Mobile

by Haresh Sharma and others
The Necessary Stage
Singapore Arts Festival 2006
Drama Centre Theatre, Singapore

The Necessary Stage's Mobile, presented as part of the Singapore Arts Festival 2006, is a bold exercise. It represents a collaboration between writers and artistes from various countries in the region such as Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan with TNS resident playwright Haresh Sharma as head writer and Alvin Tan (Singapore) and Tatsuo Kaneshita (Japan) as joint directors.

The inter-related vignettes are by turns poignant, amusing and compelling. However, as a whole, the production comes across as too self-indulgent and elusive. There are liberal sprinklings of symbolic references that nobody seem to get and this somewhat hampers the production's ability to effectively communicate its theme on the effects of movement and migration on people from all walks of life.

Simplicity may have been the best way to go.

The Crystalwords score: 6.5/10