My Father the AI Machine

[Theatre Review] ‘The Puppets are Alright’ by The Finger Players: Puppets Revealing Humanity’s Frailties

/ Isaac Tan / 1 Comment

Doreen Toh in ‘My Father The AI Machine’ / Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

The Puppets are Alright
The Finger Players
26 February 2023
Drama Centre Black Box 
22–26 February 2023

In my email interview with the creatives of The Puppets are Alright, the common theme of working towards a piece in which the puppet is crucial to the story-telling came up consistently. 

The puppets used in the triple-bill are created by Sim Xin Feng, Loo An Ni, and Marilyn Ang during their respective year-long residencies at The Maker’s Lab. 

When the audience enters the black box, they will see Sim Xin Feng’s puppet seated at the dining table, facing them directly. It is the size of a large doll, its head resembling a bald, bespectacled, middle-aged man. 

With its big eyes and indecipherable mouth, it has an enigmatic presence throughout My Father The AI Machine. In the piece, it is a machine which supposedly contains the brainwaves and memories of a deceased man, an innovation by the government-backed Revive the Dead Programme.

The man’s wife (Doreen Toh) treats it like her actual husband, and takes on multiple jobs, hoping to eventually afford the upgrades to make this machine more human-like. This leaves the son (Neo Hai Bin) contending with treating the machine like his father, and not having a proper relationship with his mother.

Neo Hai Bin plays the son who is unwilling to treat the machine as his father
Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

With its movable eyes, controlled by a joystick, and a button at the mouth to print ten words at a time on a ticker tape, dispensed through its chest, the puppet is not completely inanimate, but hardly human. 

The liminality of the puppet is the crux of this poignant human drama in which one is clinging on to what is lost at the unknowing expense of slowly losing what one has.

Playwright Chong Tze Chien keeps the plot and world-building of a near future simple, which allows us to focus on the human drama. Unfortunately, Liew Jia Yi’s direction and the performance by the actors is just short of realising the drama to its fullest potential. 

For a woman who desperately wants to keep her husband alive, and treats the machine as her husband, Doreen Toh is slightly tentative in handling the puppet as they slow dance to the couple’s favourite song. Even when the son threatens to destroy the machine, her desperate pleas do not feel like her son has just threatened to kill his father with a long knife in hand. 

At the end of the play, when the son makes an irrational decision that contradicts his previous beliefs, Neo Hai Bin portrays the son to make that decision a little too easily. 

That said, the play is engaging and touches on a very human struggle. 

Alvin Chiam plays a man who is haunted by the spectre of his wife / Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

As a counterpoint to the opening piece, Loo An Ni’s puppet in Parting only appears in the middle of the piece. Instead of using the original puppets she created for her residency, she created a new one based on insights gained from her research into modularity. 

While I am slightly disappointed as she is modest in her ambitions with the life-sized female mannequin with detachable limbs,—as opposed to her original interests in exoskeletons and modularity—the puppet serves as the spectre that confronts us with our sins. 

In this non-verbal piece conceived and directed by Oliver Chong, a man (Alvin Chiam) writes a parting letter to his wife and removes his wedding ring. Three creatures (Angelina Chandra, Jo Kwek, Rachel Nip) dressed in black appear and they seem to represent the man’s personal demons. As they scamper and scramble about the room to frolic and cause mischief, the man gets increasingly affected.

The timing between the creatures shifting the body parts of the puppet, and the man wondering they are constantly being misplaced, is incredibly taut. This brings out a sense of dark humour. We get the horror trope of things moving about and seeing the dark forces causing mischief, while also getting the comedic element of child-like creatures playing pranks.

The creatures (Angelina Chandra, Jo Kwek, Rachel Nip) seem to represent the man’s personal demons
Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

Chiam’s slightly understated approach is a nice touch as this contrasts with the creatures suggests how he is trying to control what is going on internally as manifested by the creatures on stage.

The creatures also double as puppeteers. When the mannequin is assembled, it becomes the spectre of the man’s wife, and he is confronted with what he did. As the ultimate act is committed, the puppet is crucial in showing how violent we can be. This may be a little too uncomfortable if such violence is enacted on a human actor. 

The promotional materials describe this piece as “high octane”, but the initial menacing quality of the piece is not ramped up towards the climax. While one might worry about how much the audience can take, I think there is still more room to push this further. 

Ian Tan handles and gives voice to the rod puppet, Paul. T. Saitharan plays Paul’s father
Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

The Bench brings us back to familiar ground with Marilyn Ang’s rod puppet which plays the son, Paul, whose relationship with his father (T. Sasitharan) is strained.

Having lost his wife, the father has to raise his son alone and tries to connect with him by creating an environment that the father thinks is beautiful—building a bench that can play sounds when touching different parts of it, and telling him stories or quotes by luminaries of the past whenever Paul needs some guidance. 

Paul drifts from his father as he tires of the cryptic wisdom provided by his father, which does not seem to help him navigate through the thickets of life. 

In this wistful play, written by Ellison Tan and directed by Myra Loke, we see Paul grow from an infant to a young adult through the sensitive puppeteering and line delivery by Ian Tan. 

