Family Valued
Claire Tham's language is all at once confrontational and lyrical.
Between high-end corporate crime, gender stereotypes, familial bonds, and an accidental pregnancy, The Gunpowder Trail is a compact but ambitiously-layered piece of theatre. Lina (Oniatta Effendi) is a single Malay mother, an exceptional high-flyer in the international banking industry, and has now made away with 50 million dollars. Not even her daughter Alia (Natasha Thangamany), who had been raised by Lina's parents until the age of twelve before they died in a car accident, can shed any light on Lina's whereabouts or motives.
The mother-daughter relationship naturally takes centre-stage in this story. In her adaptation, Zizi has rightly framed what Lina and Alia share within a larger familial cycle, reminding us that Lina was once a daughter herself. And that despite the emphatic "I am not you!"s the teenage Alia hurls at her own mother, the question of how different she will grow up to be remains open. Beyond this, we also get a glimpse of larger issues that creep in: Lina's struggle to define herself as a successful woman in a male-dominated industry; Alia navigating what seems to be her mother's liberal attitude towards their race and religion (Lina stumbles home intoxicated one night after "entertaining clients"); and the question of what it means to be home, or to be family.
Between them, the actresses take on multiple roles. Oniatta Effendi's theatrical experience is highly evident in her natural ease and authoritative stage presence – it is a joy to watch her transform from the attractive, ambitious Lina to a pair of police interrogators, one Chinese and one Malay, whom she switches between effortlessly and with perfect comic timing. By comparison, the younger Natasha Thangamany's physicalisation of her mother's expat lover Peter lacks authenticity and conviction. While her portrayal of Alia has its moments, the demands these roles made of her as a relatively new actress only serve to highlight the disparity between herself and her co-performer.
Claire Tham's language is all at once confrontational and lyrical, and Zizi does a great job in preserving this aspect of the work in her adaptation. The relationship between Lina and Alia is characterized by distance – geographically, emotionally, culturally, even physically - they never touch on stage. The contrast is stark compared to Lina's connection with Peter: their relationship intersects on multiple levels, including work and sex. In the one particularly memorable and tender scene between mother and daughter, as Lina drives Alia to school for the last time, they are apart on stage even as Alia kisses her mother's hand in farewell. The gulf between them is physically manifested and especially palpable here, foreshadowing the immeasurable distance still to come. There is perhaps a sense of hope to be found in Lina's seemingly uncharacteristic parting words to Alia: "Don't forget to say your prayers." Whether or not we take it as a sign that there are parts of our upbringing that will stay with us no matter who we become, it is a moment that ultimately points to Lina's love for the daughter she is about to abandon, and perhaps a realization that not everything can always be in her control.
Because the stakes are so high in this story, so much hinges upon the two-person cast, and it is in this area that the production falls slightly short of what it could be. Nevertheless, at the core of it, The Gunpowder Trail is a play with heart, and that is a lot more than can be said for many pieces of theatre nowadays.