POOP Review
The play, POOP, staged by the Finger Players, is easily one of the best plays I've watched. This is by no means a sweeping statement, since almost every aspect of the play, in my opinion at least, was good. POOP tells a story of how a family copes at first with the death of the sole breadwinner, the father(played by Julius Foo) and then the death of the child(played by Jean Ng).
The script itself was average and it was the weakest point of the play. Although the genre of the play was “dark comedy”, I felt that the inclusion of some jokes were unnecessary, and it was although the only point of the jokes was to break the enormous tension that the actors had and the audience was feeling. One example would be when the child was hallucinating about the ghosts outside the MRT, and one of the ghost said," Jesus said I could be Mother Mary's tampons!". The audience stilled laughed since it was a welcome break of tension, but it was quite a forced insertion of the joke.
The script's theme was that of how death could bring a family together. I felt that the theme had been already well explored in many other pieces of art, and that both the context and theme were both slightly unoriginal. However, every other aspect of the play brought the play to a whole new professional level. Which brings me to comment on my next point, the staging and directing.
Although Director Playwright Chong Tze Chien had slight weaknesses in his script, his directing was simply sublime. His staging was amazing; he managed to use the depth of the stage to bring out his usage of puppetry, to show the conflict between the Mother and Grandmother(especially in the underground tunnel scene, were the child is forced to follow one or the other). He managed to using the wonderful space to show the anger in the child when she was forced to draw a family photo. He managed to use perceptions of size to make the child's character more believable. He managed to use puppetry to show the beautiful relationship between daughter and father. His use of props was masterful. I could go on, but my fingers are tired. However, it wasn't a one-man show; his lights manager, puppeteer, sound manager, stage manager, production manager and publicity crew were important too, so kudos to them too.
However, I felt that what really made the audience cry was not the script, but it was the actors. All of the actors didn't just portray the role, they WERE the role. All of the actors were so in their role and as an audience so physically close to them, I could not help but feel the grief and emotion of all the actors. Janice Koh was sublime in her portrayal of a deeply hurt wife. She tries so deeply to be the sole pillar of sanity in the family, but the grandmother's constant blabbering to her granddaughter about how the father is just disappeared, like poop, really brings her to her knees as the mother(Janice) didn't want to remember anything of that dreaded husband of hers anymore, who was so selfish as to let go of his life for happiness and leave his family behind. Same for Neo Swee Lin, whose portrayal as a grandmother humiliation by her son's suicide, but yet tries to keep the whole family together. Julius Foo, as a man unhappy who just leaves his family, his connection with his daughter is really touching. Jean Ng, as a confused girl, was so naive and innocent I couldn't help to feel sorry for her. Each actor's dedication, training and passion shone through in their acting. Their stage presence and energy was so strong I didn't feel the need to check the time, wipe away my tears or even move. I just watched this wonderful piece of theatre come to life. At the end, when the Grandmother and Mother both embrace each other and finally accept death and move on, something deep inside me felt warm and growled in agreement. And no, I wasn't hungry.
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