Lovers, Mad Doctors and Imaginary Friends

John finds difficulty in coping with his figments of imagination. Alexandra teases him as he spends kissy time with his girlfriend. He can’t concentrate during job interviews. But that’s not all, Alexandra brought friends. There’s this catgirl who represents his inner furry sexuality (probably from his repressed sexuality, due to how prim and proper his girlfriend is), a leprechaun-like character named Edward Halifax, and General Pao, which I think is symbolic of his mixed-heritage insecurities living in a Chinese-dominated island. Unfortunately, General Pao steals the show with his half-chop English and cultural references, and I felt more sympathy for him than the rest of the imaginary friends gang.

So the boy realises he’s going crazy and sees a “neurological specialist”. Cue the evil genius laughter. He literally does the mad doctor “muahahahaaa”. He even has an Igor, a bald bow-legged half-wit who repeats every thing the doctor says. To be fair, the doctor’s probably not mad. It’s only how John depicts the doctor in his mind. John finally decides goes for the brain-zapping therapy because he thinks that his girlfriend can’t love a crazy person. There’s this really cool scene where the the characters get beaten up by dance-fighting mental antibodies in front of a giant machine, and General Pao goes down fighting swinging a giant white flag. That’s badass.

The In-The-Making Video, produced by EusoffWorks (click to be redirected)

But then he realises that his girlfriend is just mad at him for not telling him. It is at this point I decided that I can’t stand these two stupid characters who just don’t get being in a relationship. Telling a girl that you’ve got a mental disease is a surefire way to stay single. Not to mention that their relationship is premised on “let’s hold hands and go to the movies!”. It’s just dramaturgical shorthand to show that these two are in a relationship, and the script would really have gone far if the relationship was actually something worth caring about.

The play resolves itself because the Leprechaun can grant wishes. Somewhere along the line, the first wish brings General Pao to life, the second was to bring his parents back but that was a botched job and the third was to shut Alexandra up (what a relief!). So since he really had one wish left, he just wished that they were back and so there were. Crisis over. In real life, this would have left him in massive debt over treatment payments.

And we must have closure! Nevermind that we would be okay if it stopped right there. Every Disney villain who’s ever existed got to have his just desserts, so let’s get his bumbling assistant to ruin his machine and give him the imaginary friends he hates so much. The end.

Sound familiar yet? It’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets A Beautiful Mind. What if John Nash had a machine that could erase all his imaginary friends? Would he regret it? Except that it neither has the introspection of Eternal Sunshine nor the creepiness of Nash’s imaginary personas. What we’re left with is some Eusoffian fist-pumping pride to relate him to the everyday crowd who comes to see. But really, the plot does a good job, because it did create good excuses for the dancers to come out to distract us from thinking about the plot. That’s why it’s called Dance Production.

There’s something to be said about the dances. Frankly, the opening dance was off, I don’t think they got the elegant ballroom dancing bit and they should really stick to the contemporary hip-hop stuff that they’re used to. The alumni dance, a first for Eusoff Dance Production, was frankly the best, seemed to be the most inspired, kept to the feel of the music and therefore definitely worth watching as a dance sequence. It’s the only part I would actually save to my harddisk to show to my friends.

Feeling like this article’s a bit long? Exactly. The play was somewhat draggy at the end. We knew what was going to happen, so it’s pointless to prance more about it. I haven’t mentioned the office secretary sketches which were in all respects unimportant because the humour fell flat. John was underdeveloped as a main character, and his girlfriend didn’t have any more depth beyond having a name (which is Claire). And what’s up with Alexandra? I’m getting a Tyler Durden vibe from her, but she’s not showing it.

At least this year’s dance production escaped the dreaded cliche trap. Sure, there’s the mad doctor, the romance right out of Hallmark gift cards, the actors-enter-from-the-audience trick (it’s not special anymore), and the fact that the bad dude got killed off (figuratively). But at least the furry catgirl gave a good performance and General Pao was badass. In my opinion, that’s an improvement, and that’s put it good in my book.

Conclusion: General Pao is badass. We need more General Pao.

Links: The Official Eusoff Hall Production Website, The Funkygrad Preview.