剧评：6 Microlectures on Genocides
《假如我们说下去》——观《种族灭绝六讲》（6 Microlectures on Genocides） |
文 / 郭毅杰 继其于台北釜山双城巡演，《种族灭绝六讲》二度回国演出，诚邀更多观众一同探讨我们之于加沙战事的所措。由导演郭庆亮和演员Rizman Putra共构的剧作原于2025年尼泊尔国际民众戏剧节首演，今年初返新演出限于较为狭小的戏剧盒，此次重演改在相较宽大的实践空间（实践剧场友情支援），使其受众及影响加以扩展。同一周有新加坡国际艺术节与国际表演艺术协会大会同时举行，本作有意错开上述两者之活动时段，将演出时间落定傍晚六时及晚上十时，提供与会者赴往观剧的时机；其逢时重演旨在遥相建立官方文艺话语以外的边缘／另类叙事空间。 * 观众还未进场，演员已在台上；世界还未瞩目，战火早已燃烧。黑箱剧场内，全副白装的演员盘坐地面虔诚地裁剪纱布，其后纸箱堆叠成岌岌可摧的假面墙，疑拟战地声响嗡嗡低鸣——非常场景逐成日常景象，让人极易惯习麻痹，但人性不能被灭绝。开演之际，导演现身说法直接撕下第四堵墙，打破并拒绝幻觉式的观看，使观众意识到接着一连六个微型讲座非戏而是活生生且“持续发生的种族灭绝”。 饮食即政治，开山之作“Dinner Conversations”（温淑安编剧）的命题。饭桌上一群文艺人士阔谈日本陶瓷的精致美学，但当有人指出其背后日本对朝鲜陶工的奴役，他们全然肃静。温的画外音叙述着，演员将纱布条塞满嘴腔，食物图像投影在他的肚位。满腹诗书珍肴的我们面对暴力却哑口无言，是不会／能／要／想表达？无声无视、选择沉默是变相的暴力。 个人的选择微而又大，本作唯一华语小品《一张椅子》（梁海彬编剧）暗示着。一桌二椅是传统戏曲基本写意架构，于此一桌一椅被隐没，仅留一张椅子便足以供编剧／演员／观众与相关人士隔空对话。资助卢旺达种族灭绝的企业家、投入维吾尔族维权的社运人士，以及创立巴勒斯坦人医疗援助组织的新加坡医生，皆为审问对象。他们的言行举止，无论大小，皆助长／消了于不同时空发生的种族灭绝行径。梁的旁述提出一连串反问，辅以投影纸箱的英文字幕，演员随之将口中的纱布一条条取出——我们或能选择先以反问叩问良心。 “Hummus”可说是六讲中最写实的作品，纪实巴勒斯坦人的片刻现状。编剧A Yagnya将与三位巴勒斯坦友人Tamer Nijim、Amna，以及Raghad的对话翻译（巴勒斯坦人主要使用阿拉伯语文）并重新整理，由演员一人分饰三角并首度开口叙述，让观众第一手（严格来说是第二手）见证战争与暴力对巴勒斯坦人的摧残。人文关怀终究还得以人为本。 “Bangkai (Carcass)”则以写意的马来诗歌，针砭人类的双重标准与心性矛盾。Zulfadli Rashid的文字由Bani Haykal谱曲并演唱，配以鸟兽素描投影，类伊斯兰音乐的曲目谱写自然界的相残隐喻人类的纷争。期间，演员肢体抽搐，仿佛饱受凌辱的鸟兽，直至尾声巨响即化作乌鸦尸体，惊心动魄：射鸦行为惨不忍睹，种族灭绝难道不血腥？ 感知无法压抑，于是我们抒怀，最后两讲如是道。Haresh Sharma编剧的戏剧独白“The Follower”戏谑穆斯林母亲对戏剧老师的控诉，他一面赞许戏剧教学对孩子的良好影响，一面忧心老师政治立场的潜移默化。报案时，警察问道嫌疑犯（老师）犯了何罪，母亲无以名状——声讨反对种族灭绝从来是莫须有的罪。这不禁令人联想大约两年前，编剧同另外两名艺术工作者因报读人数不足为由被国大临时取消课程，然而真正的原因不言而喻。 声音不能被赶尽杀绝，“Conjuring A Square”（Nabilah Said编剧）给我们最后一丝期许。他早前将对阿拉伯之春革命浪潮的所思写作寓言，如今后设地重新审视旧作并进行注脚。他反思过去对阿拉伯之春（以及现在对加沙种族灭绝）所知不多，对其的书写或有偏颇，但他不会／能／要／想因而不表达远在新加坡的他之所思所感。原作墙面隔阂的纸箱就此由演员取下，重新排列成广场人民沟通交流的模样，具象回应编剧对民众发声与群体力量的信念。 * 《种族灭绝六讲》串起六个形式风格迥异、人文关怀一致的叙事，拼贴成一座人民广场，集结观众群一同心系巴勒斯坦，同时放眼过去现在近未来种种有形无形的种族灭绝—卢旺达、维吾尔族，还有许多未提及的。暴力持续扩散，我们不能放弃思辨，不能不继续说下去。 剧评刊登于《联合早报》艺评 关于演出：2026年05月23日，10PM，Practice Space，theriverproduction呈现 演出详情：https://www.theriverproduction.com "and so we must never stop talking"—Review of 6 Microlectures on GenocidesReview by Quek Yee Kiat Translated by Quek Yee Kiat (polished with ChatGPT) Following its runs in Taipei and Busan, 6 Microlectures on Genocides returned to Singapore for a second staging, inviting a wider audience to reflect collectively on our actions—and inactions—in relation to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Devised by director Kok Heng Leun and actor Rizman Putra, the production premiered at the International People’s Theatre Festival in Nepal in 2025. Earlier this year, its Singapore presentation was confined to the relatively intimate premises of Drama Box; this revival occupies the larger Practice Space (courtesy of The Theatre Practice), extending both its reach and impact. Coinciding with the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) and the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) 2026 Singapore Congress, the production deliberately avoided programming clashes by scheduling performances at 6pm and 10pm, allowing festival delegates and attendees the opportunity to catch the show. Its timely restaging seeks, in part, to carve out an alternative space for discourse at the margins of official cultural narratives. * The actor is already onstage before the audience enters, just as the war had already begun before the