Ella

“I THINK THIS PLAY SOHULD BE CALLED ‘UNNECESSARY’” – my text to a friend after the show

Who gets to tell whose story?

I left Patch and Punnet’s The Adventures of Abhijeet with so many questions: How can the privileged speak for the disenfranchised? How can we do justice to their lived experiences? Are we giving them a voice, our bodies working as their mouthpiece — or are we usurping them and denying their voice?

The Adventures of Abhijeet revolves around Abhijeet, or ‘Jeet’ for short, a migrant worker who’s left Bangladesh for the mystical, fantastical Singaland. In the show’s programme on their Instagram profile, Patch and Punnet say they are determined not to create a “pity party” about the mistreatment of migrant workers; nor do they want to remind audience members (who are therefore assumed to come from privileged backgrounds, or at least, are not “migrant workers”) about their privilege and luxury. They wanted to come up with an alternative narrative that they think Singapore’s theatre canon lacks (which I agree), where the migrant workers become the Hero of the story.

Patch and Punnet’s production feels like a psychedelic mix of genre with a pinch of the Greek epic – Abhijeet’s voyage through Singaland in a bid to find a cure for his ailing daughter (and later on, his wounded leg), seems almost Odyssey-like in its epic scale and scope. It boasts Patch and Punnet’s distinct style – a combination of fantastical elements, millennial humour, pop-culture references, and over-the-top comedy, all of which verges on the edge of farce. While I enjoyed, and was definitely charmed by the show and its use of humour, I left the show feeling deeply conflicted. While I laughed at their jokes and let myself to be immersed in their fun, fantastical world-building, I can’t help but wonder if Patch and Punnet’s use of slap-stick humour manages to hit the mark, especially when tackling such an important topic of the mistreatment and exploitation of migrant workers. I wanted so badly to fully enjoy the show, to exclaim, yes! They managed to create a show that celebrates the individuality of migrant workers, to subvert the common narrative that objectifies them, turns them into a topic. I wanted to say that their use of humour managed to highlight and underscore the experiences of migrant workers in Singapore. I wanted so badly to say that I left the show feeling yes I love this, I love this so, so much. But I can’t.

The Adventures of Abhijeet revolves around Jeet (Jit Dastidar) who, in order to earn money to save his ill daughter, journeys to the fantastical Singaland, a colourful, thinly veiled allegory for Singapore. In Singaland, migrant workers are called “Flower People” whose status is immediately recognisable from the garland of flowers they wear around their necks. Singaland is introduced as a whimsical land full of colour and eerily cheerful citizens. Jeet is presented with his own flower garland and a pair of bright yellow construction boots. He finds work as a construction worker in the Prince’s (Salif Hardie) company, but is promptly fired after a workplace accident. Now jobless and injured, Jeet is desperate to be cured so he that he can go back to work and send money home for his daughter’s medical bills. So he goes on a quest to find a cure. He is first joined by Gloria (Day Cutiongco, who is covered in purple paint – an uncomfortable allusion to the racist theatrical devices of brown-face and black-face) who works for a witch and serves as a reference to domestic workers in Singapore. Eventually, they also meet Ling Ling (Lynn Chia), a Chinese migrant working in a cucumber farm, and whose hand is stuck to a cucumber that she calls Liang Liang – another thinly veiled metaphor that can be interpreted as sex work.

The play opens with a sombre, yet endearing exchange between Abhijeet and his young daughter (Shanice Stanislaus). But it soon switches into high gear when Patch and Punnet’s signature humour kicks in. A mystical wizard/fairy/Rumpelstiltskin hybrid (Krish Natarajan) – who represents the agencies that lure migrant workers to work in Singapore while exploiting their vulnerability for capitalistic gains – gives Jeet a magic pill (or a work permit) that transports Jeet to Singaland. In the faux-utopia Singaland, he is welcomed by the character of HR (pronounced huh-ruh; performed by Ong Yixuan), a worker subsumed within a system that also marginalises and exploits her. She is, and I am going to try and summon my favourite Foucault here, a docile body that internalises the system that exploits her, and reenacts this violence onto the bodies of the system she is part of. There is a particularly insidious refrain where HR gives Jeet a sack of gold as supposed compensation for his work, snaps a picture of him as proof, then takes the gold away to “send to family” on his behalf. This repeats and repeats, and Jeet complies every time without questioning the process. This suggests that the money, the gold that Jeet desperately needs, and has rightfully earned, never reaches his daughter, and is instead pocketed by the company. It also brings up the notion of self-oppression, whereby vulnerable members of society oppress fellow vulnerable members, creating a self-sustaining cycle of oppression. Yet this powerful suggestion is dropped and almost forgotten as the play progresses. There are other powerful issues that the play brings up – the exploitation of migrant workers, the withholding of their salaries, and abuse they face, but all these concerns are ultimately under-developed and quickly forgotten.

The Prince, the owner of the construction company Jeet worked for is the villain, so one-faceted that he becomes a caricature. He is a character I simply cannot wrap my mind around. He boasts an accent that seems to be a cross between Cockney and Australian. If he is meant to represent the corporations in Singapore that exploit and abuse migrant workers, I wonder why he is ‘westernised’. Is he meant to also represent Singapore’s colonial hangover? If so, what about his hard-to-place accent? If the Prince is supposed to show us how Singaporeans are all complicit in the abuse and mistreatment of migrant workers, the Prince, with his constant shouting of ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP’, is so blatantly evil that we simply cannot identify with him. Instead of seeing how we are him, we instead, look at him and go — we are not like him. He is just pure evil, nothing else, nothing more.

