Today, my heart breaks a little more as the chandelier at The Phantom of the Opera makes its final, heart-stopping descent on Broadway. Every night, for the past 35 years, it has swung out from the rafters of the Majestic Theatre at 245 West 44th Street, Manhattan, high above the heads of tourists, first-time audiences and regular Phantom veterans. Sold as the ‘most haunting love story on Broadway’, Phantom has enchanted viewers for decades with its iconic music, glimmering costumes and heart-wrenchingly tragic story (only for the avid Erik sympathisers, though – Raoul fans are in luck). But to me, Phantom is far more special than that. I can mark just a few turning points in life, and walking into Phantom was perhaps the first of them. On a cold, wintry December night in 2015, I was huddled in a line that snaked around the Majestic Theatre, shivering and clutching my coat tightly to myself. I was full off a mushroom-chickpea soup that had been bought at a nearby Christmas market and hurriedly gulped down to make it in time for the show. My fingers were numb as I turned around to check how far we’d made it down the line – decently far – and before I knew it, we were ushered into the depths of the theatre, Playbills in hand. I still remember where we sat – it was in the second row of the centre stalls, close to the right aisle and incidentally, right under where the iconic chandelier falls from the ceiling at the end of the first act. Looking around, I recall being distinctly unimpressed. Old, grey cloths were draped and tied over the proscenium arch, and the stage was littered with random structures, also covered in cloth… I could hardly believe that this was the famed production – then in it’s 28th year on Broadway – that people had paid good money and travelled across the world to see. Soon enough, the house lights went down, and the ensemble walked on for the first auction scene. Being a twelve-year old unaccustomed to the British accent, I was confused. Why was there an auction? I thought I came to watch a man in a mask. Compounded with the fact that I’d never listened to the music (other than Think of Me, which I once had to learn for a piano lesson), or read the plot, or known anything other than that the main character’s name was Christine, I could do little more than sit back in my seat and try to grasp whatever grains of plot floated to the top, of which there were few. In my haze of confusion, I could just barely make out the final lines of that first scene: ‘Perhaps, we may even frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination – gentlemen!’ And at that moment, with a massive spark (or what seemed massive to a naïve and impressionable 12 year old, at least), the chandelier – so dim, so gloomy, so unremarkable – burst into life and light with the resounding opening chord of the overture. From that moment on, I was hooked. I watched on in awe as the overture reached its signature modulation and the drapery was artfully ripped from the stage, revealing ornate gold angels and rich maroon finishings, as fallen tapestries were hung back up, adorning the back of the stage, and as that glorious chandelier rose slowly above my head with flashing lights, returning to its rightful place. The next two hours were a blur of colours, movement and fabric, accompanied by the lush orchestrations of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music which swelled and grew, and sweeping me along. The blood was singing in my veins to melodies more beautiful than any I’d ever heard, my gaze was transfixed on the characters before me, I felt their joy, their fear, their despair… I didn’t dare breathe. I knew I was experiencing magic in its truest, purest form. When the final chord played as Meg looked up in wonder, cradling the mask in her hands, I could almost feel my heart stop beating. It was catharsis like I’d never felt before – for those two and a half hours, I was exhilaratingly alive. In that instant, I knew I’d found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Phantom ignited in me a passion for theatre and performance – my mum always jokes that she regrets having ever brought me to see it because of the chain of events that it set off (which ultimately culminated in ‘Mummy, I want to go to drama school’). In the most genuine, non-cliché way possible, without Phantom, I don’t know who I’d be. The show has followed me around since the start of my musical theatre journey – the first song that I brought into an audition workshop was Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again (obviously, being a baby theatre nerd and not knowing that you don’t bring Webber into an audition), and so was my first solo performance in public. The first song I sang at a musical theatre open mic night was Music of the Night, the first duet I learnt was All I Ask of You. For a solid six months after I first watched the musical, I listened to the 25th anniversary soundtrack every single day, playing it in the bathroom while getting ready and in the car on the way to school, committing all the music and lyrics to memory. I bought the DVD, the Blu-ray and the CD of the 25th anniversary production (and had the digital version on my Spotify). I’d come home and join my grandfather in fawning over Sierra Boggess and Ramin Karimloo’s Classic Brit Awards performance on the TV, then I’d proceed to go around the house singing through the score from start to end – I even knew it well enough to sing along to the orchestrations. Phantom was key in helping me develop my singing voice – the classical genre of the music shaped my technique as it developed through high school, and taught me how to sing with a vibrato, what breath support and proper open resonance sounded like, and most importantly, how to act through song (thank you, Sierra Boggess). Since then, I’ve gone on to watch Phantom thrice more, in 2017 (London), 2019 (international tour in Singapore) and 2021 (London) – according to the trend, a rewatch seems imminent any day now – for it’s the classic I always come back to eventually. And of course, the tiniest, tiniest part of me harboured the big dream of someday being able to play Christine on Broadway. Perhaps it was because of my strong classical singing foundation, or simply the wonder of listening to the music, but Christine was my very first dream role. Despite how the genre