华艺节 :: 《移心》

I understand the skills behind making puppets and telling stories using different types puppetry. I'm not at all fond of puppets (they're so creepy lah), but I had to watch 'Transplant' 《移心》at Esplanade's Huayi Festival (华艺节). Even the man wanted to catch it — for our own Vedic metal band RUDRA. Billed as The Finger Players X RUDRA, the production saw the metal band play live in the shows.

Produced by The Finger Players (十指帮), the show's summary read,

There once was a family of four: the father vehemently denies his own infidelity; an erudite yet loquacious old mother is confined to her bed; a son grapples with the complexities of love amid academic struggles; and a wife is plagued by the three afflictions of greed, hatred and ignorance. Their lives take a dark turn when a mysterious yet alluring homeless damsel becomes their maid, personifying the malevolent forces that torment the wife’s restless soul.   Drawing inspiration from various tales in the classic anthology Liaozhai (also known as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), Transplant delves into the depths of human nature, where inner darkness can yield dire consequences.  

Playwright and director Oliver Chong (钟达成) adapted several tales from Pu Songling's 'Liaozhai' / 蒲松龄、《聊斋》to weave this story of a family plagued by the darkness in human nature. He didn't shy away from perverse sexual allusions, sexual tension or family awkwardness. These are very real emotions plaguing the world ever since. (A Straits Times review of the show here.)

In the Director's Note, Oliver Chong said he took the plunge to introduce and incorporate the most unlikely of sonic component he could think of, which would be the genre of music that he knew nothing about, heavy metal. He found RUDRA and that positive exploration and collaboration became the show we watched. 

为了给创作注入新鲜感和趣味性，我决定引入我最陌生且最不 同寻常搭配的声音元素。我的搜索最终在我有幸说服传奇的吠 陀金属乐队RUDRA参与制作时结束，尽管我对这种独特合作方 式的信心和理解仍然有限。我完全是重金属音乐的新手，对吠陀 金属的了解更是有限。真诚感谢RUDRA的四位杰出艺术家—— Kathir、Shiva、Devan和Vinod对我们的信任，携手踏上这一 未知的冒险。 

愿《移心》这个深沉的寓言故事激发深刻的反思，照亮我们这 新的一年中延续存在的道路，引领我们迈向启迪与目标。 

'Liaozhai' has 491 tales across 16 volumes mostly about fox spirits, ghosts, and goblins. (《聊齋》491章多談狐、魔、鬼、妖，以此來概括當時的社會關係，反映了17世紀中國的社會面貌.) My problem with it — it's mostly about evil women. WALAO. So what if it's a satire or comment on 17th century human nature? No wonder they blame every disaster and misfortune on women.

There was a mix of puppets (animated by actors) and live actors on stage. I was super relieved that the life-sized puppets didn't come into play that much. Otherwise I would be really freaked out. There were only two. One was the bedridden mother-in-law/grandmother who needed diapers, and the other was the servant girl Ah Xiu who, well, could split into two. She is a demon (likely a fox spirit) who could bewitch and also do heart transplants on living humans to alter their fates. Puppet and actor inter-switched for that dramatic emphasis of supernatural forces at work. The demon's true self is brilliantly played by Ellison Tan.

There were three more demons who also doubled up as puppeteers. Played by Myra Loke, Angelina Chandra and Rachel Nip, they were dressed in black and were visible only to Ah Xiu and the audiences. Myra Loke also voiced the bedridden Grandmother who was helpless at being physically abused and could only live in her memories. 

A part of me couldn't help thinking that traditionalists in the audience would only nod and say, 'yeah, metal music is bad, is darkness, is demonic.' Whatever. I love how the production team didn't turn down the volume of the music. The beats pulsated, and made us question our entire being. I loved the partnership of performers, story and music. Metal is so apt to depict the darkness in human nature. It's up to us how we want to control the music and have it accompany our journey. I left the show happily humming the main refrain.