Theatre review: Running With Strippers

SINGAPORE — Since it burst into the scene back in 2005, Cake Theatrical Productions has consistently been one of the most unique voices in the local arts scene, with works consistently described as surreal, outlandish and psychedelic. But behind that trademark over-the-top technicolour flamboyance is an intimate theatre-making sensibility.

If you think about it, this Cake is really more of a rainbow kueh lapis: Its layers of bright colours make it stand out on the plate but you also think of it as the product of a tightly knit family — headed by artistic director Natalie Hennedige and producer Sharon Tang — whipping up these delightful snacks in the kitchen at home.

That’s the sense one gets in Cake’s 10th anniversary multi-disciplinary show Running With Strippers, a grungy affair comprising three nights of one-off performances inside what has been Cake’s theatrical kitchen of sorts: Its studio-cum-office space of five years in Goodman Arts Centre.

The 37m-deep space, which used to be three classrooms (Goodman Arts Centre used to house the LASALLE College of the Arts and the School Of The Arts), has been stripped bare, with the company’s props and materials either sold off or in storage. A slew of installations and performances (both inside and along the corridor) then serve as a kind of homage to the very space where many Cake works were created and developed.

In a nutshell, Running With Strippers is an extension of Cake’s Decimal Points project, a series of experimental works by long-time members and frequent collaborators. Yesterday’s show, for example, featured sound artist Zai Tang’s performance employing sounds he recorded in Bukit Brown; independent producer Neo Kim Seng’s performance-installation called My Grandfather’s Road (which is literally about his grandfather’s road, Neo Pee Teck Lane); and music by Southeastern Ensemble Today’s And Tomorrow’s Sounds.

(Tonight’s show will include works by Cake regulars and Decimal Points alum Rizman Putra and Andy Lim, as well as friends such as Ho Tzu Nyen and Pat Toh.)

Thursday night’s lineup of pieces were equally eclectic. It kicked off with The Big Empty, a collaboration between design collective neontights, sound artist Zulkifle Mahmod and Rizman. They took the “strippers” theme and gave it a Cake twist: A slow processional walk by Rizman along the astroturfed corridor that triggered snippets of moaning sounds straight out of a porn film, gamelan music and horses neighing. Inside, Rizman’s “strip show” continued as he hung onto, and grappled with, a metal box, with the stylised ritual along the corridor giving way to kinky physical theatre.

Before the night wrapped up with an acid jazz jam by the group TAJ, there was the humour-tinged drama of Instructions For Swimming; Notes On Drowning. Young playwright Michelle Tan’s own take on the tragic character of Ophelia (from Shakespeare’s Hamlet) and the whole process of theatre-making, was given kooky life by actors Jo Kukathas and Felipe Cervera, with swimming caps, goggles and all.

Running With Strippers is a casual affair that, in its site-specific rawness, is reminiscent of the alternative theatre scene of an earlier time (and of the gritty performance art events that still take place today), what with sweaty people waiting expectantly outside before cramming inside the room to see performances in less-than-polished circumstances, but certainly done with a lot of heart.

“The miracle is endurance,” goes one line in Instructions For Swimming. After 10 years of “running”, Cake certainly deserves a pat on the back for coming a long way.

And maybe a plate or two of rainbow kueh lapis. MAYO MARTIN

Running With Strippers, which ends its run tonight at Cake’s Goodman Arts Centre studio, has reached full capacity.