of musical theatre has expanded and shifted to more contemporary pop sounds, Phantom has always remained a firm classic. Newer shows have opened, created massive movements and cult followings, then closed, and still Phantom has continued playing at the Majestic Theatre. Against a constantly evolving backdrop of the musical theatre genre, the show remained resolute and unchanging – just as the role of Christine has always remained at the back of my mind. It had with it the legacy of being the longest-running Broadway show, opening decades before I was born, and I maintained the naïve belief that its billboard would always remain tall and imposing, towering over the hustle and bustle of Times Square. And carrying with it a dream that, with hard work, sheer gritty determination and the right amount of luck, might just come true. So now, with Phantom’s final curtain call on the Great White Way, I am in mourning. While it still plays on in London, Japan, China, Korea, Greece, Italy, Spain, Prague, Sweden, and every other country it will continue to play at for years to come, it is the end of an era on Broadway. For the past 35 years, Phantom has defined its landscape – in the words of Sierra Boggess, ‘this one piece that was tried and true’. When Ali Ewoldt stepped in as the first woman of colour and Asian descent to play Christine, the possibilities it opened up for me were breathtaking – until then, I had never thought it possible that a person who looked Asian (or just non-White), as I did, would be able to be Christine. I was filled with a newfound resolve and a goal to work towards, but Phantom’s closure brings with it a wistful end to this dream of mine. And while I know that this is not the end (Broadway revival, anyone?), it is the end of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway as we know and have known it for the past 35 years. New productions or revivals will never quite be the same – they will not have been directed by Hal Prince, and neither will they carry the same nostalgia that this one does, having changed my life eight years ago. But for the 35 years that we did have, I will always be grateful and indebted – I owe this production my life and my soul. Happy, happy trails, Phantom. ‘You alone can make my song take flight, It’s over now, the music of the night.’ MEG crosses to the throne and, tentatively but courageously, pulls the cloak away revealing empty air. The PHANTOM has vanished, leaving only his white mask. In wonder, she reaches out and picks up the mask in her small hand. CURTAIN.
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15 July 2021. I had it all planned out to write and post this on the night that I watched Lungs, but – as always – the obtrusive wall known as procrastination got in the way and I never got around to doing it. But with the rollercoaster that was the past few weeks involving the return of Singapore to P2HA and the closure of theatres across the nation once more, I became yet again motivated to record my experience of this show in the miracle we once knew as live theatre, for myself – and perhaps, others – to reflect and reminisce upon. First of all, disclaimer: I am not a critic. I am only a humble audience member who happens to have opinions about the shows I watch – whether or not they are qualified and/or agreeable to is for every individual who reads this to decide. To each his own. Anyway, I’ve always thought that the title of ‘critic’ is stuffy and arrogant – no one is ever qualified enough to evaluate all art objectively, since the very nature of art is subjective. Especially theatre, where everything and anything can be staged if one has enough guts and belief (and budget) to. So. Yeah. Not a critic. But read on if you’re interested in what I have to say. I guess I’ll start by saying I walked out of this show a writhing mass of emotions, stumbling slightly upon the ascent from my seat and highly unnerved by what I had just witnessed. Few things have unseated me like Lungs has, perhaps surpassed only by Pangdemonium’s production of This is What Happens to Pretty Girls. Lungs, to me, was a very real, very stark (and perhaps a little bleak) portrayal of human connection and selfishness, highlighting exactly how self-serving we all are. The central debate of the play was whether or not to bring a child into the world – a world wrecked by a climate crisis, unrest and uncertainty. The two characters in the play constantly dance around this question, but their arguments are less focused on questions most of us would consider – of whether we have enough funds, emotional maturity and time to take care of a child – but rather of bigger issues that, ironically, tend to seem small in the face of the personal sacrifices we make on our parts – those of an extra human’s carbon footprint and political instability in a rapidly imploding world. As Woman bluntly expresses: ‘Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.’ While walking back home after watching the play, I began to contemplate the cost of my very existence. What damage has been unleashed on the world, just because I was brought into it? What is the impact of me at this very moment – the clothes I’m wearing, the bus I just got off, the air I’m exhaling – on the Earth? Have I done enough good in my life to make up for all the bad I’ve incurred? I don’t know. These are questions I don’t have the answers to, and questions I’d try not to think of too much or spiral into, but important questions we should be aware of nonetheless and consider from time to time. To the issue of introducing so much carbon dioxide into the world, Man and Woman naively present an answer – planting trees! Planting a whole forest of trees, to offset the carbon output of the one human being they are about to bring into the world! Yet it is clear that in spite of the constant assertion that they are good, educated people who think of the world’s needs before their own, their innate nature to procreate overcomes their desire to think for others. But what I loved most about this show was its presentation two very authentically flawed human beings. Man and Woman are victims of the same pitfalls as the rest of us humans, be it through a lack of compassion and understanding, infidelity or suicidal thoughts, and these make their struggles infinitely real, and infinitely captivating. With the subject