Goodman Arts Centre :: 2nd Open House

Had a great morning at Goodman Arts Centre's '2nd Open House'. As usual, we did our homework checking out the event calendar, and decided the timings we would like to be there. Much thought had been put into the programming of 150 items presented by 200 artists in a weekend. A big step up from last year's event while keeping to core activities that worked well.

While we wandered around the studios for a browse, we were mainly parked at the Black Box for the shows. Began the morning with selected scenes from The Common Folks' 'Loud Mouth Loving'. A couple of scenes from the everyday plucked out of the writer's observation. He made no interpretation, leaving it to the audience to make their own judgment. The young actors portrayed a son's angst with his family and his efforts to balance their expectations and love shown through 'nagging', and also a scene from the packed train that anyone could have observed of a lovers' tiff. There was another show in the afternoon, but we had plans and couldn't return for that.

Glad I had the opportunity to see three dances presented by 'Frontier Danceland'. They're a group I had meant to check out for a ticketed event, but couldn't make it. There were full-time dancers, as well as graduates from PULSE in the showcase. The music threw me off a little as the first two pieces were done to Mandarin songs and words, without subtitles. Took me a while to reconcile that with the movements.

We had to meet the friends for lunch, and debated whether to stay for Urban Kulit's dramatized read of work-in-progress 'When Two Cats Collide'. We would be 15 minutes late for lunch. The friends would understand. SO GLAD WE STAYED. It was a brilliant and delightful delivery of "a coming-of-age conversation between two cats - Tiger, a kitten who wants to see the world, and Queenie, who knows what lies beyond the four walls of their home." The script was excellent. Succinct, and to the point. Clearly the themes of freedom and right of choice versus security and safety, voice of experience, empathy, friendship, etc, also apply to humans. The potentially overwhelming themes were nicely subsumed into the crisp lines that filled the imagination through the not-that-short-read by the actors.

Between performances, we saw the short Singapore films that were looping at the multi-purpose hall. Some were mundane and boring, others were mundane and touching; some held glaring loopholes that couldn't be glossed over by theatrical treatment, the rest were debatable. A good selection of various genres in various languages. Although we had to edge away from the centre of the hall to the sides when children started occupying the space and throwing the cushions at one another. After being hit for the nth time by a stray cushion, we wisely chose to fall back from the line of fire and hug the sides of the hall before finally leaving the venue for lunch.