The curious case of Becoming Graphic

JUST as its title unwittingly suggests, Becoming Graphic feels like a work-in-progress rather than a fully-developed work. There are pacing problems, thematic ambiguity and an awkward blending of genres and media.

Comic artist Sonny Liew is currently the hottest property in Singapore arts, having made local history by winning three Eisner awards for his international best-selling graphic novel The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. For his stage debut at the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), he has collaborated with Edith Podesta, an award-winning theatre maker best-known for her audacious 2016 play B* tch: The Origin Of The Female Species.

The trouble with Becoming Graphic isn't to do with Liew's immense gifts as a writer and illustrator - gifts that are manifest on stage - but the production's ambitious but strained attempts at bringing a two-dimensional art form onto a three-dimensional stage.