matter of this play, I was forced to reflect on the selfish choices we make for our own happiness and satisfaction. In a world that is straining under the pressure of so many lives, even having a child is a selfish desire to experience the joy and love of family. When the most selfless course of action for the good of the world would be to not have children, or – god forbid – eradicate ourselves, how do we go about justifying our behaviour and maintaining the façade of being a good person? Regarding the performance itself, I absolutely loved the tinges of Singaporean accent throughout the 1.5h of duologue. When staging plays from the West, Singaporean theatremakers often fall into the trap of a clipped and precise British or American-accented delivery, which – to me – tends to make local productions more whitewashed and bourgeois than I’d like them to sound. While effective in terms of conveying the content, such choices often distance me from the material, making them seem less personally relevant in a Singaporean context. However, with just a dash of the Singlish accent, the play became a refreshingly authentic depiction of a dilemma that all of us face, making its subject matter all the more pertinent. The simplicity of the set, dialogue and costumes also resonated quite strongly with me, articulating the themes of the play with tremendous clarity. Though these three elements were stripped down, it reminded me that a show can be immensely powerful even without having to hide behind the theatricality of a complex dance routine, a big ensemble or a sky-high finale note. For Lungs, everything was contained within the lives of Man and Woman (which perhaps even functioned as a microcosm of sorts) and the interpretative minds of the audience. The raw staging allowed me to focus fully on their words and physicality, while the ordinariness of their clothes made them seem no different from any of us average folk, introducing the critical element of relatability that allowed the material to connect with each person. And in this way, I could see myself in Woman – asking her questions, understanding her arguments, celebrating her victories. That being said, I did feel that the material became quite dry about twenty to thirty minutes into the performance, due to little variation in intonation and a repetitive narrative arc. During many of the early arguments between Man and Woman, the text felt like a tennis match of ‘Let’s have a kid!’ – ‘But the Earth!’ – ‘But we should have a kid!’ – ‘But the Earth!’. Coupled with a regular pattern of shouting, the respective arguments eventually lost some of the steam that it had gathered during the outset and showcased little emotional depth beyond anger/irritation. Yet despite the occasionally mundane execution, the presence of some exceedingly witty lines gave the performance a welcome lift, rousing me from my stupor with a barely stifled laugh. What I do wish I could have seen more of, though, were cadences. The text was written to seem like a wholly unrehearsed conversation, with all the rambling and hesitancy that one would ordinarily hear in a day-to-day exchange. While this kept the pace of the show going for those one and a half hours, silences were few and far between, which – to me – diminished the drama of many moments in the play. Still images and intimate, contained dialogue always call out to me in ways that heightened volume and razor-sharp exchanges cannot, introducing a certain quiet, unbreakable tension that extends throughout the stage and to the audience, creating one shining moment of emotion. While on the topic of visual images, I did notice that there was a lack of physical contact between the two actors. Whether this was due to blocking the performance around existing safe distancing regulations or directorial intention I wasn’t too sure, but the play on distances was particularly useful in conveying the couple’s changing relationship throughout the play. Perhaps my favourite moment was right after the first climax, post-miscarriage, when the woman emerges from a haze of (what I assume to be) depression to reveal the profound grief of her experience. At this moment, she stands only a few paces away from Man, and yet the distance between them is insurmountable. They are worlds, planets, universes apart, separated by an inability to understand and a lack of empathy. Their gender difference gleams stark and clear in the glare of the lights that were once warm, but now harsh, as Woman seems to crumple upon herself in a silence punctuated by her meek, broken plea: ‘I needed you to be braver than me and put your own feelings second and to understand. To try to imagine what it’s like to miscarry.’ And in that moment, with bated breath, furrowed brow and a hand clamped over my mouth (and mask), I felt something hit home. Call it inbred maternal instinct, innate womanly intuition, or inherent sensitivity to another member of the female population, but the sheer despair and defeat in her voice pierced through me, coaxing an unbidden tear from my eye. My heart shattered for and with her – a lonely figure cut-off from everyone else, struggling to stay afloat amidst a raging sea of guilt and self-blame, and yet having to move forward nonetheless. But beyond all this, my appreciation of this particular work stems from an unbridled love for stories about human relationships and connection. I have always had a particular interest in the immeasurable number of ways humans can interact with each other, relying on, betraying, loving, helping, patronising… the list goes on. The ability of theatre to examine and subsequently express the many facets of the human condition has drawn me back to it, time after time, and is what – in my humble opinion – sets it apart. With Lungs’ gradual unveiling of the strained roots beneath a deceptively steady relationship, as well as the turbulent storm that follows which eventually brings Man and Woman back together, we are presented with a very authentic depiction of what it means to be human in the 21st century. While bringing to our attention the moral dilemmas associated with the creation yet another life, the content of the play also provokes us to question the nature of our own relationships and priorities, ultimately making us consider what it truly means to be a good person and human being. . . . Are we good people?
