March 2010

Makan Drama Festival — It's All About Food

Action Theatre's latest theatre offering throws the spotlight on Singaporeans' obsession with food

Last week, I caught the start of the festival (till 28 March) on a weekday with a theatre-loving friend of mine. The weekday programme at Action Theatre's 42 Waterloo Street starts at 7.10pm with I Want Nobody Nobody But Food and Poetry in ACTION at The Stage Under the Tree (weather permitting). These are the appetisers before the main course, if you will, which will be at The Room Upstairs. The evening continues with Eat Here or Ta Pao? and Musical Excerpts from Hokkien Mee, again under the aforementioned tree, also free.

If the weather's behaving, it's very pleasant sitting on the wooden benches under the tree and having a glass of wine and some bites — food and drink are on sale from the mini-stalls behind. Other than the Theatrical Main Course, comprising two performances — Perfecting Prata by Desmond Sim and Cravings by Chong Tze Chien — all other acts are free entry.

Our favourite part of the whole programme was Cravings — great performances all round, but especially by Fanny Kee in the role of the mother/mother-in-law. What was perplexing though was this part where her character reminisced about when the dad proposed to her at their alma mater — it was word for word from this Taiwanese "celeb" couple about their proposal on a Taiwan talk show, down to the shouts of the male and female students crowding round. Major deja vu moment there.

Still it's a worthwhile event to catch, all details are available on action.org.sg