Re-staging / Revisiting

This year I’ve had the privilege to re-stage and revisit a number of works. NATURI by STAN; When Sadness Comes to Call by MySuperFuture Theatrical Productions; and 12 Going On 13 by Gateway Arts. It’s a real treat when you get to revisit a work whether as an actor or as a creative.

I recently had a short chat with a producer about how in Singapore, we create, rehearse, stage a work and in it goes into storage after X number of shows. Whereas in other disciplines like Music or Dance, the repertoire gets performed over and over again, allowing the artists and creatives to refine and improve the work.

I realised this as I was preparing for NATURI as the director. We staged it in a different venue with certain limitations, and I’m thankful that the team worked hard to make it work. With a new space and new limitations, I found myself refining the work for that particular space and discovering that connections were missing in-between scenes, and key moments weren’t as defined. If not for the re-staging of the work, the opportunity to further improve it may not have been there.

Re-staging it in a different venue also brought along a different group of audiences. Audiences who may not be as exposed to theatre. It was interesting to see how they responded (or didn’t respond) to the work and what other safeguards we needed to put in place so that the work doesn’t lose its essence and the audience gets to enjoy the experience as well.

What a treat it is to re-stage works! It’s all about unlearning and re-learning again each time we revisit it.