Lungs by Singapore Repertory Theatre ran from 21 June to 24 July at the KC Arts Centre.
Author's Note: So. SO. You've chosen the arduous task of undertaking the 4,000 word essay on theatre. A subject that - seemingly - has so few resources (or so you assume), but so much to talk about, and so much freedom to discuss (or so you'd expect). Well, this is hardly a qualified guide on how to write the theatre EE - I'll leave that to your supervisors - but it is what I've learnt from my one singular, and by no means definitive, experience in tackling that tricky piece of research. Have at it. 1. Choose a topic you're passionate about Bet you thought 'HA! Obviously.' But I'm here to say, no, not obviously at all. Theatre is a multidisciplinary art form that employs many different theories, techniques, styles, etc. etc. etc. and when you have such a wide array of topics to choose from, you might think, Well, let's just go with the easiest one to write. Well, oftentimes, the easiest one to write is not the one with the most readily available published research - it's the one you sustain a genuine interest in. It's not the churning out of 4,000 words that's difficult. It's the long and seemingly never-ending hours you spend outside of the actual writing, poring over page after page of literature to obtain enough understanding about your topic to even begin to write about it. And when you choose a topic that you sustain no interest in, that process is an absolute pain. Then at the end of the day, all the research you've done that you don't include directly in your essay will (probably) have been a waste of your own time, because that knowledge would hardly be value-adding to you as an individual. 2. Don't get too hung up on your research question But the research question is the starting and ending point of your whole essay! It provides direction! No. No, locking down a research question really isn't that vital. My research question was changed three times over the course of writing the EE, with the final change occurring about 1-2 weeks before the final submission deadline. What you need to have is a general idea of where your researching into and what you want to find out, and a 'draft' research question related to this area of study. And once you've got that, it's much easier to begin your research and see where it leads you, then tweak your research question to suit the data you've obtained, so it can be answered comprehensively. It's likely that somewhere along the research process (within your topic of interest), you'll realise which area of study has the most resources for you to turn to, and - voila - there you go! While it would be fantastic to be able to answer the original research question from the very beginning, sometimes it just isn't possible with limited resources and a 4,000 word constraint. 3. library@esplanade is your new best friend Really not kidding about this one. You'd think Singapore is severely lacking in terms of performing arts resources until you step into this library - it has every book on theatre you'd ever need. From practitioners to playwrights, research to repertoire, classical to contemporary. E v e r y t h i n g . I'd spend hours at a time sitting between the aisles, combing through titles and adding book after book to an ever growing pile at my feet, all while getting occasionally distracted by some random book that's completely unrelated to my topic of study at hand. This library carried me through more than just my EE - it was my favourite hideaway while researching for my HL Theatre Solo Performance and Research Presentation too! And if the sheer wealth of resources doesn't entice you, maybe the Esplanade Outdoor Terrace will. Borrow a book, head upstairs and lounge on the grass patch of the terrace, amidst the murmuring chatter of other patrons, the invigorating breeze of the Bayfront area and the glorious golden sunset :) 4. Get in touch with local theatre practitioners/teachers/people If you're lacking on data collection (which you shouldn't be after visiting the Esplanade library, but on the rare, rare occasion that you might be), people in the local theatre industry are your best bet to obtain data. Luckily enough, my EE topic was musical theatre (for obvious reasons) and I'm enrolled at Sing'theatre Academy, so I could easily approach the teaching faculty - who are all actively involved in the local theatre scene - for interviews. But even if you're not directly connected to someone in the industry, getting in touch with them via email and Instagram DMs are convenient enough, and they're often happy to help in whatever way they can. The best part about interviews? You can craft your question in a way that ensures you obtain the exact response you need to fill in any gaps in data. 5. Cite as you go along Self-explanatory - this makes citations much less of a headache. This means you include in-text citations immediately after writing the sentence that refers to the information (so that 1. You don't forget to cite, 2. You don't have to struggle to recall where you