It’s not how we are in public that reveals who we really are – it’s the way we behave at home, when we face the realities of everyday living, that one’s real character is shown. That’s what Common Room does – showing us the lives of a pair of young adults who rent an apartment together. Being queer, their platonic living situation is one that’s partly driven by need, and partly driven by desire. Ironically, it’s not a common arrangement, because Singapore doesn’t have a strong renting culture (since we focus more on home ownership). This uncommon circumstance is what Common Room explores, as well as who they really are inside – both the common and uncommon parts of their personalities.
Synopsis
Common Room is a play about two queer young adults who are housemates. Their conversations while doing household chores and everyday tasks eventually reach deeper insights, even as their surroundings become a metaphor for the life that they lead – both by necessity and by choice.
Directors: Claire Wong, ants chua
Writer: ants chua
Cast:
- Genevieve Tan (You)
- Siti Sara Hamid (Third)
- Elle Cheng (Understudy)
The mundanity isn’t all that mundane
For much of the play, the characters are engaged in housework – cooking, folding clothes, cleaning the toilet. These are all the boring bits of taking care of a home, and I dare say that we go to the theatre to avoid the mundanity of such everyday life. Yet Common Room manages to portray these seemingly inconsequential acts with so much subtext. The way each character folds clothes, for example, is a direct reflection of their character. Food and the sharing of it is an expression of love, as it is in many Asian households. Our lives are made up of these everyday actions, but Common Room shows us the beauty and nuance of these chores that we sometimes overlook.
The juxtaposition of the common and the queer
In a clever twist, the characters talk about their queerness while engaging in common tasks. Of course, their queerness makes up a large part of the impetus for their lives to be they way they are. Yet it’s because they’re cleaning and arranging while doing all this, tasks that are common to everyone, it reminds audiences that we all face the same experiences as human beings. While being queer might entail a different lifestyle, there are fundamental similarities that apply to everyone’s life.
Evolution of the set
The set design rewards the eagle-eyed, doing double duty as it plays the role of illustrating the boundaries that the characters have (whether they consciously or subconsciously have those boundaries). Each movement from one demarcated area to the next coincides with shifts in thought and tone. And because they’re literally doing housework – cleaning up the natural mess that arises in every household – the (intentional) clutter on set slowly disappears as it makes room for them to bare their soul and truths to each other.
Scars of childhood
We are all products of our childhood, regardless of whether we intend for it to be the case or not. And this is evidenced in the way the characters reveal their backstory, with a common theme of the strained relationship they have with their parents, both overt and indirect. Common Room explores this from the lens of the LGBTQIA+ community, and how they carry the scars of their childhood experiences with them into their decisions. As we learn more about the characters, we realise how it informs the way they behave, and even the way they perform their household chores. The many unfolding layers help us shed light on who they are and bring their true natures into view, even as outwardly, the many layers of their lives are folded neatly away as clothes and tucked away, out of sight.
Siti Sara Hamid steals the show
Siti Sara Hamid plays Third, written as a boisterous, larger-than-life character whose words and actions give her such great presence on stage. Yet she’s also hurting from her past, from the derision of society, from the choices she feel was forced to make. It’s this vulnerability that tempers the flamboyance of the character, making her performance a purposefully captivating one to watch.
Balance of light-hearted and serious scenes
I really appreciate homophone humour, which the play strategically inserts before and after key turning points. It helps to treacle cut the inevitable sentimentality of some scenes, as well as when they deliver carefully crafted commentaries on their lives and state of being. Of course, there is also physical humour as well as character-based jokes, and the play manages to deftly balance its tone, preventing it from shifting too far in either direction.
Should you watch Common Room?
For a decidedly serious subject matter, Common Room manages to deliver its message with energetic laughs and respectful treatment. It’s not as heavy as you might expect, which makes for a show that is still respectful about the themes it explores – queerness, independence, and parent-child relationships. But at its core it reminds us of how we’re all the same, despite our external differences. It asks the question of what is it that is common about us as human beings, and the importance of this commonality to our co-existence.
Common Room programme booklet available here.
Off-Screen Productivity: Finding our commonality first in conflict resolution
How can this help you to be more productive in life?
There’s a multitude of perspectives in the play – not just of those of the two main cast, but also of the other important characters in their lives. Everyone has an opinion on things should be, and this is what leads to conflicts both big and small in the play itself. But underneath all that is a yearning for love, for acceptance, for togetherness, even from the clients who pay for intimacy. And that shows that humanity has many fundamental, common needs.
The next time you want to resolve a conflict (or even a difference of opinion), start from what is common between you and the other party (or parties). Start from a place of strengths, from a place of unity, from a place of commonality. It’ll be a more productive road to resolution if you begin conflict resolution from what both parties want and establishing a common ground, before moving on to addressing the areas of disagreement.
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