world took notice. In the black-box theatre, Rizman Putra, dressed entirely in white, sits on the floor meticulously cutting strips of gauze. Behind him, cardboard boxes are stacked into a fragile wall; beneath the silence, the low hum of war-like sounds lingers. Extraordinary scenes gradually become ordinary realities, making it easy to grow numb. Yet human conscience cannot be extinguished. Before the performance begins proper, Kok Heng Leun steps forward to address the audience directly, tearing down the fourth wall and rejecting the comforts of theatrical illusion. The audience is reminded that the six microlectures to follow are not merely theatre, but reflections on a living and “ongoing genocide”. Food is politics: this is the proposition at the heart of the opening piece, “Dinner Conversations”, written by Oon Shu An. Around a dinner table, a group of artists enthusiastically discuss the beauty and craftsmanship of Japanese ceramics. Yet when someone points out the history of Korean potters enslaved by the Japanese, the conversation comes to an abrupt halt. As Oon’s voiceover unfolds, the actor stuffs strips of gauze into his mouth while images of food are projected onto his stomach. We who are nourished by culture and abundance find ourselves speechless in the face of violence. Are we unwilling, unable, afraid, or simply uninterested in speaking? Silence and wilful indifference are forms of violence in themselves. Individual choices may appear insignificant, yet their consequences can be immense. This is the suggestion put forth by “A Single Chair”, the production’s only Mandarin-language microlecture, written by Neo Hai Bin. In traditional Chinese opera, one table and two chairs form a fundamental minimalist stage arrangement. Here, even that configuration is reduced: the table disappears, one chair is removed, and a single chair remains. It becomes a site from which playwright, performer, audience, and absent figures may converse across time and space. Among those summoned are a businessman who financed the Rwandan genocide, an activist advocating for Uyghur rights, and a Singaporean doctor who founded Medical Aid for Palestinians. Each becomes the subject of interrogation. Their actions, whether large or small, have either enabled or resisted genocidal violence unfolding across different historical moments and geographical contexts. As Neo’s narration poses a series of pointed questions, accompanied by English surtitles projected onto the cardboard wall, the actor slowly removes the gauze from his mouth. If there is a place to begin, the piece suggests, it is by questioning our own conscience. “Hummus” is perhaps the most realist work among the six, documenting fragments of contemporary Palestinian life. Playwright A Yagnya translates and reshapes her conversations with three Palestinian friends—Tamer Nijim, Amna, and Raghad—and for the first time in the evening, the actor speaks at length, embodying all three voices. The audience is given a firsthand—or more accurately, secondhand—encounter with the devastating effects of war and violence on Palestinian lives. Ultimately, humanitarian concern must return to the people themselves. “Bangkai (Carcass)”, by contrast, takes the form of a lyrical Malay poem/song that critiques human