Patricia Tobin, Author at ArtsEquator

Lychee Bye in boudoir_1_Image courtesy of Win (@cheetouk)

Lychee Bye in boudoir. Photo by Win (@cheetouk)

Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021: Bold claims on identity

By Patricia Tobin (1,382 words, 4-minute read) Led by artistic director Noorlinah Mohamed, this year’s online edition of the Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021 explores issues pertaining to women that are often forgotten or overlooked. There is Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being, a series of livestreamed and pre-recorded virtual performances featuring 15 women aged […]

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A predestined fate: Nine Years Theatre’s Oedipus

By Patricia Tobin (665 words, 4-minute read) The story of Oedipus is undoubtedly known to all. From the classic Sophocles’ play to Freudian theory, this Ancient Greek myth has bled into our cultural consensus over a few millennia. Yet, Nine Years Theatre’s (NYT) take on Oedipus feels fresh and timely. Held at KC Arts Centre,

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Hideto Maezawa

The brutal examinations of “Constellation of Violence”

By Patricia Tobin (561 words, 4-minute read) Constellation of Violence consists of a very simple setup: a giant screen on stage, a historian, two artists and a group of individuals. These elements are combined, in varying degrees, to form a three-part artistic investigation on the Cold War in Indonesia in 1965. Indonesian artist Irwan

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Hideto Maezawa

The Personal, the Humour and the Horror: Interview with Irwan Ahmett

By Patricia Tobin (1,140 words, 6-minute read) The concluding production of TPAM 2019 was Constellation of Violence, a lecture-performance by artist Irwan Ahmett, which focused on the culmination of the Cold War in Indonesia in 1965, from its lead-up to its aftermath. Irwan is an artist who positions his existence in the complexity of

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Courtesy of Comatonse Recordings

Disturbing behaviour: “Deproduction” by Terre Thaemlitz

By Patricia Tobin (670 words, 4-minute read) Content warning: References to sexual content or situations Deproduction by musician-producer Terre Thaemlitz was released on December 28, 2017 as a multimedia album consisting of audio, video and text. In TPAM 2019, it was staged as an “anti-live AV performance”, as Thaemlitz combined the album’s textual, audio

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Tender notes on violence in “A Notional History” by Five Arts Centre

By Patricia Tobin ( 700 words, 5-minute read) It starts with a song. Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri strums the ukulele and gently sings about hope and the future. For a lecture-performance, A Notional History, a work in progress by Five Arts Centre, is filled with pockets of tender moments like these. Together with journalist Rahmah Pauzi and filmmaker-activist

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Photo: Hideto Maezawa

Fahmi Fadzil’s “GE14”: The sound and fury signifying everything

By Patricia Tobin ( 700 words, 5-minute read) “GE14 will be the arts festival to outdo all arts festivals,” said performer-politician Fahmi Fadzil. He is referring to the live spectacle: from theatre productions to political speeches, performativity is a constant. All the world’s a stage, as the production of GE14 shows, from the car parks

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Courtesy of the artist

Confronting Truths in Ho Tzu Nyen’s “The Mysterious Lai Teck”

By Patricia Tobin (736 words, 3-minute read) Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for The Mysterious Lai Teck, which will run from 17 to 19 May at the Singapore International Festival of Arts. “I am the shadow of Ho Chi Minh,” a voice states. It starts as a whisper, before being repeated later as a fast,

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Crispian Chan

“Thick Beats for Good Girls” Keeps It 100

By Patricia Tobin (780 words, five-minute read) It is 2007 on a Thursday night, and I am at the old Phuture on Zion Road. “Smack that, all on the floor,” Akon’s hit single Smack That is booming from the club speakers. “Smack that, give me some more,” the song continues. The club is brimming with

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Get “Forked”: Finding our Racial Identity

By Patricia Tobin (800 words, 6-minute read) When I was 19, I left Singapore to pursue my studies in Melbourne. I foolishly thought that any city, anywhere else in the world, would be better than this tiny island. In Melbourne, I became more aware of my “otherness”. At an Irish pub in St Kilda, a

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Looking within with “Attempts: Singapore”

Spoiler Alert: If you’re planning to experience the mystery and suspense of Attempts: Singapore, read only after you’ve attended the performance. By Patricia Tobin (788 words, 6-min read) “She is a terrorist, she is a cultist, she works for sex.” “Who is she?” Like a foggy recreation of a Black Mirror episode, Rei Poh’s Attempts: Singapore

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“The Neighbor’s Grief is Greener”: There Will be Blood

By Patricia Tobin (538 words, 5-minute read) From Stepford Wives to The Real Housewives, the idealised American woman is always found in the kitchen. But is she happy? In The Feminine Mystique (1963), Betty Friedan found that most housewives of this era were unfulfilled within the domestic space. Creator-director Emanuella Amichai addresses this in The

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Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay

“Ninagawa Macbeth”: The Bold and The Beautiful

By Patricia Tobin (500 words, 5-minute read) A dark traditional Japanese Buddhist altar, or butsudan, stands tall onstage. Engraved gold hinges line the thick borders and towering, half-folded black doors, akin to an oriental treasure chest. Upon the tolling of a bell, two old women slowly push open the butsudan doors, inviting us into the

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Pangdemonium’s “Fun Home”: Safety in Numbers

By Patricia Tobin (534 words, 5-minute read) Pangdemonium’s Fun Home is a musical based on the same-titled graphic novel by cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Set in Pennsylvania, Fun Home zigzags between forty-something lesbian cartoonist Alison, “young Alison” as a child, and “medium Alison” as a college student. Her father is an English teacher and director of

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Lessons in “Grandmother Tongue”

By Patricia Tobin (483 words, 4-minute read) “Have you eaten?” is the go-to greeting for Singaporean Chinese families. Typically asked in dialect (“Jiak ba buay?”), or sometimes Mandarin (“Chi bao ma?”), “Have you eaten?” is a sign of courtesy towards your parents or grandparents, a simple question that bolsters familial bonds. W!ld Rice’s Grandmother Tongue

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“Germinal”: Mystery, Science, Theatre

By Patricia Tobin (500 words, 5-minute read) “Are you interested in the first series of major discoveries, such as the law of elementary mechanics?” a friendly voice asks over an intercom. “The wheel, perhaps?” Halory’s three companions shake their heads and he promptly replies, “No.” In classical physics, we deal with the observable world. In

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“Dragonflies”: A Migrant Dreams For Home

By: Patricia Tobin (500 words, 5-minute read) We are no different from dragonflies. With their tiny transparent wings flapping at 30 beats per second, these creatures travel thousands of kilometers to reproduce, to find a new home, to fight for their survival. This is what Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies alludes to: like dragonflies, our existence is dependent

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Review of “Frago”: The Military and the Ordinary

By Patricia Tobin (550 words, 5-minute read) Army exercises are typically perceived as tough, and even mind-numbing with their incessant drills. The monotony of army rounds can be found outside the battlefield too: our personal routines are akin to a civilian regime of sorts. Frago, the latest play by Checkpoint Theatre, directly tackles the contrast

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