NIGHT, a play written by Richard Philip

What's it about: 

Night_Poster.jpg

Some strangers meet before their lives end. It has entered their knowledge that the night of their meeting will be their last night on earth. Each of them has exactly 37,800 heartbeats left. It is 8pm now, and it will be 8pm for the last time.

Excerpt:

VOICE: How many times does your heart beat in a lifetime? How many times has it beaten so far? How many beats does it have left? Let’s say you knew that your heart would only beat till dawn and then stop forever, how would that change your life? Would you waste your breath on a lie or would you waste it on a truth? Would you spend your last breaths on a flurry of kisses or would you plunge them in long, consuming kisses? Would you utter prayers or would you make love? Would you forgive? Would you revenge? Would you fly, float, fuck, do smack, coke, crack? Would you be alone or with company? Would you doubt, distort, drink, despair, go fishing? Ah, fishing sounds good. I think I’ll spend my last moments fishing. Hope I catch something before the night is out.

SVETLANA: Can you count to ten?

ASHRAM:  Of course I can count till ten. Let me show you. 1, 2, 3, …4, … 5 (stammers and stops)

SVETLANA:  (Laughs) You are truly stupid. Everybody can count till ten except you. That is why things are always taken away from you. Others get to them first     while your slow and languid brain figures out what to do.

VOICE:  Don’t be cruel darling. She is your sister. Love her. Accept her. Now go and hold her hands and embrace her. (Svetlana goes to Ashram. Ashram reaches out her hands. Svetlana holds them, gives Ashram a kiss. Ashram hugs her and they dance for a while. Then they playfully chase each other round the table. The chase becomes fierce. Ashram drags Svetlana to the floor and attempts to strangle her.)

VOICE:  She has embraced you. Why do you remain unmoved?

ASHRAM:  To create hunger as you wish and feed it as you please does not make the meat you feed acceptable.

VOICE:  Where does this bitterness that knows no bounds come from?

ASHRAM:  From you. You created it. You gave your love to her alone. I got the leftovers. Though your intentions were to love equally your affections were directed toward her. “Oh look how beautiful she is, how soft her hair, how tender her smile,” you would say and then you’d look at me and say the same things. But they were afterthoughts.

 

POVERTY, A performance art piece by Richard Philip & Law Soo Leng. 

What's it about:

Poverty uses words, music and movement to say that the exploitation of children should have no place in the world. It is motivated by the simple truth that the abuse of any child anywhere in the world is a deep scar upon our collective consciousness. It demands that the powers of empathy be summoned to end this scourge.

The quote below, found on the US Department of Justice website, was from a sex tourist who felt that he was actually doing poor children a favor by using them for sex. "On this trip, I've had sex with a 14 year-old girl in Mexico and a 15 year-old in Colombia. I'm helping them financially. If they don't have sex with me, they may not have enough food. If someone has a problem with me doing this, let UNICEF feed them." – sex tourist

The corrupt logic in that statement shows that where there is abject poverty, human dignity comes under threat. Why, in today’s well-stocked world where food is wasted on a daily basis, must children sell their bodies for a piece of bread?  Our world is broken;only in a broken world would people feel they have to sacrifice their highest principles to survive? Does one compromise everything to survive? Is everything up for sale if you’re poor? Is there no limit to what can be considered a commodity? Give a Damn. Come for Poverty.

Click the image to read the news coverage and press releases on Poverty and its prequel, Pray.

 

DUET, a performance art piece by Law Soo Leng and Richard Philip

What's it about:

This is one-helluva-party. It started with something Niels Bohr said to David Bohm in a chat about quantum mechanics. To paraphrase him: The truth of an idea becomes clear, not in the first or second, but the third time you express it. Linear thought is limited and it is only in the third approximation that you can get anywhere near truth. So we figured we'd dance, sing, and say beautiful stuff, you know, triangulate the coverage and see what comes of it. As it turned out, the audience got up to dance and while the truth of the matter is still a mystery, the fun was in the finding out. 

Click and read what others had to say about it.