Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dead man calling.not really.

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to catch Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cellphone @KLPac. Based on the klpac webbie, this is the gist of it :

Jean is sleepwalking through her life until she answers a dead man’s cell phone. It turns out to be a wake-up call that sends her on a date with the dead man’s brother, a drinking binge with his wife and a mysterious rendezvous with his mistress. Not to mention trips to the afterlife and the black market. In this quirky modern adventure, Jean re-connects to her own spirit and learns that life is for the living.
She’s picking up the missed calls he left behind.
 A response:
“… is a mad pilgrimage of an imagination as it is invaded and atomized by the phone, which transforms private as well as public space.” — John Lahr, The New Yorker



So after collecting the tickets, my friend and I headed inside to wait. Honest truth? This was my first time in klpac. Amazing but true D: Of course I was in semi-jakun mode while trying to look cool and calm.( pat on the back, I think i pulled it off pretty well :P) 

Obligatory shot with board + complimentary pass.

Outfit:
Grey dress : Random boutique
Blazer: Online

More insight to the show
Anyway,  how did it go?

It was engaging from the start, with Alexis Wong as Jean, getting the ball rolling.  The quirky quips and the transitions from scene to scene were deftly delivered and smoothly executed.  What else was marvelously executed... my personal favourite.. the awkward family dinner scene. I found the uncomfortable awkwardness absolutely hilarious as I can relate to it. As I mentioned earlier, personally...that's what I think. The awkward, poignant, heavily pregnant pauses between premeditated conversations helped emphasize the extent of Jean's intentions. I couldn't help but laugh every time it happened.

Everyone's delivery of their dialogue was mainly clear and crisp, although I did have slight difficulty catching Alvin Looi's ( Gordon/Dead Man) monologue at first. Must have missed out bits and pieces of dialogue here and there :( My loss, I guess. 


There was just so much to take from it, where do I start? Jean, complacent and passive until the phone and everything to do with it enveloped her and truthfully it's amazing how our brain works to pacify someone else. Lies, white lies come so easy, a mechanism that kicks in so easily, and you wonder if you should feel guilty. She takes it upon herself to delve into Gordon's business and undertaking even in his afterlife, without actually having been asked to verbally.

In all her floating around in life, never would she have imagined meeting someone like Dwight. In all her awkwardness, she would have never imagined the rabbit -hole she fell through. Meeting sombre-coloured relatives of the deceased, she delved into more than she would have imagined that could begin with a  simple bowl of lobster bisque. I connected with her at some point, seeing her need to give a bunch of strangers hope, even though woven with little white lies. She was willing

It made me sigh contentedly, seeing innocent romance bloom, and how the most skeptical people could be softened with just a small gesture. 

Then there's The Mother. Payal Vashist's portrayal of Mrs. Gottlieb was spot on the impression of any over-bearing mother/ mother-in-law, the kind who favours one son of the other. I bet someone you know has a mom like that. You can imagine her anguish, losing a prized son in the most unexpected manner and timing. I liked the literal "higher-than-thou" take on her personality when meeting Jean for the first time. She has that absolute Mother of all demeanor about her, in the way she handles her grief and is sensitive about her cooking. 

I also really liked Hermia's skepticism towards Jean's intentions and her relation to her deceased husband. Typical cheated on wife. at the same time, i admire her determination and soft spot for sentimentalism. She loves him out of an unwritten obligation. It was comical the way she opened up to Jean after a few drinks. And all this over a cell phone?

I loved the part where Gordon, post-life talked about his last day alive. About how not everyone needs to carry an umbrella, as one umbrella can cover three people. and with the amount of people in the city, you'll be constantly shaded in the rain, in a way extremely connected. That's how life feels nowadays, at least to me, the networking, the 6 degrees of separation more intriguing than it used to be. And yet, how disconnected we really are. In the digital, wireless world, we seem to be so wired and fused together, but reality check, we really are worlds apart. And yet, technology is irresistible. Jean proudly claims she doesn't have a phone so she could not 'be there', but when the opportune moment of a connection arises, she cannot let it go.  There's a hunger to connect, to the extent of meeting people through people she's never known. Mama always says to not talk to strangers, but I'm sure at some point we all connect to the urge to forge a connection to the unknown. That hunger to connect, ironically cuts off real life connections.

I myself am guilty of burying myself in my Facebook mobile while having dinner with friends and doing what? Oddly (or not) enough, chatting on Fb. I always ask myself why, but it happens. Good time to get the cerebral cogs working.

There was so much depth to the script and I must give a hand to the executors, job well done in conveying the underlying theories.

And I'll finally wrap this up now.




No comments:

Post a Comment