Gritty clash of classes

AT ONE point, the characters, unable to contain their rage, start to scream and tear at each other with stunning vehemence. It is a sight made all the more nerve-racking because the actors are just metres away from you. That they would lose their balance at any point and crash into you is a real - and thrilling - possibility.

The Necessary Stage's highly charged production of Poor Thing wants to present and dissect that not-so-rare creature called the Ugly Singaporean. The performance space has been reconfigured by set designer Vincent Lim, so that the action takes place right in the centre, with the audience seated or standing around it, as if they were witnessing a circus show or a burning building.

What they're witnessing, in fact, is a car accident. Two cars, a BMW and a Ford, are involved in a fender-bender. The BMW driver is a well-off Chinese man Jevon (played by Joshua Lim) driving home from a party with his drunk Eurasian wife Alisha (Sharda Harrison). The Ford is driven by a working-class Malay woman Sharifah (Siti Khalijah Zainal) who's taking her gay and unemployed Chindian friend Jerome (Dwayne Lau) to his army reservist training.

When Sharifah refuses to pay for the damages to Jevon's car, even though she's clearly at fault for tailgating, the incident escalates into a long and nasty quarrel. Race, class, sexuality and religion become inexhaustible wellsprings of insults and abuse. The upper-crust Jevon and Alisha make derisive comments about Jerome and Sharifah's socio-economic status. Sharifah and Jerome think the system is always rigged in favour of rich people. Everyone, it seems, has a chip or two on the shoulder.

For director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma, Poor Thing is another gutsy examination of the so-called fault-lines of Singapore society. Their previous plays like Model Citizens (2010), Gemuk Girls (2008) and Fundamentally Happy (2006) are some of the most sharply-observed and sometimes shocking social dramas ever written and produced in this country.

Poor Thing, however, doesn't belong in the same league. Unlike those of its predecessors, the characters here feel contrived, each standing for various opposing social forces designed to converge and brew the perfect storm. Jerome, for instance, is an unemployed homosexual Chindian, thus embodying three minority categories: economic, sexual and racial.

Sharifah is not just a foul-mouthed minah, she's also going through a bad break-up with her cheating mat boyfriend. Alisha is not just a rich, beautiful and privileged Eurasian, her condescending remarks towards Jerome and Sharifah sound distinctly neo-colonialistic.

I'm not saying that such people don't exist. They do. But I can't say I've ever seen a play by The Necessary Stage where the characterisations felt so unsubtle and the conflict so predetermined. These are moments when the characters look ready to give in and get out of argument, but something gets thrown in to draw out the conflict and repeat the cycle of hatred.

In spite of these quibbles, Poor Thing does triumph in being the first Singaporean play that ambitiously plugs itself into the realm of social media. The audience were told via email the day before to "befriend" Jerome on Facebook.

They were also asked to check their Facebook during the play to see pictures of the incident posted by Jerome in real-time. The audience could type in their comments, which Jerome might read and incorporate into the action of the play.

These added new thematic dimensions - voyeurism, trolling, cyber-bullying and the quickness of online commentators to judge events told from only one perspective - to the play's already bubbling cauldron of discord.

Poor Thing plays at The Necessary Stage's Black Box at Marine Parade Community Building till tomorrow. Tickets are sold out