Motherland

by Noor Effendy Ibrahim
Very Shy Gurl by Fendy
M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2024
(organised and curated by TNS)
Practice Space, The Theatre Practice, Singapore

Kicking off the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2024 with Motherland, written and directed by Noor Effendy Ibrahim and presented by his collective Very Shy Gurl by Fendy.

A gritty show exploring the theme of war, violence and love, it's set in a spartan room dominated by a bed frame and army supplies where two soldiers (Irfan Kasban and Nada Jabari) negotiate their tortured existence. They hail from opposing sides of an ongoing battle but also happen to be lovers. A painful, forbidden love that manifests itself through rough sex and tender touches while the world burns outside. A third person, known only as Dog, sits meekly in a corner, performing menial tasks.

Structured in five acts named after colours and punctuated by live Javanese vocals, Motherland strives for the epic but ends up falling flat. The text is as inscrutable as it is insular, with awkward dialogue, pregnant pauses and a gratuitous flagellation scene that's delivered like a ritual. We end just as we begin but are left none the wiser because we have absolutely no sense of who these characters are.

The play is reportedly inspired by the 1993 Oslo Accords, a peace treaty between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities that made global headlines, although it remains completely silent on names and places. There is talk about the vulnerability of the minority body and the gaze of the spectator in the programme but it is hard to form any coherent views from this brusque, homoerotic tango that goes nowhere.

A challenging production to sit through and one not helped at all by a post-show dialogue which only reinforces one's view that this is a patchy, pretentious piece that needs to be thoroughly overhauled.

The Crystalwords score: 1/5