SINGAPORE : Fusion may be a bad word in the culinary world but not in art. And judging by the attention cross-cultural collaborations are receiving at this year’s Singapore Arts Festival, appetite for fusion performances is growing.

The latest East-meets-West production to take centre stage at the month-long festival is “The Crab Flower Club” by Singapore-grown theatre production company Toy Factory.

Directed and written by Goh Boon Teck, “The Crab Flower Club” is drawn from the great Chinese classic, “A Dream of the Red Chamber”, and also features a live recreation of Qing Dynasty paintings and Franz Liszt's music - “Les Preludes” - which is treated with cutting edge sound design by Darren Ng.

“The script was written in 1799 and it was about the same time Franz Liszt was creating this piece of work (Les Preludes) back in Europe. We fused the two worlds together in this play so we have this western influence in a Chinese classical story,” said the director.

Set in a respectable household in the Qing Dynasty, five daughters come together to prepare a complex feast of crabs for their father’s 60th birthday. As each daughter conjures up her own recipe, she also lays bare her intelligence, talent and desire on the culinary table.

Starring actresses Janice Koh, Nell Ng, Jean Ng, Noorlinah Mohd and Pat Toh, “The Crab Flower Club” aims to shed light on the feminine psyche.

Goh chose to feature female protagonists because the female poets of the Qing dynasty “fascinate” him. While many were highly-educated, they were not given the recognition that they deserve.

“I wanted to write about them because for the Qing dynasty, there were maybe 500 male poets being archived but all the female poets, where are they? Are they gone?

“And Qing dynasty is a period of time where all the females are highly-educated and I think it is not being recorded in history.”

“Also I love women,” he joked. “I love writing about women, they inspire me. They are always more colourful and more illustrative in their emotions.”

“[But] I am very glad that in the last week of rehearsals, Darren joined us. Yay more guys in the team!”

During the 90 minute play, the audience will be treated to a live calligraphic painting performance by award-winning ink artist Hong Sek Chern whose masterpieces will be projected on screen, creating multiple changes of visuals on stage.

While this may seem somewhat disconnected from the rest of the production, the artist says her visuals are an “extension of the idea of creativity”.

“It is not so direct as I am hearing what they are doing and I’m illustrating, no... I am definitely not painting crab, not painting flowers, but it’s really the extension of the idea of creativity because they are creating poetry and there I am creating my own lines, really literally painting lines,” said Hong. “That sort of extended the idea, it’s beyond words, it’s more visual.”

And since it’s all done live, not only does Hong have to deal with unexpected screw ups like “splotches” but also time constraints.

“But that’s part of the fun of painting. You really have to improvise. I really relish that kind of challenge and to react to that kind of situation. The only thing is the timing - fixed time, one hour 30 minutes,” she said.

“The composition is the same but it (the outcome) is different every time I do it.”

Goh added, “You have to sense the energy every night. Every night is a bit different and that’s what live theatre art is. We kind of adjust every night.”

While this is an East-meets-West production, Goh prefers to label it as “uniquely Singaporean”.

“I think it is a Singaporean work with a Singaporean trademark, that we are a hybrid of cultures and we put together things. And I think, for example, if ‘Crab Flower Club’ has the honour to be opened in another country, I think it has a Singapore identity, no other place can create a work like that.”

If you are intrigued by this lyrical play, you can catch it at the National Library Building’s Drama Centre Theatre from June 3-5. Tickets are available at all SISTIC outlets.

- CNA/il