One of the key features in Marilyn Ang’s design of Paul is a mechanism in the chest which allows it to emit bubbles. At a few points in the play, we see Paul emitting a stream of bubbles from his chest, as if he is pouring his heart out. Just like the stories and quotes from his father, they appear beautiful, but are fleeting and do not exist long enough for a connection to be made. 

Delicate performances from T. Sasitharan and Ian Tan / Photo: Benson Lim / Courtesy of The Finger Players

T. Sasitharan, as Paul’s father, has an unmistaken presence and one could listen to him tell stories for hours. Despite him likening acting with and reacting to puppets as a high-wire act sans safety net, he does it effortlessly.

However, even when the relationship is fraying, the father still resorts to quotes and anecdotes to communicate with his son. One wishes that the audience with some sort of indication—either through the text or direction—as to why the father could not speak from the heart, despite being very eloquent in relaying wisdom from the past.

With a few beautiful moments sprinkled in the piece, which brings out Marilyn Ang’s exploration of tactility and bubbles, the piece is an elegy of father-son relationships, and the missed opportunities for connection. 

Despite needing a few tweaks, everyone involved in the triple-bill must be congratulated for creating works that incorporate the puppets in an organic way, while throwing humanity’s needs, desires, and frailties into sharper relief. 

Other Reviews

“Theatre review: The Puppets Are Alright is sophisticated storytelling about grief and love” by Charmaine Lim, The Straits Times Life! (Review is behind a paywall.)

“To Make is To Care” by Lee Shu Yu, harmonicstagebeams

“The Puppets Are Alright” by The Finger Players—and I know the outgoing artistic directors will be alright too” by Corrie Tan, the intimate critic

Further Reading

[Interview] Creatives shed light on ‘The Puppets are Alright’ by The Finger Players

[Interview] Ellison Tan and Myra Loke celebrate their stint as co-artistic directors of The Finger Players with The Puppets are Alright

Programme booklet of The Puppets are Alright

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[Interview] Creatives shed light on ‘The Puppets are Alright’ by The Finger Players

/ Isaac Tan / 1 Comment

The Puppets are Alright is a triple-bill of puppetry-led works which features the puppets by the participants of The Maker’s Lab: Sim Xin Feng (2020), Loo An Ni (2021), and Marilyn Ang (2022).

At the end of The Maker’s Lab, a production is created around the featured puppet. The Puppets are Alright serves as a culmination of the past three iterations of The Maker’s Lab, in which the puppets are featured in new plays.

This is borne out of the concerns of The Finger Players (TFP) as they explore ways in which sustainability can be incorporated into the practice of puppetry.

Following my interview with Ellison Tan and Myra Loke, co-artistic directors of TFP, I spoke to the creatives behind the triple-bill to find out more about each piece.

The Bench

On a bench, Paul and his father tell each other stories, disregard their unhappiness
with reckless abandon, and allow their souls to be healed by each other. But as time
goes by, there is an acknowledgement—that nobody can save your soul if you won’t
save your own, and if only Paul knew, that his father would stop at nothing to save his.

THE BENCH features the latest puppet exploration of Marilyn Ang, selected maker
of The Maker’s Lab Cycle 2022/2023.

Playwright: Ellison Tan
Director: Myra Loke
Puppet Designer & Maker: Marilyn Ang
Performers / Puppeteers: Ian Tan, T. Sasitharan

Did you write the play specifically around the puppet? If so, what aspects of the puppet inspired you?

Ellison Tan: For this iteration of The Maker’s Lab, Myra and myself were involved in the process much earlier than before, and what we did was to support the selected maker’s curiosities. 

Marilyn Ang was interested in sound tactility (hence the Playtron exploration), and experimented on a few textures based on emotions. Eventually, she settled on sound tactility as well as soap as a texture, which eventually evolved to be represented by bubbles, and so I wrote a play that could house these two concepts. 

Myra Loke: When Marilyn was exploring different tactile experiences (e.g., using ice, wax, charcoal, etc.), I was captivated by the ephemerality of the bubbles. It is so light, almost weightless, but when it burst in my palm, my heart stopped a bit. How could something so light evoke such a deep and heavy emotion in me? This feeling inspired my approach to the story, and the development of the puppets with Marilyn and Daniel Sim. 

Were there any unique challenges in writing a play with a puppet as a character?

Ellison Tan: I don’t think it’s a unique challenge because it feels quite universal—can this story be told only with puppetry elements? There are infinite possibilities in staging a story, so the challenge then becomes how can I write something that presents this puppet as crucial to the story, and not as an afterthought? It was also absolutely essential for the possibilities of the puppet to be illustrated to its fullest potential.

Were there any interesting insights or discoveries during the rehearsal process?

T. Sasitharan: Acting with puppets and puppeteers requires multiple imaginations to be working simultaneously. I, as actor, must instantaneously “translate” the actions of the puppet into the actions of the baby, while respond to the “baby” in my arms as a puppet at the same time. It’s like being on a high-wire without a net; intensely scary and exciting. It’s the first time I’m experiencing this as an actor.

