剧评：Re: Assembly

 

不散的阴魂——观Re: Assembly

文/张英豪

霸凌，会造成被霸凌者巨大的心理阴影，甚至会酿成无法挽回的悲剧。不仅如此，对旁观者、援助者，乃至霸凌者本身，霸凌或许也都是一缕缕不散的阴魂。

“Re: Assembly”由戏剧盒呈献，是滨海艺术中心“艺想天开”（Feed Your Imagination）系列节目之一。这系列节目专为学生群体量身定做适合他们年龄段的艺术表演。除了学生场次，“Re: Assembly”也为公众开放两场对外公演。2022年，戏剧盒联合艺术总监韩雪梅就受“艺想天开”之委创作了“Assembly”。韩雪梅今年携手“Assembly”中的演员温伟文，联合导演“Re: Assembly”，以崭新的故事，继续探讨同样的课题——校园暴力与霸凌。“Re: Assembly”也同样采取“沉浸式戏剧”（immersive theatre）的形式，让观众身临其境，以期达到感同身受的效果。

“Re: Assembly”剧组将滨海艺术中心另艺聚场（Annexe Studio）的空间分成三个表演区，每个表演区复刻了几乎一模一样的学校摄影俱乐部的活动室场景——电脑、照片、布告栏，布告栏上张贴着心理健康宣传海报。演出时，演员在同一场戏会穿梭于各个场景中，仿佛记忆碎片的重现。观众入场后能够穿梭在这些场景中，仔细观察其中的各种道具——例如剧中人物的合照、课本与参考书等。这些道具不是破案解谜的彩蛋，而是让观众能更投入剧场世界中的细节。

正当观众游走于各个场景中时，各场景的电脑荧幕齐齐亮起，播放着剧中人物们拍摄的一些短视频。接着，学校老师Mr Ong（詹辉振饰）突然站在剧场二楼对着表演区的观众发言，观众瞬间化身参与升旗礼的学生，听着Mr Ong呼吁大家在警方调查得出结论之前，不要对转校生Lina（Natalie Titus饰）坠楼身亡的事件散播不实谣言或作过多揣测。“Re: Assembly”以倒叙的方式展开叙事——新来的转校生Lina加入班主任Mr Ong负责的摄影俱乐部，认识了其中的两名干部——Joe（Izzul Irfan饰）和Natasha（陈彦颖饰）。由于Natasha认为Lina抢了她的摄影任务和好朋友Joe，心生嫉妒，开始在网络论坛上匿名对Lina进行网络霸凌。（剧组真的创建了一个网络论坛，观众入场后通过扫描二维码，可阅读论坛上的留言。）由于在之前的学校也被同学霸凌，Lina的心理健康出现问题，患上了密室恐惧症。结局究竟是Lina被Natasha反锁在活动室中，还是她自己产生幻觉，触发了密室恐惧症，进而破窗跳楼身亡？

相较于“Assembly”错综的故事线和演员走位，导致观众忙于拼凑事件的真相，而无法代入人物心境产生共感；“Re: Assembly”的剧本与导演，让观众能够厘清事件的来龙去脉，进而思考霸凌的问题。“Re: Assembly”有关网络霸凌的设定，贴近当代学生的语境，让他们能够产生共感共鸣。“Re: Assembly”剧组也专为学生观众设计了教育资源包，在学生场次的演出后，各演员会分组带领学生讨论剧情与主题，并且思考霸凌者、被霸凌者、旁观者与援助者等角色可能重叠的关系，相当具有教育意义。另外，对于第一次接触剧场表演的学生来说，“Re: Assembly”沉浸式戏剧的形式足以让学生感受到剧场跟其他影像媒介不同的艺术魅力。

至于公众场次，联合导演韩雪梅和温伟文则在演出后带领观众讨论剧情与主题。尽管沉浸式戏剧的呈现方式具新意，也达到预期的惊悚效果（声效与灯光设计都必须记上一功），但是对于成年观众来说，“Re: Assembly”并没有赋予这个课题更深刻的观点或思考点。有观众就指出，该剧对学校体制的刻画有些片面与苛刻。

霸凌的结构性问题十分复杂，要驱除这一缕缕不散的阴魂，除了剧场工作者及教育工作者，我们必须动员更多的社会力量，不断集结再集结众人之力。

关于演出：2023年7月15日，730PM，滨海艺术中心另艺聚场，戏剧盒 呈现

官方资料：https://www.dramabox.org/eng/productions-re-assembly-school.html

The Lingering Ghost— Reviewing “Re:Assembly”

Reviewer / Teo Eng Hao

Bullying can caused huge psychological shadow on the bullied, and even lead to irreversible tragedies. Not only that, but bullying may also be a lingering ghost for bystanders, helpers, and even the bullies themselves.

