Straits Times Life! (15th May 2007) and TODAY's (14th May 2007) review of Off Centre

Life! - Life Arts

Off Centre is right on
Adeline Chia, ARTS REPORTER
432 words
15 May 2007
Straits Times
English
(c) 2007 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

OFF CENTRE The Necessary Stage Esplanade Theatre Studio Last Saturday

FIRST performed to rave reviews in 1993, Off Centre by The Necessary Stage (TNS) was lauded as a seminal play highlighting the plight of mental patients.

It has been revived by playwright Haresh Sharma this year to mark two milestones: the company's 20th anniversary, and the introduction of the play into the GCE O-level Literature syllabus.

Fourteen years on and with so many expectations riding on its back, this powerful work shows its 1990s vintage but remains fresh and compelling.

On one level, the story is a timeless one about the complex relationship between two sensitive individuals. Vinod (played by a mercurial Melvinder Kanth) is a straight-A junior college student and school debater who suffers from depression.

He meets Saloma (played sensitively and with much pathos by Mislina Mustaffa), a schizophrenic girl who graduated from a vocational institute.

And by sheer craft and sensitivity, the script is a gem which tackles serious issues with liberal doses of humour. Vinod's suggestion for a slow suicide, for instance, is to 'stay in Singapore'.

The darker elements haven't lost their ability to shock and to move either.

The way in which a clothes hanger featured in a brutal, humiliating episode during Vinod's national service and in the fate of mental patient Emily Gan (played superbly by Josephine Tan) drew gasps from the audience.

There were also aspects of the play which were quaintly dated, although not alienating. Set in a time when batik T-shirts were in fashion, and before mobile phones were ubiquitous, the two friends chat over their land lines, sing to Boyz II Men and make radio dedications to each other over Class 95.

In a way, it was apt that director Alvin Tan kept these references, as a kind of a retrospective gesture to the company's performance history.

Off Centre still strikes a raw chord 14 years after it was first staged. Some of the reasons for Vinod and Saloma's breakdowns continue to sound familiar: a high-pressure society and uncomprehending and defensive family members.

It remains one of the play's piquant ironies that its relevance partially hangs upon malaises it seeks to address. The day that mental patients are treated with respect and sympathy is
the day of Off Centre's expiry date. That day may be a long time coming, even as Vinod and Saloma become familiar characters among O-level students.

chiahta@sph.com.sg

TODAY's review

Still Off after all these years

260 words
14 May 2007
TODAY (Singapore)
English
(c) 2007. MediaCorp Press Ltd.

IT SHOCKED 14 years ago, but the re-staged play Off Centre seems a tad
mild in today's context.

You can pick out what could have been taken as shocking for local theatre in 1993. Vinod, who suffers from depression, rants about God to Saloma, his schizophrenic girlfriend. He speaks of how Singaporeans avert their attention from what they are uncomfortable with - in this case, the idea of mental patients and their ability to live, and love.

The play sparked controversy when it was first staged due to what was deemed irreverent handling of a sensitive subject matter. The Ministry of Health, which commissioned it, took away its $30,000 funding after Haresh Sharma's script didn't suit their guidelines.

But this restaging reminds us of how much has changed since the early 90s; local plays now teem with such references to the Singapore psyche, mixing critique with humour in the way that Sharma did contentiously all those years ago.

Both Sharma and director Alvin Tan have chosen not to tamper with the original play so the references remain, from the use of Boyz II Men's End Of The Road, to the denim jeans and bandannas that served as fashion for NUS undergrads then.

It would have been interesting to see the play updated for our times, but its adamant retro-ness does underscore the fact that despite the years that have passed, some things remain the same. Off Centre is on until May 20, at the Esplanade Studio Theatre.