Oo-Woo

by Raimi Safari
The Necessary Stage

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2024
(organised and curated by TNS)

NAFA Studio Theatre, Singapore

After two abstract, challenging productions last week, this tender family drama about dementia and caregiving, written by Raimi Safari and presented by The Necessary Stage as part of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, feels like a breath of fresh air.

Developed under TNS's Playwright's Cove under the mentorship of Haresh Sharma and directed by Mohd Fared Jainal, Oo-Woo has all the hallmarks of a classic realist work from the company: a small cast, nuanced characters and a simple yet searing storyline. Zeroing in on a typical Malay-Muslim family, it centres around the matriarch Mak's (Dalifah Shahril) recent diagnosis for dementia and how her two adult children cope with caregiving responsibilities.

Haris (Yazid Jalil), the older married son and his mother's self-proclaimed "guardian angel", is quick to delegate daily tasks to his patient and loving Chinese wife Amelia (Isabella Chiam). Meanwhile, younger daughter Hanna (Farah Lola), studying for her nursing degree, feels she has to bear a disproportionate burden of the work and finally cracks under pressure.

Raimi's writing is sharp yet delicate, moving and deeply relatable. Much like in his evocative Rindu di Bulan which debuted at the Fringe two years ago, he excavates tensions over the course of the play that feel universal. There's the clear favouritism shown by Asian parents to sons over daughters and the expectation that a woman is always expected to put her family first and career second, something that spills to the surface when Amelia is offered a job opportunity in Australia.

Fared keeps the production tight and engaging, balancing the comedy with hard-hitting moments. He also coaxes strong performances from the cast. Dalifah shines as the loquacious yet deeply loving Mak who chatters excitedly to her pet bird Tiong and frets about it constantly, but fails to recognise the human beings in her life who are right next to her. Chiam turns in a quietly affecting performance as the dutiful daughter-in-law who never feels truly accepted as an outsider yet tries her best to make things work. Noor Effendy Ibrahim's pastel set works as a nice backdrop although the choice of placing the characters at varying parts of the stage (with Mak in a central, slightly sunken pit) such that they do not always speak directly to one another detracts from the clean, naturalist flow of the text.

At the end of the day, dealing with illness and caregiving is a complex task that has the potential to drive families apart. This is a thoughtful, topical play that eloquently gets its point across. 

The Crystalwords score: 3/5