Show Review: The Commission, SIFA 2021

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning or in rain?

The opening lines to the Scottish play immediately sent the audience into knowing chuckles as Adrian Pang, Gaurav Kripalani and Ivan Heng paced ominously downstage. The inside joke and forbidden fruit known by theatre kids around the world formed the basis of this original production - for those unacquainted with theatre superstition, mentioning Macbeth (I'm sorry) inside a theatre outside of performing the Shakespearean play itself would allegedly lead to disaster and ruin for the entire company. It was both a fun tribute to theatre across the world and a fitting metaphor for the damage which COVID-19 had wrecked on the performing arts industry.

This review contains SPOILERS. If you have yet to watch the show, please go watch it. It's worth every cent and probably more.

A collaboration between three of the most prolific theatremakers in Singapore, I alternated between peals of laughter and awestruck silence throughout the entire duration of the online play. Within minutes, Adrian Pang was rapping My Shot from Hamilton while Ivan Heng rambled on about staging a play that centered on decriminalizing gay sex. If this play is not representative enough of Singapore's major theatre players, I don't know what is.

Throughout the play, the trio passed sneaky insults and poked fun at each other as they criticized Gaurav Kripalani's "colonial hangover" for bringing in a Caucasian director every time SRT produces a Shakespeare at the Park production. Ivan Heng's "liberal agenda" in WILD RICE and his disdain for censorship was magnified to the point of hilarity as he stormed offstage yelling for the minister's number, while the caricature of a henpecked Adrian Pang was thrown into the mix to the delight of the audience members.

Interspersed between the plot of the play were moments where each actor were no longer playing fictitious versions of themselves. They were who they are, telling their stories of how they came to be, and the audience, in-person or virtual, listened to each of their journeys with rapt attention.

" 'Son, you do not need to be a doctor or a lawyer. Go be an actor.' I'll let all the Asian people sit on that for a minute." Gaurav deadpanned as thunderous laughter broke out. The proverbial fourth wall broken, Gaurav delivered a moving speech directly to his audience members about his illustrious career in SRT and Singaporean theatre while lamenting his lack of acting experience. Following Gaurav's departure from the stage, the plot thickens as Adrian and Ivan return in character to speculate about the true identity of The Commissioner, in reference to the title of the production.

Adrian Pang began his monologue with his parent's reaction towards his choice to ditch his lawyer career for his acting journey. Years of auditions, rejections and a trashed self-esteem caused him to spiral into depression - but discovering his true purpose in theatre turned his life around. Meanwhile, Ivan Heng had a similar tale of being a lawyer-turned-actor, but at the same time he discovered that he was gay in a country which still criminalizes gay sex. He describes his encounters with the late Kuo Pao Kun, who taught him to find his unique voice and identity no matter where he might go, words that ring true to this day.

In all three biographies about the making of each of the three leads in this play, several common themes define the journey of the Singaporean actor. The "otherness" of the profession and the resultant backlash from well-meaning parents is a rite of passage for every young person who dares to venture into the arts, and only the strongest and most persevering theatre makers emerge victorious from a battle of willpower and, as Gaurav would put it, sheer masochism.

In a society where opinions are held with an iron grip, where dreams are crushed to death by the cogs of capitalism and where STEM graduates are prized high above the doomed arts majors, how does theatre survive? But the arts finds a way. It always does, even during a pandemic. And that, perhaps, is the meta-message of The Commission.

With its tightly woven relevance to the various current affairs in Singaporean society from social media uproars - the word "umbrage" was uttered to much fanfare - to political jabs where Adrian Pang was dressed in all white at one point in the play-within-a-play, The Commission stays true to its own promise to be relatable to a Singaporean audience. The three leading males, as one might expect, had the stage presence of a mega musical. Decades of acting experience shone through in their performance, and it's truly hard not to stay engaged when you have not one, not two, but three of Singapore's most star-studded theatre personalities on the same stage.

The set, designed relatively simply with three automated doors and lots of nooks and crevices as each actor poured themselves a drink during the interval speech segments, created an intimate setting with the socially-distanced audience as they talked about their lives in the theatre. For all the restrictions that COVID-19 has imposed on Singaporean theatre, The Commission finds ways to work around those limits, sometimes in its favor.

The Commission, through the lens of the three-person cast, is ultimately a celebration of the quintessential thespian's identity, and the making of it - one that is arduous and surreal in equal measure. Kuo Pao Kun would have been proud.

Verdict: 9/10 - A must watch. This play is the ultimate play on local plays, and it played the game exceedingly well.