Life-affirming bedroom confessions

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Theatre
THE BEST SEX !'VE EVER HAD
Mammalian Diving Reflex (Canada)
Singapore Arts Festival
Esplanade Theatre Studio
Last Friday
Gorrie Tan
Several weeks ago, I told one of my friends about
this performance and how a group of older Singaporean *omen would.be sharing intimate details from
the bedroom with an all-female audience.
She made a face. "Aunties" talking about sex?
Count her out.
entered the theatre with trepidation, but
it realising that I had iust been a part
of the most profoundly moving performance I have
seen, so far, at this year's Singapore Arts Festival.
The concept of this performance is deceptively
simple and sounds awfully monotonous on paper.
Ten women file into the theatre and sit at a long
I
emerged from
table reminiscent of a formal panel discussion. They
read from a script. The oldest woman is 70, the
youngest
turns 57 this year'
-
A moderator sitting by the side begins to reel off
dates, starting at 1940. When she calls out the years
that these women were born in, they begin to tell
their stories in bits and pieces, taking turns to spell
- all the way till 2012.
This simple act of storytelling, developed with the
help of Canadian director Darren O' Donnell, had the
audience eating out of their hands.
I laughed till my stomach ached and around me,
out their lives
my fellow audience members, when not howling
with larrghter, were reacting with "awwvrws" and
"mmmms" of understanding in the safe harbour of
an all-female theatre.
Some of our "panellists" describe their sexual
awakenings with great detail. One of them rnasturbates with "Paul the pillow" when she is eight. Another watches two dogs copulating in her kampung.
Others do not describe much of their sex lives at
all. But they paint a devastatingly human picture of
the straitjacketed social eras they weathered. Boys
are preferred over girls. Others are given away because their families are too poor to keep them. We al-
so see snatches of a Singapore long gone: the Bukit
Ho Swee fire, the now:defunct National Theatre and
Hotel New World.
Marriages are arranged and husbands are wed but not lovers, many of whom inhabit the shadows
of this production, some lasting through the decades
and pining away with unrequited love and who themselves get married, or die, or become available when
it is too late.
One woman leaves her first boyfriend because he
is of a different social class, too wealthy for a poor
\?-
We are asked if penis size matters. Hands go up
around the room. Or if we like giving oral sex. Not so
many hands go up.
The women encourage audience members to
share their stories; honesty begets honesty, and
some deeply intimate details tumble out.
My quibbles with this performance are minor. It
is sometimes difficult to make out which woman is
speaking and some sort of indication (whether by a
change of lighting or some sort of gesture) would
have helped in tracking the script.
Also, woefully cheesy music sometimes accompa-
nied the more bittersweet tales the women told,
when their stories would have been so much more
for life sharing their
intimate secrets. PH0T0i NATIONAL ARTS COUNCIL
The women convey a lovg
girl like her, only to realise that he was the one all
along.
Others muddle through the confusion of their
wedding night and losing their virginity, not wanting
to look "down there".
Some of their stories are touchingly innocenf: "I
am 13. I am dreaming fairy-tale stories of boys: hugging and a bit of touching. Nothing very sexual, in
fairy tales they don't go into any details."
At several points in the show, the audience is
qrrizzed, sometimes uncomfortably, about their sex
and love lives.
poignant without the melodramatic reminder. Powerful words backed by silence can do a lot more than
sad, tinkly music.
But these are trifling issues. The Best Sex I've Ever Had is a portrait of the Singapore woman that is
both heartrending and joyously life-affirming. These
l0 women, all free of pretensions and refreshingly
honest, convey a love for life - no matter how difficult their personal histories - that is so rooted in reality but also bursting with hope.
When I spoke to several women after the show, I
asked them if their husbands and children knew they
were baring their souls to strangers every night.
They stared back at me, mortified. Their families did
not have a clue. Some of them did not use their real
names.
I came for this performance expecting to learn
about The Best Sex They'd Ever Had. Instead, I encountered some of The Strongest Women I've Ever
Met.