Poet escapes to the rural area, seeking to disappear. Fisherman fears the sea; but yet, do not dares to venture into the city, as it holds unknown dangers for him. Prostitute travels to the rural area, seeking to escape from the harsh realities of life for her in the city, but yet, the city returns to haunt her, giving her no peace. The interaction between the three characters, and the Policeman (who represents the dangers and evilness of the city), is what encapsulated the whole four acts to the Natalie Hennedige’s theatre response to Quah Sy Ren’s (1996), Invisibility.
As is mentioned in the programme, Invisibility/Breathing is the examining of the hope and futility of restless people in a restless world. However, unlike Invisibility by Quah Sy Ren, which takes the audience on a “voyeuristic ride towards urban myth” , Invisibility/Breathing seems to be trying too hard to be too many things at once. It tries to convey to the audience that nobody is really connected with each other, not even those whom you lived with for an extended period of time, yet at the same time, trying to create the conflict between the rural life and the city life. It also seems to try to re-create a sense of the theatre of the absurd, by inserting random acts of dancing among the characters on stage, which do not, served to advance the storyline, or invoke a sense of the theatre of the absurd for the audience. Instead, the audience is left to wonder what the meaning behind such random dancing was, or to put it more crudely, it was a WTF moment for the audience. All the above ideas that Natalie tried to convey across to the audience via Invisibility/Breathing, however, serves only to make the whole play seems disconnected and disorganized, almost as if there were too many things on the plate that the director is trying to bring across to the audience, so much so that the audience is left feeling overwhelmed.
In a certain way, Invisibility/Breathing was reminiscent of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker, which has three main characters (Mick, Davies, and Aston) living together for an extended period of time, interacting with each other, but yet in the end, not really knowing or understanding about each other. Likewise, Invisibility/Breathing is similar. By the random or mundane twist of fate (depending on how you want to see it), the Poet, the Fisherman, and the Prostitute met each other, and decided to stay and interact with each other. Their lives began to intersect and each in a sense is dependent on the other for support and guidance. However, in the end, like the characters in The Caretaker, all three of them do not really understand or are connected with each other, and by the end of the play, their lives were drastically changed.
Furthermore, Natalie tried to tie Invisibility/Breathing to Quah’s Invisibility, by having the Poet keep on asking the other two characters on whether they would see him. The Poet’s attempt to make himself invisible and his desire for the Fisherman to bring him out to sea, serves to indicate the Poet’s contempt and disregard for the society, and this is reminiscent of Invisibility’s Scene 1: The Act of Invisibility, whereby the character A seeks to become invisible. However, unlike A seeks to become invisible by following ancient Chinese texts, the Poet in Invisibility/Breathing did not seem to actively seek to become invisible per se, but rather only seeks to affirm his worth in society through the asking of that question.
One part that I like about Invisibility/Breathing was the very idea that books, and the act of the Poet reading out excerpts from various authors (etc. Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka) is retorted by the Fisherman, as stealing experience from the dead. To me, this seems to tie in with the image of the Poet, as someone who has no life experience of his own, since he seems to be too dependent on his books, and on the Fisherman and the Prostitute. Even though the Poet seeks to find himself, or to better understand himself via his books, it is evident to the audience that he has failed in doing so, since by the end of the play, he has achieved nothing, and is still begging the Fisherman to bring him to the sea. Furthermore, during the various intervals of the play, the Poet is seen, jumping around the raised platform around the stage, and extorting to the audience that he is here. This jumping around by the Poet seems to emphasize the fact that he is restless. All the above serves to highlight and emphasize to the audience the theme of restlessness and the futility of restless individuals to find connections and meanings in this world, since the actions of the Poet is ultimately meaningless, and do not by any chance, changes the fact that he is still alone, without making any deeper connections with other people.
However, it would also be argued that the appearance of the Policeman (in an extremely gaudy, flamboyant costume), and his disruption of the mundane (?) and routine (?) lives of the Poet, Fisherman, and the Prostitute would be said to be another attempt by Natalie to convey to the audience the sense of futility and hopelessness of restless people in forming connections. This would be seen by the fact, that every time the Policeman appears, the status quo is changed in some ways. For instance, when the Policeman appears in the last scene, the Prostitute was forced to become a mover of corpse, while the Fisherman was forced to become a self-appointed guardian of the cemetery. Through the direct actions of the Policeman, the three characters have become strangers again to each other. Perhaps it would be safe to say, or assume that the Policeman plays the role of fate, or the harsh reality of life, and that his appearance in the play perhaps emphasizes the fact that the Poet, Fisherman and the Prostitute do not have the fortitude or strength necessary to survive mentally intact in the harsh world, and that their seemingly safe refuge in the rural area is not actually safe at all.
Moving on to the non-performance aspect of the play per se. Invisibility/Breathing is an approximately one and a half hour play, with no intermission in between scenes. Therefore, it is advisable for the audience to clear their bladders first, if not, they might be able to feel the restlessness of the three characters very intimately. Furthermore, the seats within the Studio Theatre are not very comfortable per se, which in a sense, makes the audience involuntarily fidgets in their seats and which in turn, indirectly conveys the sense of restlessness that Natalie is trying to convey to the audience, whether this is intentional or not, is questionable.
Another technical aspect of the play, which leaves much to be desired, would be the translation done by Enoch Ng. Case in point, one of the scenes features the Prostitute calling the Fisherman 无情, which typically should be taken to mean being a heartless man, however, Enoch chooses to translate the term to being a hard man, which according to the Encarta online dictionary, refers to someone who is “perceived as vicious and ruthless, often with criminal tendencies”. Of course, when taken into account, the fact that the Fisherman did in fact commit murderous acts later in the play, the use of the English translation, “hard man”, could be seen to be a case of foreshadowing, however, given the lack of such connotations on the part of the original Chinese script, it seems to have spoiled the plot for the English-speaking audience, who have to rely on the subtitle to get the meaning and gist of the storyline.
In conclusion, I would give Invisibility/Breathing three and a half thumbs-up out of five. Although Natalie’s presentation of the play might seem haphazard at times, and one gets the sense that she is trying to place too many things on her plate, however, this does not remove the superb acting by the actors, nor away from the captivating storyline.
INTERESTING! MARK: A / A -
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