"Re: Assembly" is presented by Drama Box as part of Esplanade's "Feed Your Imagination" series. This series of programs is tailor-made for student groups, with artistic performances appropriate to their age groups. In addition to student performances, "Re: Assembly" also has two external performances open to the public. In 2022, Drama Box co-artistic director Han Xuemei was commissioned by “FYI Series” to create "Assembly". This year, Han Xuemei joined hands with actor Tim Wan (actor of “Assembly") to co-direct "Re: Assembly”. The duo continued to explore the topic of school violence and bullying with a new narrative "Re: Assembly”, which also took the form of "immersive theater", allowing the audience to be part of the scene in order to experience what the characters were feeling.

The team of "Re: Assembly"divided the space of the Esplanade’s Annexe Studio into three performance areas, each of which replicated an almost exact replica of the school's Photography Club room— filled with computers, photos, and notice boards pinned with mental health awareness posters. During the performance, actors will travel through various spaces in the same scene,  as if they were reenacting fragments of memories. Audience members could walk between these spaces and examined various props - such as photos of characters in the play, textbooks and reference books, etc, although the props were not actually Easter eggs for solving cases and puzzles, but instead for audiences to be more involved in this play-world.

As the audience wandered through the various spaces, the computer screens in each space lit up, showing short videos taken by the characters in the play. Then, school teacher Mr Ong (Alvin Chiam) suddenly appeared on the second floor of the theatre space, speaking to those audience who were in the performance area. Those audiences were instantly transformed into students participating in morning flag-raising ceremony, and they listened to Mr Ong's appeal for everyone not to spread false rumours or speculate too much about the death of a transfer student, Lina (Natalie Titus), who jumped to her death, and that the students should wait for the police investigation to arrive at a conclusion instead. The events of "Re: Assembly" unfolded through flashbacks— Lina, a transfer student, joined the photography club ran by her class form teacher, Mr Ong, and befriended two club members - Joe (Izzul Irving), and Natasha (Jasmine Tan). Jealous that Lina was stealing her photography assignments from her best friend Joe, Natasha cyber-bullied Lina on an online forum using an anonymous persona. (The cast literally created an internet forum where viewers can read the messages on the forum by scanning a QR code after entering the theatre.) Lina, who was being bullied by her classmates in her previous school as well, had mental health issues and developed a phobia of secret rooms. Was Lina locked in the club activity room by Natasha? Or did she hallucinated, hence triggering her phobia of locked rooms, hence breaking the window and eventually jumped to her death?

Compared to "Assembly", in which the intricate storyline and actors' movements made audience too busy scrambling for clues to piece the truth of the incident together, and thus less able to empathize with the characters, "Re: Assembly”, with its new narrative and direction, allowed the audience to understand the context of the story, which gave them space to reflect on the issue of bullying. The setting of "Re: Assembly" focused on cyberbullying, which is a context that today's students are definitely familiar with, and it allowed students to empathise. The team of "Re: Assembly" also designed an educational resource pack for the student audience. After the student performances, the actors will lead students in groups to discuss the plot and themes, and reflect upon the topics of bullies, bullied people, bystanders, and assistance— in fact, the possible overlapping relationships of these roles can be very educational. In addition, for students who are new to theatre, the immersive form of "Re: Assembly" allowed them to experience the artistic charm of theatre, which is different from that of other visual media.

As for the public performances, co-directors Han Xuemei and Tim Wan led the audience to discuss the plot and themes after the performance. Although the immersive theatre presentation was innovative, and achieved the desired thrilling effect (credit must be given to the sound and lighting design), “Re: Assembly” did not manage to provide a deeper perspective or point of view on the subject for the adult audience. Some viewers have pointed out that the show's portrayal of the school system is too one-sided and too harsh.

The structural problem of bullying is truly complex. Apart from theatre practitioners and educators, we must mobilise more social forces, and continue to rally, and rally again, in order to exorcise this “ghost”.

Performance watched: 15th July 2023, 7:30PM, Esplanade Annexe Studio, presented by Drama Box

Official Information: https://www.dramabox.org/eng/productions-re-assembly-school.html