Frozen Angels (2009)
Title: Frozen Angels
Dates: 7th – 11th January 2008
Venue: Gallery Theatre, National Museum of Singapore
Type of Production: Interdisciplinary Theatre Production
Country of Production: Singapore
Year of Production: 2009
Presented by The Necessary Stage (TNS) as an anchor production for the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2009
Production Credits:
Director: Alvin Tan
Playwright: Haresh Sharma
Multimedia Designer: Loo Zihan
Multimedia Programmer: Brian Gothong Tan
Cast: Siti Khalijah & Najib Soiman
Production Stage Manager: Joanna Goh
Assistant Stage Manager: Ting Hock Hoe
Rehearsal Assistant/ Video Operator #1: Huang Xiangbin
Lighting Designer: Gabriel Chan
Lighting Operator: Chiew Jing Wen
Sound Operator: Caleb Lee
Stage Crew/ Dresser: Sherlene Soon
Video Operator #2: Azyyati bte Alias
Synopsis:
As the world advances its research on life sciences, stem cells and artificial intelligence, what impact is there on human life and relationships? What does the future hold? Can life be built from scratch? Frozen Angels is a workshop-performance exploring current issues of science, using digital media and theatrical performance.
Frozen Angels looks at the narratives of people affected by advancements in life sciences – a young Junior College couple wishing to be together forever; an elderly father struggling to cope with his daughter’s departure; a lab technician sells stem cells but can’t help her ailing mother.
All these stories look at how families can be manufactured and/or re-invented. The elderly father forms a familial bond with his maid to cope with an absent daughter. When the young couple get their wish to ‘live forever’, they discover, 200 years later, that they have outlived their family and friends. Can they still be happy together when the only family they have is themselves?
Frozen Angels is a seamless integration of multimedia/technology and live action based on issues surrounding stem cell research and how these issues affect individuals and families.
Reviews:
“These three stories were expertly weaved together by director Alvin Tan, interacting and entwining with multimedia designer Loo Zihan and multimedia programmer Brian Gothong Tan’s hauntingly poignant video images projected on a large butterfly screen.
Any work by The Necessary Stage, Singapore theatre’s reigning master of hard-hitting social issues, might seem an unlikely choice as a cheering cup to begin a brand new year, but this re-staging of last year’s National University of Singapore Arts Festival production radiates a warmth that will well seduce theatre-goers into thinking, reflecting and reacting.”
- Genevieve Loh, Today
“Playwright Haresh Sharma has created alien and futuristic worlds that come with distinctly recognisable human characters. Audiences are filled with sympathy for these people, who, for all the technological advances, seem to have familiar weaknesses, desires and loves, such as the sadness of blowing out the candle on your 200th birthday cake.
This is coupled with beautiful and evocative pre-recorded footage and live video elements by film-maker Loo Zihan which, besides filling in the backstory, sets the play’s elegaic mood through unfocussed cityscapes, close-ups of skin and hair, and old photographs.”
- Adeline Chia, The Straits Times, Life!
Production Photos: (provided by TNS)
