Have you ever seen a drama serial so annoying that you wished you could walk on screen to kick some damn sense into the characters? The Seven-Month Itch by The Necessary Stage lets you do just that - it's an interactive play, so audience members get to jump in and make decisions for the heroes.
Daniel Yeo and Timothy Nga play Daniel and Jason, two gay men who've been boyfriends for seven months before the latter meets a man in a club and they have unprotected sex. Will he have the courage to get an HIV test? Will he confess his unfaithfulness to his partner? Audiences can interrogate actors (hotseating), suggest certain courses of action (playback theatre), or march in and replace the main character themselves to change a course of action (forum theatre).
"AFA (Action For AIDS) approached us and asked us to do something targeted at the MSM (men who have sex with men) community," explains Haresh Sharma, the resident playwright of the theatre group. "So we decided okay, we'll do it forum style."
This means that after 30 minutes of scripted drama, presenting the initial problem, audiences can interrogate actors (hotseating), suggest certain courses of action (playback theatre), or march in and replace the main character themselves to change a course of action (forum theatre). There's no pre-written ending; your fellow actors will have to respond to your onstage decisions by improvising according to character. It's an especially empowering form of drama, since it provides a controlled setting for people to take charge of problems they could easily face themselves in the future.
Theatregoers in Singapore should already be familiar with The Necessary Stage, with its long legacy of social and experimental drama, tackling a range of topics including religion, HDB apartment living, terrorism and the tsunami. In 1993, the company was instrumental in introducing forum theatre to Singapore. Their twin productions of Mixed Blessings and MCP addressed issues of interracial romance and violence against women respectively, and gained extremely positive responses from the public.
In 1994, however, forum theatre was banned in Singapore due to its origins among Marxist activists who used it to instruct the poor on how to fight for their land rights. But since 2001, forum theatre's been revived by the company in projects like Dreaming Up a Prince, which forced youth and social workers to discuss the issues of (snigger) pre-marital heterosexual sex.
While The Seven-Month Itch will underscore the need for HIV safety, Sharma promises it won't be done in a puritan spirit. "We're not just doing it for education," he emphasises. "I've written the play in a way that will hopefully speak very closely to the gay community. There's the issue of protected and unprotected sex, of course, but it's also about a betrayal of the relationship. The play will deal with HIV issues, but in a more personal way. We're not making it didactic, like a pamphlet. In drama you can have humour and emotional investment."
The play follows as one among several plays about gay life and HIV in The Necessary Stage's production history. Back in 1999 they presented the groundbreaking work Completely With/Out Character, performed by and based on the life of Paddy Chew, an openly bisexual and HIV-positive Singaporean man. And in 2004, they presented Mardi Gras and Top or Bottom, a play in two chapters about gay Singaporeans attempting to hold a gay pride parade and come to terms with death, performed as part of festivities around Fridae's Nation.IV.
The Seven-Month Itch is written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Aidli 'Alin' Mosbit, with audience interaction facilitated by company artistic director Alvin Tan. It'll be performed the second week of November by the rather luscious Timothy Nga, Danny Yeo and Peter Sau.
The Necessary Stage and Action for Aids present:
The Seven-Month Itch (18 and above)
Produced by The Necessary Stage
Date: 8 - 12 November 2006
Time: 8pm
Venue: Mox Café and Bar, 21 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tickets: $22 & $18 [concessions for students, NSF, senior citizens] Excludes $1 Gatecrash handling fee
Available at www.GATECRASH.com.sg, or call GATECRASH Hotline 6222 5595. Tickets are also available at all SingPost Branches & S.A.M. Kiosks.