Since I sort of left my post hanging previously, I shall carry on from there.
Plus, its 25% of my grade, I should explore writing and ASK FOR FEEDBACK!
So please give as generously as you can.
:)
1. What demands does the performance of FOW put on to the audience?
At the beginning and at the end of FOW, the audience have to believe that everything that was happening was real, that it was not part of the play itself. If not, the "magic" was lost. The audience will not be left with the same experience as one who went through the play not knowing anything.
For example, the audience came with the pretext of knowing that the playwright hasn't written a play in ten years and this play should be quite special. Right from the start, the audience was playfully teased that the play might be potentially extreme; it is what the playwright wanted to write but was afraid of writing. We were told that the play was cancelled as too many revisions was made, it was now changed to a private party, complete with food and disco ball. This was in context that MDA has to approved a play before they can stage it in Singapore. All the money given would be treated as a donation and they even stamped us like going to Zouk like that. Somebody even asked if this was illegal and would we, as audience, be implicated in this? The answer was no, complete with another example a few years back that was done similarly was well. So after all the hype, we entered the area!
2. What was your experience as an audience member in FOW? Was it a difficult experience? Discuss with examples.
The seating area wasn't the normal kind. We could sit anywhere we wanted. This meant that the actors frequently would be frolicking among the audience and you could be turn your head in every single directions the whole play to capture everything. Well, the play started with quite a few stories intertwining with each other. I would say that there wasn't one main character but many different ones portrayed. Some of the stories that stood out were: a writer that wanted to write about Chee Soon Juan but was too afraid of the consequences, his fellow academic who advised him to write about LKY, the musical instead. The funny parts were how they said they have to use initials which cannot stand for the real thing, but everybody will know anyway and writing about the earlier person would be too provocative. And then there was this Singaporean, who I supposed just represented a normal working Singaporean, who met Chee Soon Juan who was selling his books and their interactions. And of course, there was the sarcastic news caster who spewed political sarcasm like no tomorrow.
Other than that, there was also times where the actors seemed to meld into "voices" just saying the same lines over and over again, as if to create a haunting effect on the audience. This occurred often with lines that potentially had the most impact. For example, they started talking about a faint smell that only they could smell, just barely there, and nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it, and it was disturbing to them. It was difficult in a sense that the actors keep shifting in the space and their characters were always changing. It sort of created a dynamic play whereby, they play many roles and nobody is what they seemed.
However, about 3/4 into the play, because it just seemed to be this and nothing new, I kinda got a bit bored and wondered if there was anything more to this. Perhaps this was the intended meaning, since the play got interrupted then. The MDA came in, and stopped the whole play. The actors break out of their character and had to handle them. Due to potentially politically dangerous material, they were not allowed to continue with the play. Shout here, shout there. The personnel wanted to round everybody up since by participated in the show, we were all implicated and they wanted our details. Nobody went actually. The policemen got involved to ensure order and some members of the audience started questioning the personnel. Even one Auntie took out her phone and started filming the whole process (she was asked to hand over the material though). And to continue the drama, they continued to ask people to go to write down their information. Just when it seems a fight was about to break out, the lights went off, and the play concluded. Everyone clapped. (P.S all the members of the audience who had interacted with the cast were all planted members, including the one in the beginning who asked if this was illegal)
3. Martin Esslin writes, “… it is the spectator’s imagination that produces the final effect, the ultimate meaning, if indeed meaning is to be the end of the experience, rather than mere idle entertainment” (134) Evaluate this statement with reference to your experience as an audience member in FOW.
So yea, in my mind, I was like thinking, oh man, how am I going to critique this? The End.
