Stay, Illusion (Hamlet)
26 - 29 February 2017
Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound or use of voice, Speak to me.
Denmark’s a prison. Privacy is hard to find and intimate moments are often observed. For the Prince of Denmark, it’s also a tomb. You’re invited to enter. Come in.
Who's there?
Give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placèd the view,
And let me speak to th'yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th'inventors' heads. All this can I
Truly deliver and from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently performed,
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen
26 -29 February 2017
ENE Central Asian Art Gallery, Singapore
Director’s Note
The name of the company, The Theatre of Others, comes from Hamlet. In act 3 scene 2, Shakespeare delivers his most prescient advice to theatre artists through the mouth of Hamlet:
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole Theatre of Others.
Other has many connotations. It is an acknowledgment of the audience. It is an acknowledgment of something beyond us, a presence not like ourselves. Some might call it God, the Universe, or an Over Spirit. It is an acknowledgment of difference and not a judgment about it.
The most used word in Shakespeare's Hamlet (with the exception of Names, Titles, and Prepositions) is Come. It’s a welcome. An invitation. Entering. Approaching. Just as Hamlet is about drawing in, so too this space is a home with a Welcome mat. The Theatre of Others invites you to embark on a memorable journey into this installation of Shakespeare's classic play amongst the work of Central Asia’s finest artist and set against the backdrop of Singapore
This space is a character in the play. It isn’t a home, a room, a private space with a wall removed. It is a world (the play within the play) within a world (Denmark) within a world (The Play) within a world (the audiences breathing space) within a world (our perceptible world). This mirroring is mentioned repeatedly over and over again in the play and has to be acknowledged in the space. To that end, depth is needed. Depth can be literal depth (unbroken, unlayered views) or it can be rooms within rooms within rooms. Depth allows multiple views, interpretations, and times. It can be now and the past, history, and the ability to change history. We (the audience) can see it, but can the characters on stage? Is something far away in the same time-space as we are?
Essentially, all theatre ends up being a memory. Unlike other art forms that leave a tangible product--a painting, a song, a dress--theatre produces something more valuable, an experience. A memory. We are in the business of creating and selling memories, something that is non-transferable, non-reproducible, and unstable. Our memories are unique and wholly owned by us. If you and I attend the same event, see the same phenomenon, are there for the same experience, we will each have different memories. This is why the audience’s experience is so important.
In the theatre, the audience’s experience begins the second they hear about a show. From the materials and marketing that they receive to the commitment to attend, to buying of tickets, to coming to the venue, to the lobby, to the actual experience of the production, and even after the event finishes and all that is left is that memory of which we speak. Everything has to be crafted with the audience in mind.
An act of theatre can not happen unless there is an audience. Until then it is a rehearsal. It is only the possibility of theatre. The audience is that last integral part of the show that is needed. So we as a company are vitally interested in the audience’s experience and their take away.
We want an audience, -not, however, a casual here-today-gone-tomorrow audience that visits the theatre when there is nothing better to do; but an audience sincerely interested in plays that reflect the contemporary human comedy, the passions, and problems of our world today. We want an audience that will consciously follow our efforts, observe our development, encourage us, enjoy us, and if need be, criticize us. If we can succeed in creating such an audience, we will be doing in the best sense exactly "what the audience wants."
We want to open the curtain to our creative process in hopes that not only will we excite and engage the audience but that we might be able to have a dialogue about the subject matter as well. Please join our mailing list, join our workshops, and listen to our weekly podcast
CAST
Carina McWhinnie
Ophelia
Indonesian-Scottish, born in Riyadh, raised in Bali, Carina McWhinnie is a versatile performer in every area - from acting on stage, film, singing, to a whole lot of quirky voices. Carina has completed her BA(Hons) in Acting at LASALLE College of the Arts and has since worked in Singapore
Her works include; Donizetti Rita (New Opera Singapore), Fat Kids Are Harder to Kidnap (How Drama) – performing at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC in 2015 and Sydney Fringe Festival in 2019. Her most recent debut performance was Pangdemonium’s ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ in 2018 directed by Tracie Pang, starring alongside Adrian Pang. She played the character of Molly Aster.
Instagram:@carina_mcw
Budi Miller
Hamlet
Budi Miller is the Co-Artistic Director of the Theatre of Others. He is Senior Lecturer, Head of Acting in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is an associate teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, a certified integrative studies practitioner, and an UNESCO designated master teacher of mask work. He has been an actor-director-writer-teacher in the United States, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei, Malaysia, India, and Indonesia since 1992. He is a Balinese mask dancer and the first teacher to bring Fitzmaurice Voicework to Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Malaysia, China, and Indonesia.
This performance is dedicated to my students. I am a better person because of you.
Instagram:@millerbudi
Pavan J Singh
Horatio
Pavan J Singh is an actor and theatre artist based in Singapore.