Has witnessing your creation being used in a different context made you look at your puppet anew? Did you gain any new insights in the puppet-making process as you watch the performers work with your creation? 

Marilyn Ang: As this is my first time leading the puppet design and build of a show, I’ve learnt about what goes into the process of designing puppets and allowing my build to move along with the needs of the director and performers. As an assistant maker for the past two iterations of The Maker’s Lab, it allowed me to learn some of the processes and skills needed to understand the ways a puppet can be made. This helped in problem-solving when it came to designing and making the puppets for “The Bench”.

Sometimes in the process of making something, I get a little frustrated, but when I finally see the puppet in the rehearsal with the puppeteer, It feels exhilarating to see the performers give life to an otherwise static object. My role as a puppet designer would only be as good as a puppeteer makes of the puppet.

Parting

A relationship has run its course and a man sits at his desk to finalize a separation.

Inspired by Director and Playwright Oliver Chong’s first production (I’m Just a Piano
Teacher) at The Finger Players, PARTING is a high octane piece that features
cleavers, limbs, granny panties and sheer fury.

PARTING is a collaboration between Oliver Chong and Loo An Ni, and is an
extension of Loo An Ni’s journey in The Maker’s Lab Cycle 2021/2022. Witness
Oliver re-imagine An Ni’s puppet in this short, swift and bloody piece.

Playwright & Director: Oliver Chong
Puppet Designer & Maker: Loo An Ni
Performers / Puppeteers: Alvin Chiam, Angelina Chandra, Jo Kwek, Rachel Nip

Did you write the play specifically around the puppet? If so, what aspects of the puppet inspired you?

Oliver Chong: Yes. I was inspired by the body parts of the puppet which are easily detachable and interchangeable.

Were there any unique challenges in writing a play with a puppet as a character?

Oliver Chong: In this case, the challenge is in showcasing the unique qualities of the puppet. The play has to justify these qualities in such a way that the puppet has been specifically created for the narrative. Otherwise, it is about justifying why the character must be played by a puppet and not a human actor.

Has witnessing your creation being used in a different context made you look at your puppet anew?

Loo An Ni: A different puppet was created for “Parting” using the modular system of bones and joints developed during my time with The Maker’s Lab. It was thrilling to be able to apply the system in another context, and further test the concept of modularity.

 

My Father the AI Machine

She clings on to her dead husband’s memories, lovingly preserved in an electronic shell
of him in her house. He lives on in a fictional world that she tenderly and tirelessly
recreates, while their son is caught in between, unable to move on. In a near future
when one can preserve the dead as an AI machine, would you do it, and at what price?

MY FATHER THE AI MACHINE brings back the puppet created by Sim Xin Feng,
selected maker of The Maker’s Lab Cycle 2020/2021.

Playwright: Chong Tze Chien
Director: Liew Jia Yi
Puppet Designer & Maker: Sim Xin Feng
Performers / Puppeteers: Doreen Toh, Neo Hai Bin

Did you write the play specifically around the puppet? If so, what aspects of the puppet inspired you?

Chong Tze Chien: I wrote the play as a response to Chiam (the name of the puppet built by Xin Feng), specifically its earlier incarnation as a puppet developed under The Maker’s Lab, which Xin Feng conceptualised and crafted over a year.

I was intrigued by my impression of that relationship between the maker and the created, and the co-dependency and embryonic bond between the two. Using that as a running theme, I created a parallel story between a mother who crafts a narrative around a construct, as a puppeteer or puppet-maker would with her creation. To the puppet-maker and mother character in the play, their creation is as real as a human being.

What were some challenges in creating this piece?

Liew Jia Yi: I am usually a more “micro” person, so one challenge was to keep reminding myself to step back, see the big picture, and envision how the different design elements come together cohesively to tell the story. Thankfully, I have a very good mentor and team who keep me on track and ask good questions to shape the show more clearly.

Were there any interesting insights or discoveries during the rehearsal process?

Liew Jia Yi: One discovery was that the future I would like to paint for AI machine is not so much of a dystopian state, but rather a very possible future where the people are offered more high-tech options that can interfere with what was typically impossible (e.g., time travel, space travel, reversing death, reversing environmental damage, etc.). So in a way, it is quite hopeful and exciting.

Of course, there would be other possibly negative “symptoms” such as greater income gap, inflation, older retirement age, wars happening elsewhere in the world, etc.

But in this piece, I would like to focus more on how the layman (i.e., the two characters) position themselves in such a world, and how they deal with death when choices such as the Revive the Dead Programme become possible (in the play, advancement in medical science has made memory transference of the dead to machines possible).

Doreen Toh: This is my first experience acting with a puppet. Other than having to find ways to adapt to him, the most important thing is just to be there to listen to him. As a puppet, he supposedly cannot give and take spontaneously like a human actor, but as the days go by, I can sense his response and the connection between us.

Neo Hai Bin: Working with the puppet, and by the puppet, brings back fond childhood memories of playing with toys. I love how puppets (re-)kindle our sense of imagination.

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