performance got better in the latter half. I found this performance ok, not as bad as what ST had reported.
Toy Factory restaged its signature piece Titoudao at the Drama Centre in March.
Audrey Luo played the title role very well, and I think she was on par with Pam Oei for the role.
Overall production standards were high, the set design, the lighting, the staging. I prefer this version to its previous run a few years back.
The Theatre Practice opened its 50th anniversary season with Legends of the Southern Arch, a martial arts (or wuxia) production. An ambitious project, where the Director Kuo Jian Hong had to grapple with actors who had to fight, the fight choreography, the stunts, the set etc.
It was a huge effort by the theatre company. Unfortunately it was let down by the script. There were too many characters and most were not dealt in depth. In fact, (spoiler alert) key actors died by the intermission. We were also not sure if it was a serious drama or a tragi-comedy. I felt that some of the martial arts name were just too cheeky to be taken seriously.
The cast did give their best but were somehow restrained by the script. But few actors did stand out - Johnny Ng as the baddie and Li Xie as the inn keeper.
A big effort from the company, but left a bit disappointed.
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