Show Time - The Lady of Soul & Her Ultimate 'S' Machine

Watched the 5th and final The Studios: fifty play with the Playmates today, which is Tan Tarn How's The Lady of Soul & Her Ultimate 'S' Machine.

The Lady of Soul & Her Ultimate 'S' Machine

The play touches on the themes of censorship, bureaucracy, sex, homosexual relations, communism - subjects that are largely taboo in our nation. It is about a nation's search for "soul" in order to become a vibrant nation, with the task executed by the ridiculously redundant committees, sub-committees and sub-sub-committees typical of those found in the local civil service.

Watching the play, I was reminded of the government spending $400,000 and months working on renaming the revamped Marina Bay area in 2005, only to conclude the massive branding exercise by deciding to stick with Marina Bay.

As S astutely pointed out, the fact that the political satire held such relevance more than 20 years after it first premiered in 1993 showed how little the civil service and our society has changed.

You would think that the funniest character in the play would be the cross-dressing Madame Soh, who sexually harassed all other male characters as part of her his in-your-face persona. But I felt that the characters that provided much of the comic relief in the show were the 2 female minions, who wayang-ed on cue. After all, the funniest jokes are also those that ring painfully true.


The Lady of Soul & Her Ultimate 'S' Machine
Event Date: Thu, 7 - Sun, 10 May 2015; Thu & Fri: 8pm; Sat: 3pm & 8pm; Sun: 3pm
Venue: Esplanade Theatre Studio