Ghost Writer leaves a lovely but empty feel

IN the great and drastically underrated film Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson, a young student (Katie Holmes) reads the overlong novel of her English professor (Michael Douglas) and cannot hide her disappointment. She tells him: "You teach us that writers need to make choices. (Your novel) reads like you didn't make any."

There is something of that disappointment when watching Ghost Writer, the latest play by The Necessary Stage, written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Alvin Tan, with dramaturgy by Charlene Rajendran.

Ghost Writer blends different artistic disciplines to tell the story of an aging bharatanatyam dance teacher (the amazing Sukania Venugopal) searching for a successor for her dance school.