By Heng Jia Min
A few years ago, I tried verbally articulating my unconscious thoughts and images while I was day-dreaming, and that experience gave me an appreciation for sleep and the journeys my mind takes every night. It struck me that my dream mind processes many things on my behalf without me intentionally reflecting on each day’s adventures, and I resolved to treasure my sleep more.
Watching the pre-intermission half of The Wonderful World of Dissocia, which was the bulk of the play’s run time, reminded me of the worlds I enter in my sleep. At the start of the play, arrangements are made for the main character Lisa (Michelle Hariff) to travel to a country called Dissocia, find her lost hour and restore balance to her life. Victor Hesse (Jovi Tan), who vaguely refers to himself as a specialist in Switzerland, urges her to do so with urgency and care, for the hour can do damage in the wrong hands. With a phone call and an elevator ride down a few floors, we arrive at Dissocia. The cast brought me to a fantastical world with a literal scape-Goat (Hoe Wei Qi) who is desperate to be blamed, insecurity guards (Monil SJ and Nicole Shaan) who problematically “just tell you what you want to hear” (as the main character Lisa observes when they led her on a wild goose chase), and Jane (Tiara Yap), the country’s Victim upon whom all of Dissocia’s crime is enacted, like the Child in Omelas, as part of a “Victim Concentration Scheme”. With songs, bizarre arguments and bad puns, the actors and production crew painted a cheerful, colourful and friendly picture of the (wonderful) world of Dissocia, the namesake of the play. This world is so wonderful that that Lisa finds it difficult to escape and reclaim her lost hour she was looking for and return to her normal, human world. In the second half of the play, which is set in a plain hospital room, we are presented with the image of a plain hospital room with Lisa in bed for an extended period of time. It is revealed that Dissocia is merely a made-up world, and the conversations between Lisa’s visitors and Lisa feed us context for Lisa’s real-world situation.
This performance is Young and Wild’s graduation showcase, the culmination of the cast members’ nine months of training. With the exception of Michelle Hariff who played the main character Lisa, each performer played a range of characters. I found it difficult to comment on their acting abilities because most had to play such extreme characters with few moments of stillness and internal conflict. That said, playing extreme characters also takes acting chops and commitment to character, and I found that each performer used their full bodies to depict each character and elevate the text. The performers drew the audience’s laughter, sympathy and horror in their affecting depictions of their characters’ flaws and self-deprecation, like when the Goat (or Scapegoat) tempts Lisa into blaming her for something big so he will live his best life as a Scapegoat, before capturing her in a planned violent rape, or when Jane nonchalantly and over-enthusiastically announces and performs her job as Victim, and later in the same manner drops destructive bombs for the fun of the novel shapes they leave behind.
What I found especially impressive was the chemistry and quality listening between Monil and Nicole and their embodiment of insecurity in their role as two insecurity guards, and subsequently Lisa and Vince (Monil SJ) in the second last scene at the hospital, a vulnerable conversation with quick changes of emotional tone that they executed movingly.
While the characters in Dissocia were chirpy for the most part, there were also waves of attacks that would send all the Dissocians into spasms, supposedly instigated by a mysterious Black Dog King that is warring against their Queen. I enjoyed how convincing the actors were during these attacks. It was also interesting how outside of these attacks, the Dissocians live their lives normally and not in any state of fear or scarcity I expect in wartime. Apart from some brief conversations after each attack, they resume their daily business and squibbles. Initially I wondered if there was a way for the actors to hint at the sinister quality of Dissocia a little more, perhaps by allowing their characters to be more affected by these attacks and the war. Yet it’s an interesting and perhaps necessary directorial choice in hindsight. They are Dissocians! Of course they dissociate!
One thing that took away from my experience was how often the words spoken were unclearly enunciated or projected. This happened at many points in the piece: sometimes when the actors were attempting accents, sometimes when they were speaking too quickly, and often during the musical numbers within the piece. As a result, I found that the song and dance sections were generally ineffective and redundant. There were also a few moments where Michelle as Lisa seemed to anticipate the next moment in the play, though on the whole she delivered a compelling performance which gave the audience members a sense of Lisa’s emptiness and sadness in one world, and bewilderment, anger, horror, and joy in another.
While I was engaged throughout the show, I remember leaving the performance with a big question mark: why does Lisa need to get out of Dissocia? Several things imply Lisa desperately needs to get out of Dissocia in order to fulfil her commitments to her actual world. The play’s synopsis describes Dissocia as something where danger lurks, the repeated claim in the second half that Lisa doesn’t always stick to her medication schedule, and the analogy of the Sirens Lisa uses to depict her experience, where she sails towards the Sirens for the song despite knowing her ship will be smashed up. However, I could not understand why Lisa needed to leave, and how different and dangerous Dissocia was from the often equally horrifying world that we live in, especially since Dissocia is not real.
Conversely, if we accept that Dissocia is in fact not problematic at all and simply our brain’s way of coping and healing itself from our life’s events, why is society so bent on medicating or solving dissociation as a mental dysfunction? In the play, the attacks upon Dissocia initially caused Lisa a headache, but later had no effect on her. While not explicitly stated, I presume these attacks were the effects of the medication that she had to wake up to take periodically throughout the night. In the last scene in Dissocia, the lack of an effect on Lisa leads Dissocia’s characters to acknowledge Lisa as their Queen and valiantly sacrifice their lives to protect her from a (fictional) Black Dog army. I wonder if this violent end to Lisa’s Dissocians in response to the medication is meant to be a clue to my question, representing the jolt to a possibly unpleasant reality or the feeling of having lost an important part of one’s autobiographical self, something I imagine individuals struggling with mental health issues may face after they escape this supposedly dangerous world of Dissocia.
As a whole, while the play provoked some thought and the actors competently brought me through a journey — I found myself uncertain of where I ended up, hoping to have come to a clearer judgement of the world of Dissocia.
Writer’s Statement
Each response published on Critics Circle Blog is paired with a statement from the writer where their politic, entry point, purpose, and intended audience is made clear.
As an avid theatre-goer, I wrote this review to practise articulating my thoughts and to process my experience of the play, with the hope of becoming more sensitive to the work actors do in bringing scripts to life.
This response to The Wonderful World of Dissocia was written at the invitation of Wild Rice, who provided our writer with a complimentary ticket in order to write the review.
Further Responses
The Wonderful World of Dissocia
Venue: Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, Wild Rice @ FUNAN
Performed: 11- 14 May, 2023
Producing Company: Wild Rice
Playwright: Anthony Neilson
Director: Edith Podesta
Cast: Eleanor Ee, Michelle Hariff, Hoe Wei Qi, Elisa Mustika, Gosteloa Spancer, Nicole Shaan, Monil SJ, Su Paing Tun, Jovi Tan, Valerie Tan Su Min, Tiara Yap, Christian Yeo
Set Designer: Akbar Syadiq
Lighting Designer: Amirul Azmi
Costume Designer: Max Tan
Music Composer: Inch Chua
Sound Designer: Bani Haykal
Props Master: Joyce Gan
Choreographer: Ryan Ang
Hair Designer: Ashley Lim
Make-Up Designer: Bobbie Ng
Head, Production: Melissa Teoh
Technical Manager: David Sagaya
Production Stage Manager: Joyce Tay
Assistant Stage Managers: Joelyn Koh, Benjamin Lye
Stage Crew: Nurliana Haron
Technicians: Muhammad Azhar Bin Azman, Jayant Daniel Singh
Lighting Operator: Woon Yan Tong
Wardrobe Manager: Theresa Chan
Dressers: Ayuni Nur
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