Homesick

Caught the last show of “Homesick” at 8pm, 6 Aug 2006 at the Drama Centre, National Library with Nan and Lini. It is an angst-ridden rant, but Lini enjoyed it and the topics seem to have resonated with Nan, who became even more cynical after the show. There was also a responsive crowd sitting around us, and many of them are youngsters. The play is about a family whose members are diverse and convenient mouth-pieces for the playwright. They are less characters than caricatures, and at times it is like watching an inter-school debate, and about as engaging. There are witty lines, close-to-the-heart issues, burning questions, and polemical clashes, all without the restrain of an adjudicator. An anglophile who renounces all trace of his roots. A teenager who changes his mind over National Service for the sake of a father’s mistress. A Peranakan matriarch who limply gives in to the new woman. A filial son who sides the father’s offence against the mother. They are plausible characters, but not probable. More damningly, they talk like puppets reciting snippets of monologue. And that is what the play is made of: stretches of sewn together monologues.

Still, it is a new play from a very talented and versatile playwright whose future plays I will look forward to seeing. Being a new play, it was billed as “World Premiere”. That is on the assumption that this play will travel well. From what I can hear during the show, it went down well with the local audience. But is there a universal voice here, an exploration of the human condition? Is it art? Probably not. But then again, that may not have been the intention of the play in the first place. It may have been aimed squarely at a small segment of the local society; the almost marginalized English-speaking art crowd. They chuckled away and cheered it.

Chup