hypocrisy and moral contradiction. Zulfadli Rashid’s text is set to music and performed by Bani Haykal, accompanied by projected sketches of birds and animals. The music, evoking Islamic devotional traditions, transforms scenes of predation and violence in nature into metaphors for human conflict. Meanwhile, the actor’s body convulses and contorts as though subjected to relentless abuse. By the work’s conclusion, a deafening blast reduces him to the carcass of a crow. The image is shocking: if shooting a crow is considered cruel, how can genocide be regarded as anything less than horrific? Conscience cannot be suppressed, and so we seek expression. The final two lectures make precisely this argument. In Haresh Sharma’s dramatic monologue “The Follower”, a Muslim mother humorously recounts her complaint against her child’s drama teacher. On one hand, she praises the positive impact of theatre education; on the other, she worries about the teacher’s political views influencing her child. When she attempts to file a police report, she is asked what crime the teacher has committed. She finds herself unable to answer. Speaking out against genocide has never been a crime, though it is often treated as though it were. The piece inevitably recalls an incident from roughly two years ago, when Sharma and two other arts practitioners had university courses cancelled at the National University of Singapore on the grounds of insufficient enrolment. The official explanation was clear enough; the underlying reasons required little elaboration. Voices cannot be eradicated. “Conjuring A Square”, written by Nabilah Said, offers the evening’s final note of hope. Originally conceived as a fable inspired by the Arab Spring, the work now returns to that earlier text in a self-reflexive manner, annotating and re-examining its assumptions. Said reflects on how little she understood about the Arab Spring at the time—and, by extension, how little she may know about the genocide in Gaza today. Such limitations may have shaped her writing, but they do not absolve her from the responsibility to speak. As someone writing from Singapore, thousands of miles away, she insists on the necessity of expressing what she thinks and feels. In response, the cardboard boxes that once formed a wall are dismantled and rearranged into the shape of a public square. The image gives tangible form to the playwright’s faith in collective speech and civic solidarity. * 6 Microlectures on Genocides weaves together six formally distinct works united by a common humanistic concern. Together, they form a collage of a people’s square, gathering audiences not only to think about Palestine, but also to confront the many visible and invisible genocides that have occurred, continue to occur, and may yet occur—in Rwanda, among the Uyghurs, and in countless places left unnamed. Violence continues to spread. We cannot abandon our capacity for thought, reflection, or moral judgment. And so we must never stop talking. This review was first published in Lianhe Zaobao under Arts Review. This review was written following the performance on 23 May 2026, 10pm, at Practice Space, presented by theriverproduction. Show details: https://www.theriverproduction.com |
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