I wish to say that the Flower People manage to escape becoming caricatures but I can’t. I wish to say that they managed to subvert stereotypes and are developed and fleshed out but I really am not able to. I was especially drawn to Gloria, a representation of an abused domestic worker who ultimately finds the courage to stand up to her own employer and become her own hero. But we don’t really get to see her grow and develop. She is often reduced into stereotypes – loud and angry. Ling Ling, too, could be an interesting character. Assuming the cucumber farm she works in is an allegory for a brothel, there was so many things that could be said – is sex work always forced? What about people who chose sex work? How can we protect sex workers? How can we support them? But what we see is a loudmouth Chinese migrant worker. The two Flower People are reduced into caricatures and stereotypes that are harmful and perpetuate xenophobia.

The overt use of allegorical devices, and the very real and very serious issues they stand for, is one of Patch and Punnet’s key approaches to comedic narrative. But this approach quickly begins to lose steam, dragged to a halt by the question of how-many-references-can-I-stuff-the- audience-with-before-it-gets-too-much? And it was. It was too much. Halfway through, I began to feel restless – when will this play end? There were so, so many references, to both local events and pop culture, and the crux of the humour rests on us, the audience, understanding as many of these references as possible, thrown in for the sake of it without proper development and substance. A good hamburger is amazing. But a triple cheeseburger with extra bacon and glazed donuts for buns feels like overkill. And that is exactly what the play felt like.

One reference that stood out to me was the pink gem/blue gem plot. During our heroic trio journey to find the last remaining ingredient for their cure, they encounter the “final boss” of their gamified quest – the Dragon (Deonn Yang). The Dragon, the ruler of Singaland, is the only person who could produce a pink gem, which is a metaphor for a pink IC. The half-chicken, half-dragon hybrid reminds me of the Wizard of Oz – all illusion and no substance. This supposedly all-powerful ruler of Singaland is unable to fill the shoes left behind by their father, and needs migrant workers, the Flower People, whom the country marginalises, to help them gain their confidence. In the end, they are only able to lay a blue gem (blue IC), which disappoints and angers Jeet. The pink gem/blue gem reference to Singapore’s Identification Card feels a little strange — why is one’s nationality an ingredient for a cure? The Dragon character feels like a cop-out. If the Dragon is meant to be a reference to Lee Hsien Loong, the Prime Minister of Singapore, then, the reference feels a little half-baked. It feels as though they decided to take a dig at Lee Hsien Loong, decided that it was too risky, and tried to back-track.

What I found was most unnecessary, instead of a clever callback to the tropes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), was the play’s “post-credits scene”. And like every Marvel movie, the additional scene teases new issues– in this case the silencing of the media and the public when it comes to the abuse of migrant workers, in order to continue selling the image of Singaland as a utopia where everyone can chase their dreams. But like all the other (and no doubt important) references, it is undeveloped, and felt, frankly, unnecessary. It felt like a feeble attempt to innovate, yelling: ‘Hey! We are cool! We did something new! A theatre version of the MCU!’ I wish this issue had been addressed within the main narrative of the play, instead of appearing like an afterthought at the end. MCU’s post-credit scenes work because it promises a sequel, a continuation. Patch and Punnet’s rendition, on the other hand, reduces this content to a pop culture reference.

While watching the production, I just constantly felt disappointed. I wanted more. I was expecting more. I was looking forward to the show. Perhaps this is what is so frustrating about The Adventures of Abhijeet. It promises so much, shows that it has the potential to do so much more, yet almost always pulls back and ends up reducing itself into a shallow farce. When telling such an important tale, the teller must be held responsible, especially when they are talking about vulnerable communities. We, as artists, must take charge of our work and the impact it might have. While Patch and Punnet aims to portray the migrant workers as heroes in their adventures, they end up having two Singalanders save the day: Sherlock Homie (Salif Hardie) and the witch hunter (Valerie Teh). They even have a didactic conversation about this rescue, where the witch hunter stresses that it is important for Gloria to think that she has the power, and the ability, to fight her abuser. But it is ultimately an illusion. Sherlock Homie (who evokes the West with an American accent) and the witch hunter are the ones who saved them. The Flower People do not have the agency and power to be their own heroes, and must rely on others, the Singalanders. The Flower People (or migrant workers) were supposed to be the heroes of their stories, but they are not. They become the Princess stuck in a tower guarded by a dragon. While watching the play, I can’t help but feel that Patch and Punnet has reduced migrant workers back into a topic, not heroes, not humans. I feel a guilt – who are we to tell their stories? Who are we to position ourselves as their heroes. But what use is my guilt?

Patch and Punnet delved into The Adventures of Abhijeet with noble aspirations. Ultimately, the play is wildly ambitious, yet wildly disappointing, wildly unfulfilling. I wanted so badly to say that I loved the show. I really did. But when I left the theatre, I can’t help but think – do we really need this narrative? Is it really necessary?

Perhaps not.