Romeo And Juliet’s Thomas Pang on playing a character that’s ‘one per cent insane’

What do Shakespeare’s Romeo and Justin Bieber have in common? Well, besides the fact that they have both made some pretty questionable decisions in their lives, they also remind us that, hey, we’ve all been young and foolish before.

For 25-year-old Thomas Pang, who plays the leading man in the Singapore Repertory Theatre’s (SRT) staging of Romeo & Juliet, Romeo is “99 per cent typical teenager; one per cent completely insane”.

One of the Bard’s most-performed plays is SRT’s 2016 Shakespeare In The Park event, and will be staged at Fort Canning Park from tomorrow. Also starring Cheryl Tan, Shane Mardjuki, Remesh Panicker and Daniel Jenkins, the play, like some of SRT’s previous Shakespeare In The Park efforts, will have a contemporary setting. The stage design, for example, includes representations of skyscrapers, which are meant to blend into the Singapore skyline when seen from the park.

The modernist take also applies to the costumes. “They’ve dressed me like Justin Bieber, basically,” said Pang. “It’s not how I would imagine it. I’m a very conservative person in general when it comes to my clothing, but I like it. I wear more tank tops than anybody else — and hats. That’s amazing, given the heat. I was like, ‘How can I have a serious conversation when I’m wearing a hat?’ I’d never imagined putting a cap on (when performing) Shakespeare. But I’ve definitely gotten used to it!”

The clothes help bring home the point that Romeo is a timeless character. “I’ve gone through 99 per cent of what he’s felt. But I’ve never wanted to kill myself for somebody,” Pang added with a chuckle. “That’s the one per cent. That’s what makes the play the play.”

You may mock the impetuousness of the literary world’s most notorious star-crossed lovers, but Pang, who played a deaf character in the Pangdemonium production of Tribes last year to critical acclaim, chooses to see their tragic romance in a different light. To him, Romeo & Juliet is about overcoming cynical attitudes towards love, and to get people to want to feel and love fully again. “I think that’s something that we experience as teenagers but have forgotten (since),” he said.

“Look at the way romantic comedies have developed. There’s constant laughing at people who throw themselves at love,” Pang added. “I’m not saying I don’t do that, but I think it’s because we’ve been hurt that we’ve become cynical. Going back to the origin of that feeling is really difficult for a lot of people. And I think that’s the beauty of this play: It can reach that part of you that would climb over a garden wall to see if somebody is there, and then find, ‘Oh, my God, she’s there.’”

And then, of course, comes the drama of forbidden love and family feuds, which has contributed to feeding Pang’s love of Shakespeare. “I’ve been doing Shakespeare since I was seven years old, on and off,” said the actor, who grew up in San Francisco and moved to Singapore to do a three-year course at LASALLE College Of The Arts, from which he graduated last year.

“Blood and shouting — that’s what got me into acting.”

And how everyone dies at the end? “That’s the best part,” he said with a smile.

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THOMAS PANG’S CLIFFSNOTES

Romeo & Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays. We grilled Thomas Pang using some of its most famous lines.

Q: “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” What’s your sun?

A: My girlfriend (fellow actress Katharine Crane). And sunlight, like, actual sunlight. In Singapore, we have a different relationship with the sun, because it’s like, ‘Nice, nice, nice, horrible, nice, nice, nice.’ (But) sometimes looking at the sky makes you feel better; sometimes when you look at somebody, that makes you feel better.

Q: What would make you “deny thy father and refuse thy name”?

A: Probably if you killed somebody close to me. If you killed somebody else, and if it was for a good reason, maybe I’d be like, ‘Okay, that’s fine.’

Q: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, but what name would you not be able to live with?

A: My dad almost named me Augustine after Saint Augustine the philosopher. Being called “Gus” seems somewhat uninspiring. “Augustine Pang” — that would be atrocious.

Romeo & Juliet runs from tomorrow to May 22, 7.30pm at Fort Canning Park. Tickets available from SISTIC.