Book Review: Shorts 2 by Haresh Sharma

Introduction to the book:

Shorts 1 and Shorts 2, presented by the Necessary Stage, are instalments of short plays written by the award-winning Singapore playwright Haresh Sharma. He discovered his interest in literature in secondary school and thought of being a writer since then. In university, he met Mr Alvin Tan, director of the Necessary Stage and started to work in the theatre. To date, Haresh Sharma has written more than 100 plays that have been staged all over the world, including Singapore, Melbourne, Glasgow, Birmingham, Cairo and London. In this book review, we will look at three of the plays in the book: Land, untitled women number one and Lizard.

Features

Land

As a small state, land is definitely crucial to Singaporeans. The play focuses on how a piece of land transforms from a cemetery to a condominium site. In the process, three stories are presented where ancestors are worshipped, ghosts are unearthed and a handphone becomes a murder weapon. The play presents the characters in a humorous yet cynical way to address issues relating to land —— Should we bury our loved ones after they die or should we cremate them? Should we close down a cemetery to build new apartments due to a lack of land? What contributes to the increasing demand and price for housing? Through exaggerating the emotions and dialogues of characters, the play also demonstrates human nature in a sarcastic and reflective way.

untitled women number one

This play is one that truly challenges your thinking, reaching with its fingers deep into the recesses of your mind. There is no conventional storyline to untitled women number one; it is merely a conversation between two women, one old and one young. However, the simplicity of it only serves to keep the readers/audience all the more focused on their conversation, and the words they use to express themselves. In the play, the two women talk about their relationships, past and future. The play discusses notions of pain, death and interdependence, through the drawing of stories from gender, sexuality and womanhood. At times, it may even make the reader feel a little discomfited due to the raw emotions, details and messages the two speak of. Throughout the play, a naked man lies behind a row of tall lamps, with wires adorning his body. Audience may then find it a challenge to focus on the dialogue between the two women.

From a conventional point of view, this play is a difficult one to understand because there is no setting provided, and the conversation topics are extremely vague. However, because of this particular trait, the play inspires deep thinking as readers have to work their minds to figure out what the two women are talking about.

Lizard The play Lizard is set in a context that most Singaporeans can relate to --- an antagonistic relationship between a mother and son along with the increasingly familiar presence of a maid. The play challenges the audience as it explores the truths and issues typically faced by the majority of the society in Singapore, in an unconventional and highly dramatised manner. The tension in the play escalates when the mother and son pair start to trash things out, along with a maid who only serves to add fuel to the flame. The play is reflective of our inability to communicate using normal means and makes a strong statement that our usual understanding of how communication works no longer works well.

Our personal opinion

Overall, this was a refreshing read for us. Unfortunately, the Singapore literary scene is rather obscure to many Singaporeans, us included, what more reading Singaporean plays. Seeing the use of Singlish, Singaporean names (e.g. Rosnah, Ravi, Shui Mei) and names of places in Singapore in the plays was a unique experience for us as the fiction books that we usually read do not have these features. Hence, reading this was a breath of fresh air compared to the usual content we have on our bookshelves.

There are many abstract concepts presented in the play. Thus, the audience/readers may be confused at first glance as they will have to reflect on a deeper level while reading it. The plays also requires contextual knowledge of Singapore. There were several occasions where we had to reread the play to try to grasp its key ideas, but even then we may not have understood it with full clarity. Some of us had even felt like emailing the playwright about the meaning of a particular play!

To sum up, this book is one that leaves readers bewildered and full of thoughts about what the play could have been about. Prepare to embark on a baffling journey that will lead you only as far as your mind can take you --- just don't expect any answers!