Relatable relationships - and just the way we happen to go

WHEN a play opens and the main character is already dead on stage with a funeral in process, it becomes clear that a lesson on life is about to follow.

Thankfully, in the hands of emerging playwright Joel Tan, Checkpoint Theatre's latest production The Way We Go manages to do that without being overly preachy. Instead, his message is simple: nobody, whatever age or how wise they may be, has the answers to "life's biggest questions".

The funeral where it all begins is that of Agatha Mao (Lydia Look), former principal of the Convent of Our Lady of Lourdes. There, her best friend Violet (Neo Swee Lin) is seen trying to calm a clearly agitated man named Edmund.