Theatre credits include Haresh Sharma’s This Chord and Others (Esplanade Studios 2017), Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Theatre of Others 2017), his original work Refuge (Skinned Knee Productions 2016), Peter Brook’s and Marie Helene Estienne’s The Man Who (Hot Chocolate Theatre 2016), Edith Podesta’s Dark Room (Esplanade Studios 2016), Shiv Tandan’s The Good, The Bad and The Sholay (Checkpoint Theatre 2015), Lim Yu-Beng's 2 Houses (Sin-Pen Colony 2014), Tan Tarn How’s Fear of Writing (TheatreWorks 2011), Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story (Skinned Knee Productions 2011) and Shakespeare’s Othello (Masakini Theatre 2011).
Instagram: @pavantheactor
Ines Somellera
Gertrude
Originally from Jalisco and based in Indonesia since 2004, Ines has worked internationally since 1997. She lived in New York City from 1998 to 2003, where she co-founded , along with Kameron Steele and Ivana Catanese, the New York-based theater company The South Wing , with a concept of intensive physical training, incorporating the Suzuki Method. She premiered and toured the world with multiple works by Robert Wilson , a leading figure in the world of experimental and avant-garde theater, and founder of The Watermill Center , a laboratory for the arts and humanities in New York. She founded Empu Sendok Arts Station (ESAS), together with Felia Salim in 2012. It is a platform for the arts , from the point of view of its social impact. With ESAS she wrote and directed Xalisco, a place. This work was initially presented at the Literature and Ideas Festival at the Salihara Art Center, in Jakarta, Indonesia. Later, in the LOW FAT ART FES , in the city of Bangkok, Thailand. Xalisco was selected as part of the 47th edition of the International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, Guadalajara and finally at the Teatro de las Artes del Cenart , in Mexico City.
Instagram: @inesomellera
Creative Team
Sally Clarke
Producer
Sally J. Clarke is the founder of Asian Arts Advisory (AAA), the arts-focused strategic brand growth and communications agency. AAA's client portfolio is globally based and includes critically acclaimed performers, public and private sector institutions as well as not-for-profits.
In 2014, Sally received the LASALLE Singapore Incubator Fund biannual award for an online art e-commerce company she founded and sold three years later. She has co-managed LitUp Asia-Pacific and Art & Action: Contemporary Art and Discourse. In addition to AAA, Sally is engaged in environment-focused arts projects such as REEF and is an Advisor to the Board of Directors at the Substation (voted by the Guardian Newspaper as one of Southeast Asia's top ten independent contemporary art platforms). Sally is a published arts writer and undertakes media assignments in the Middle East and South-East Asia. Sally holds an MA in Asian Art Histories, University of London, and an MA in International Finance and Commerce, University of Barcelona.
Adam Marple
Director and Designer
Adam Marple is Co-Artistic Director of The Theatre of Others
Adam has directed over 50 productions and interdisciplinary works Regionally and Off-Broadway in the Americas, in Europe, and across South East Asia. He has been on the faculties of the School of Dance and Theatre at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore and was Senior Associate Professor of Theatre at Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) in Mexico.
He has been practicing and teaching The Viewpoints for over twenty years having worked with its founders Mary Overlie, Anne Bogart, and Tina Landau. His research centers on the expansion and testing of The Viewpoints as an Interdisciplinary and Transcultural pedagogy. Published: The Viewpoints as Transcultural Pedagogy in Western Theatre in Global Contexts: Directing and Teaching Culturally Inclusive Drama around the World (Routledge) and Applying the Viewpoints to Multimedia Performance (Global Performance Studies)
Instagram: @boots_and_sunglasses
Brian O’Reilly
Composer and Musician
Brian O'Reilly works within the fields of electro-acoustic composition, sound installations, moving images, and noise music. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago focusing on sonic art, kinetic sculpture, and analog video synthesis utilizing the Sandin Image Processor. He relocated to Paris in the late 1990s to research the composition methods of the composer and architect Iannis Xenakis. He pursued graduate studies in Electronic Music Composition at the University of California Santa Barbara's Media Arts and Technology program, where his collaborations with Curtis Roads began with the project "Point Line Cloud" which won an Award of Distinction at Ars Electronica in 2002.
In addition to his solo performances and works for moving images, he also plays modular analog synthesizer and generates visuals in the duo Black Zenith and contrabass & electronics with the noise-jazz group Game of Patience. Currently, he is a lecturer at LASALLE’s College of the Arts School of Contemporary Music, focusing on electronic music composition, visual music, and creative music-making techniques through the use of improvisation.
Instagram: @dendriform
Special Thanks
Thank you to Andrew Mulligan for putting up with us invading his home, Adrian Huang for the costumes, Thomas Pang and Jamil Schulze for the design assistance, Mirko Jeck for the recording, and all our patrons for supporting this special project,