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SINGAPORE: The Necessary Stage's (TNS) latest offering "Model Citizens", like its previous works, sets out to make the audience ponder about various issues.
The theatre production is about the three women who are brought together by the stabbing of a Member of Parliament (MP) by a cleaner: The MP's Chinese-educated wife (Goh Guat Kian), the cleaner's Indonesian maid girlfriend who seeks to marry him for Singapore citizenship (Siti Khalijah), and her moody Peranakan employer (Karen Tan).
In "Model Citizens", TNS gets the audience to contemplate issues like whether the Singapore government's 'Stop at Two' campaign in the 1970s was a good idea; how language and power interact as well as why foreign workers come to Singapore.
There is actually a lot more going on in the play and it sometimes feel a little cluttered because you are thinking of so many things, you might get lost in your thoughts and miss out on bits of the performance.
Still, this is just one minor grouse about what is, on the whole, a very absorbing and poignant production.
TNS managed to tell a complex story with very simple props (just three movable cupboards) and made excellent use of lighting to draw attention and create tension.
The actors also delivered good performances and managed to pull off this multi-lingual play without hiccups.
Tan's portrayal of a woman nursing a deep emotional scar from a familial tragedy was moving while Siti's performance as an Indonesian maid who struggles to escape her difficult circumstances was convincing and sincere.
However, it was Goh who stole the scene every time she appeared. She quickly drew laughs with her funny mannerisms, her deliberate use of bad English and her humorous experiments with her newfound power as she made political decisions on behalf of her bedridden MP husband.
Yet, she also slipped into the more melancholic part of her character easily and conveyed the bitterness of a wife who constantly lived in her husband's shadow, disadvantaged because of her Chinese education.
With tight writing, great acting and production values, "Model Citizens" is definitely worth a look.
"Model Citizens" runs till 14 March at The Necessary Stage Black Box in the Marine Parade Community Building.
- CNA
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