Theatre review: ABCD | 3/5

SINGAPORE — The narrator is a kind of outsider in modern day theatre, a space that doesn’t seem particularly designed or even interested to accommodate its presence. So what happens when the narrator takes over a play and decides to tell a story instead?

TheatreWorks associate directors Vertical Submarine follow up their playfully innovative Dust: A Recollection with the more ambitious ABCD, which is essentially adaptations of four works of fiction by three Argentineans and a Frenchwoman.

Supposedly dealing with the “impossibility of dialogue”, all four pieces feature encounters between two characters, courtesy of alternating performers Rayann Condy, Vanessa Ann Vanderstraaten, Stephane Brusa and Tim Garner.

In Jorge Luis Borges’ The Form Of The Sword, a man reveals to another how he got the huge scar on his face. Julio Cortazar’s The House Taken Over, revolves around siblings who live in a huge house and rarely speak. Marguerite Duras’ The Malady Of Death is about a man who pays a woman to stay with him. Finally, Roberto Arlt’s Luba features a writer in a philosophical and romantic sparring contest with a prostitute. (And in an added layer of “impossible dialogue”, it’s actually an appropriation of a story by a Russian writer by another Argentinean writer who attributes it to Arlt.)

Linked by subtle elements (namedropping an author here, evoking an image there), the four stories (which technically unfolds as BCDA) actually cohere. But if this so-called impossibility of dialogue is resolved, the dialogue between literary text and theatre remains tricky.

Like in Dust: A Recollection, the first three pieces basically unfold the good old fashion way of storytelling. Actual dialogue comes in spurts, if at all, and atmosphere and momentum are built up primarily through a narrator (with some help from some exquisitely subtle soundscapes from Shawn Par and evocative lighting by Alberta Wileo).

Going to a play to watch and hear stories being read may not be to everyone’s liking (perhaps judging by some empty seats after the intermission), but there’s arguably a certain allure to it. It’s the reverse of immersion as one is forced to accept a powerful singular voice to lead them through the tale — something that works very well if you’re talking about writers of this calibre. Sure, The House Taken Over, with its characters trapped in tedium and some mysterious invasion of their home, may lend itself to something more theatrical. But it would be at the expense of Cortazar’s distinct literary voice. It’s a testament to both his imagination and way with words that it remains the most gripping of the four pieces.

But choosing to literally tell a story can be a double-edged sword, as well. There is little theatricality in the often-flat narration that’s really more like someone’s reading a book (a recurring action throughout ABCD). It’s a strategy that perhaps still works in Borges’ and Cortazar’s stories, but becomes a glaring flaw when used in Duras’ piece, which bulges at the seams with some powerful eroticism.

In these three pieces, Vertical Submarine are adamant about the power of the literary texts, which they more or less employ wholesale. In the final one, Luba, they give in to actual dialogue.

While this offers actors Garner and, in particular, Condy, the chance to flex their acting muscles, the shift to a more theatrical approach somehow reveals the art collective’s limitations in shaping the flow of drama in a conventional sense.

And yet, it’s this naivete that makes these relative theatre outsiders a breath of fresh air in the scene. Their unique voice stems from the fact that they don’t play by the rules — and for the most part of ABCD, they speak a different and rather interesting language.

(ABCD runs until April 6, 8pm, 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Tickets at S$35 from tworks [at] singnet.com.sg or 6737 7213.)