The pre-show buzz surrounding it had reached pre-Oscars level. No, it wasn’t quite hysteria, but in certain circles of the art community it came pretty damn close.
For months, Loo Zihan’s Cane – a purported re-enactment of Josef Ng’s Brother Cane – came under fire from many regarding, among other things, questions of authenticity and validity, of selling out (although, yes, literally it did “sell out” as a ticketed show), of whether it’s performance art or theatre.
It got to a point last week where Loo himself had to issue a “love letter” explaining his actions; the critical hoohah got picked up and regurgitated by the national newspaper; someone wrote in saying it shouldn’t be allowed because “cutting pubic hair again” was “silly, weird and crude”; and a respected artist – who’s been actively blogging about the issue – came up with an awesome rebuttal.
The thing is, no one actually knew what was going to happen.
Later this week, Loo will be putting up the video documentation of the Singapore version of Cane online. In the meantime, here’s what I saw over at The Substation theatre tonight. And contrary to the performance’s detractors, it was not just about doing Brother Cane all over again. Continue reading ‘S’pore Fringe Fest 2012! Cane! `Nuff said!’
