KLK Visits Kalinga Trilogy

Never send a clueless non-Keling to do a Keling Kia's job. That was the first impression I got when I read the reviews of the Kalinga Trilogy - Separation. The review on the Straits Times on Tuesday (14th Nov) for example was obviously written by a non-Indian, non-Tamil who did not understand the nuances of language, the importance of dance and the ubiquitous nature of song in the play that are central to the Keling soul. Instead she spent time being distracted by the science of theatre, rambling on and on about "narrative", "internal monologue", "expositional dialogue" and "surrealistic mediation". Let me show you what I'm talking about:

Last Thursday the second instalment of Miror Theatre's Kalinga trilogy takes a tumultuous period in Singapore's history - 1946 to 1965 - and turns it into a cheeky amalgam of different performing traditions with mixed results. There were touches of therukoothu, traditional Indian street theatre, in the way Rodney Oliveiro and the magnetically feral Sani Hussin acted the parts of stylised storytellers, setting the stage for the play to follow.

It was an interesting choice, given the largely naturalistic style of the rest of the production. The contrast was jarring, but in a thought-provoking way, as if one were entering a slice of past life through a surrealistic mediation. There were dashes of the song-and-dance razzmatazz you usually find in musicals in the scenes featuring workers on strike. These, however, mostly felt stilted rather than subversively tongue- in-cheek. There were also many video clips used throughout the staging. This technique was used with greater success in the first play in the trilogy, staged at The Substation's Guinness Theatre last year. Then, the clips were used to evoke a mood rather than further the narrative. In this play, however, the tactic of using these clips as interior monologue scenes for the stage actors felt a tad too contrived.

The greatest challenge in writing a play about the history of Singapore is how to present all the information. From trade union strikes to racial riots to Independence, you learn a lot from this play via all the expositional dialogue. Consequently, however, one also never really shrugs off the feeling that this was more of an educational, rather than theatrical, experience. Two things made the first part of this trilogy highly engaging. One was the palpable chemistry of the ensemble cast, which remains in evidence here. Joanne Ng and S. Karthik, for instance, provided a welcome dose of comic relief with their energetic portrayal of a bickering couple.

The other factor was the central love story featuring stage actress Letchumi (Vicknesvari Vadivalagan) and Indian immigrant Shanmugam (V. Subramaniam), who is killed off in the second instalment.The widowed Letchumi instead finds herself increasingly attracted to an earnest young teacher Suntharam (Sivakumar Palakrishnan). But the narrative ploy of keeping this a chaste attraction that ends on a will-they-or-won't-they note wore thin after a while. The result was a heartfelt but patchy play, with interesting new ideas about the art of storytelling but an uneven hand in presenting these ideas.

You totally missed the forest for the trees, honey. Enough of the above "let's see how many big words I can put in a few paragraphs" review? Read the KLKillah version.

For those of you who don't know the story, here is it in a nutshell - starts from 1946, immediately after the war. It continues the story of Letchumi and the trials and tribulations she experiences right up to the separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965. The Separation is the second installment of Trilogy but this production stands alone. Even without knowledge of the first part, audience can still enjoy the performance.

Anyone with a keen interest in Singapore's history and unique culture will not want to miss this journey into the country's past - from the citizenship drive in the 1950s by the Indian community to the emotionally charged 1964 racial riots, from ugly incidents like the Hock Lee Bus riots to the Maria Hertogh controversy.(Synopsis courtesy of Esplanade website )


Kalinga Trilogy, directed by Vadi PVSS, is a play that sings right into the heart of every Singaporean Indian. Besides the careful research into our history, Vadi also made sure to represent the popular culture of the time to its truest. For example, he chose to insert a sing-and-dance item- a typical "aruvadai" song from cinema in the 1950s, which brings back memories of the stars of the time like Sivaji, MGR and S Muthiah.

We are all familiar with the patriotic songs from that era and the Kalinga Trilogy has a few orginal songs, in local context, that added oomph to the patriotism of the play. The strike song, the resistance song, the "every dog has its day" song - they all resounded with what we know of our turbulent history.

The actors were well chosen for the parts, although I was surprised that not more Indian actors were hired. (Read: Why didn't they hire me?) Maybe it was to maintain the multiculturalism of Singapore in the play. And get more multicultural bums on seats, of course. Some of the faces that we are used to seeing on the small screen, like Vickneswary and Sivakumar actually translate well onto the stage.

Vickeswary's classical dance background came through with her overdramatic sadness and larger than life decision making (Think Saroja Devi). Sivakumar is a natural and gifted actor, who really should explore his stage career a lot further. And the non-keling actors were just as good. Joanne, Sani and Rodney, you all have honorary Keling membership now.

After the play, Mr Vadi decided to have a open dialogue with the audience, hoping to get some intelligent dialogue and feedback. This turned out to backfire in the most embarrassing way. It was like having one of your once-a-year Deepavali guests tell you why everything about your house is wrong and that you should have consulted them before you bought it.

Why, Mr Vadi? Why open yourself up to that kind of heartache? Especially when you saw that the audience contained people who liked the sound of the own voice so much, they wouldn't let anyone talk? Even when you took their mic away! Especially when what they had to say had nothing to do with the play or with real life. . I mean, does anyone really need to know the 6 Sanskrit words for Lion? You should have just had Mr Samuel Doraisingam share his experiences of the time, and thus add truth to the beauty that was the Kalinga Trilogy.

For those of you who decided to invest the $25 on Black Cat and fags instead of a ticket, please start saving now for Part Three. It will be worth it. It will at least give you an extra bounce in your step the next time you are reminded you are a Keling Kia.

Top Ten KLKialisms

1) The event started late.

2) The girls were dressed to the nines and the guys looked like they just crawled out of bed. Esplanade? So what?

3) You laugh at grief. Yes, it's your coping mechanism. Laugh so you won't have to look like a pansy for crying along.

4) You don't notice that the actors say "wery", instead of "very", or stare-y instead of starry.

5) You clap along to the songs, even though your seat mate stares daggers at you for rocking the whole row.

6) You read the subtitles, even when the characters are speaking Tamil.

7) You don't flinch at strobe lighting or bright spotlights on the audience, thanks to the lighting designers at Amaran.

8) Half the audience is related, friends with or knows someone who knows someone who is a cast/ crew member.

9) You rue the fact that there was no love song scene daydreamt by the hero or heroine in the play.

10) The programmes were free, because no self-respecting Yindian will pay $10 to buy one.

To view news clips on YouTube, click HERE. We'd like to call out for anyone who has photos of the night in question to send it to us because our KLKamera was stolen and sold off at Sungei Road before we could buy it back.

kalinga trilogy, esplanade
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