got the information from), and you make a note of all the books and websites you're using as sources. What I did was keep a bookmark folder called 'EE', and every time I cited external information from a website I added it to the folder. For reading materials, I had a list of ISBN numbers on my phone's Notes app - this way I could easily record which reference materials I'd used during my library trips (because you aren't allowed to borrow some books!). Keeping a constantly updated list of sources made writing my bibliography so easy - all I had to do was input the URL or ISBN number into a citation generator and paste it onto my document. And there you have it, 5 short tips on writing your theatre EE! While this list is by no means comprehensive, these are what helped me the most during the research and essay-writing process, so I hope they can help you in your essay too. If you'd like an example of a theatre EE, you can access mine here (A, 32/34), and drop me any questions below! I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability :) Happy productive writing!
Love, Ashley x "It was easy to come, and it will be easy to leave." These are one of the first words you hear when you begin, and one of the last you hear before it ends. (It makes a lot more sense at the end than the start.) A list of seemingly random questions. A list of even more random actions. "Fragments." A human connection. Here's how it began. Needless to say, I was very, very intrigued. Immersive theatre is something I've been rather keen on exploring and this seemed to be the pinnacle of immersion. This performance sounded extraordinarily contemporary, exploratory, unpredictable. Different. So I did what any intrigued thespian would do and signed up. I don't think the performance began when the narrator started speaking, or when the other person on the line picked up. For me, it started as soon as I bought my ticket a week ago. The thrill and trepidation of knowing I'd be spending an hour in the company of one total, complete stranger as the day of the show drew nearer seemed to be a part of the experience: a sense of awaiting. Awaiting a voice. Awaiting a conversation. Awaiting a shared journey. And the excitement of dialing in without knowing who would pick up, or where they would be from, what gender they'd be, how old they would sound, how well they would speak English, if there would be some profound connection immediately, if you've just found a new best friend, what the person would mean to you by the end... there's a lot of detail you pay attention to when all you get is a voice, slightly marred through the phone, with all the cadences, lilts and crescendos of natural human speech. And then somehow, over the course of fifty minutes, you've shared a whole chunk of personal thoughts and memories with a stranger you only just met, who might not even be living in the same country. In that fifty minutes, I'd told the other person about the safety of sleeping next to my grandfather, sung my mother's favourite song, disclosed that no, I do not have any tattoos, the only person I've carried is my dog, I was born in 2002, I haven't been to Spain. And in that fifty minutes, I'd learnt how the person was sitting at that moment, a string of information they had memorised, a picture of them as a child, the rhythm of their heartbeat, the fact that yes, they were alive when I was born, how their ancestors lived, the sound of their voice. With the information we'd been given - minimal physical features and an understanding of fragments of each other's lives - we were left to piece the other together. In fifty minutes, I had an image of whoever was on the other end of the call. I knew someone, or as much as I could from what I'd been given, a Person. Running parallel to our existence in our bedroom/living room/wherever the call was taken was an overnight journey in a desert, in the middle of nowhere, that the narrator, audience member and I were part of. Just us three. In one hour, without leaving my room, I'd forged a new memory of a road trip gone wrong and a starlit slumber with Narrator and Person. I'd hummed "Angel of Music" from Phantom to them. Our car had broken down. We'd walked to what seemed like the end of the world. Person told me that stars existed in different galaxies. Narrator wore a white shirt. Person made a fire. I asked if Narrator was awake. Three of us lay back and counted stars together. Interspersed with this intimate sharing of experiences was soft laughter, hesitation, silences and the occasional "So... what are we supposed to do again?" (the narrator doesn't repeat herself). It was the formation of a connection. The divulging of information even some of our closest friends wouldn't know. A faceless confidante. And finally, "You are somewhere in the world. Hold on to me. Goodbye." The line goes dead. related links:
A Thousand Ways, by Singapore International Festival of the Arts 600 HIGHWAYMEN, by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone |
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