Review: And the Cats Dance by the Light (or “After Life”)
Content warning: mentions of s*icide and references to statistics about s*icide
“Have you ever heard of the phrase powerless over nouns?”
This landmark review marked the first time I have ever begun writing a review — only to erase the entire thing and begin anew.
I had originally wanted to write about — and comment upon — And the Cats Dance by the Light from the perspective of Harry and Mary’s Cat and what he would have thought of the show.
I have since realised however, that it was, in more ways than one, a futile endeavour — least of which because I found myself unable to even conceive of what the Cat might have been thinking of in the last few moments of his life prior to being unfortunately assailed by the approach of a untimely car.
But in thinking about what the Cat might have been thinking of in the last moments of his life, and about how he might have felt about And the Cats Dance by the Light if he had been reincarnated as a human audience member, it made me realise that, contrary to director Tan Beng Tian’s words that “[this show] is about acceptance”, I realised that no. For me, this show was less about accepting acceptance, but rather, having acceptance seemingly foistered upon us by society. Even the ways in which we talk about acceptance as a concept, about needing to “accept change”, to “go with the flow”, or even to “let go” — acceptance has always been prized, championed, and insisted upon as the “right” way to go.
I am not arguing against this. What I am arguing for, however, is the right for those struggling with accepting what cannot be, to be allowed time.
Time instead to come to terms with what is, to have time — time for them to sit with the feeling of unacceptance, to struggle, cry, grieve and lament that reality cannot never be what we want it to be.
And that, I think, encapsulates the story of this little household, from Harry’s struggle with cancer, his debilitation, his inability to take care of his one true love, and his inability to no longer not-trouble his children.
The quote in the opening paragraph comes from a play that I watched in recent years that has continued to stay with me a long time after I watched it: People, Places, and Things by Duncan Macmillan. It starts off an entire phrase of text that to this day, is a reminder for me about — not accepting first — but letting go.
Warmth
And the Cats Dance by the Light opened with a nice mini dance number by its talented and seemingly unassuming cast. Set against the musical number “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” from the musical Cats, it made me wonder if the only reason for the show opening with this song was because, well, there was a cat in it. (Spoiler alert: I found out later that it wasn’t.) This is also one among only a few times we see the actors’ bodies being semiotically actors — for the rest of the time, they mostly lay out the story of Harry, Mary, and the Cat through puppetry. At times, they step out of the body of the puppets to portray ancillary characters in the story — a nurse, a doctor, a medium who demands 188 dollars from Harry on the pretext of providing him some remedy or solution to his physical ailments — but they mostly inhabit the body of the puppets.
The musical number then transitions into a home of a typical elderly couple in Singapore — one wheelchair-bound and ailing, one attempting to do his best to hobble along in their daily lifestyle and hold true to the typical wedding vows of “in sickness and in death”. The entire mise-en-scène paints a heartwarming picture of an elderly couple in retirement — complete with old person-esque living room wood-frame chairs, coffee table, dining table, and even framed family pictures in the form of projections.
The projections, so carefully curated and designed by Captions Designer Joanna Ong, continue to highlight and bring to the fore the hospitality and warmth that undoubtedly emanates from this household that the elderly couple and their cat have coexisted in for so long — yet, as their story unfolds, darker developments are gradually unveiled. Harry’s debilitating condition and gradual decline in ability to look after Mary is foreshadowed even in the opening scenes of household life, where he often clutches his stomach in pain and requires multiple trips to the washroom to relieve himself.
Even as deteriorating health conditions continue to necessitate overwhelming change in the life of Harry, Mary, and the Cat, reminders of the warm and hospitable persona often associated with kindly, older folks come through in many ways: the soft, acoustic instrumental transition music in-between scenes, the precision of the actors’ manipulating the puppets representing Harry which convey his tender touches towards Mary, and the characterisation of the Cat as a playful yet incredibly endearing character all serve to enhance the image — and perhaps ephemeral illusion — of a warm household that is ostensibly unchanging.
Cold
But the warmth that emanates from the Harry-Mary-Cat household is quickly overtaken by the inexorable march of change — so tangibly and viscerally portrayed by the rapid quickening of pace of the show — especially in the scene where Harry takes Mary to the hospital for a check-up.
The swiftly moving actors rushing around who entrap Harry and Mary within the eye of a human tornado of rushing crowds visibly conveys the typical image that comes to mind when the phenomenon of the older generation being overwhelmed by the changes to society, culture, and technology is mentioned — that of elderly folk being rushed around and overwhelmed by the masses of instructions, administrative details and requirements, such as where and when to collect their medication and convoluted directions of where to go, that their minds can no longer keep up with.
Even the simple journey of leaving the hospital is met with an obstacle — in the form of a probably-well-intentioned offer of a free medical checkup by a helpful hospital staff who eventually — purposefully or not — pressures Harry into a medical checkup that was plausibly beneficial but in the moment, served only as another stressor to his already overburdened mind.
As Harry’s health condition worsens, his reluctance, and response, to the overbearing and insurmountable onslaught of change that assaults him becomes more and more palpable to the audience. From his unwillingness to let his son and grandaughter take care of him, to his insistance that he can still take care of Mary despite his worsening gastrointestinal system, it is clear that he is the storm contained within the proverbial glass bottle — eventually, he will break.
Once again, the skill of the 2024 ITI graduating cohort ensemble in portraying Harry (and Mary) via puppetry is so intricately and beautifully displayed — every little twitch and jerk of Harry’s face and appendages are so intricately linked to each actor that plays him, it sometimes becomes hard to tell where the actor ends and the puppet begins. This precision in communicating Harry’s dismay, anxiety, and general state of disray comes through so authentically, as audience, our hearts truly break for the elderly man who is simply trying to take care of his wife — yet to do so, he is forced to navigate a world of medicine, technology, directions, and people that seem almost as foreign to him as another planet.
Each actor truly embodies the puppet they hold — such that no longer are the puppets what they are, but instead full extentions of the actor themselves; the body of the actor disappears, and all that remains in the scenes we witness are the characters themselves.
Crucially, each actor also takes turns playing every single character, be it Harry, Mary, the Cat, the couple’s son and granddaughter — thus highlighting both their individual skill at portraying every single character while also underscoring the highly ingrained synergy and chemistry within the cast as well.
Each actor’s unique yet simultaneously heartwarming and heartwrenching portrayal of each character’s struggles, commitments, challenges, and pains come true so well that it is hard not to think of similar people or situations we have encountered in Singapore’s sometimes debilitating system, often designed to help but yet instead hinder in cases such as Harry and Mary’s.
Perhaps the peak of the show’s poignance comes in a slightly absurd scene where we see Harry seemingly transformed into a cat. Whether perhaps a portrayal of Harry’s late-stage intestinal cancer causing him to hallucinate, or perhaps an artistic and directorial manifestation of Beng Tian’s desire to “cushion the heaviness, and bring some light moments into the story” — Harry’s (imagined or not) conversation with the Cat eventually culminates in him downing a detergent-liquid sized bottle of very clearly-marked rat poison — the glass bottle that is Harry finally breaks.
Harry’s deeply sobering attempt at self-extermination highlights the sad prevalence of a pattern that no doubt many are aware of yet perhaps seldom stop to think about in our daily life in sunny Singapore: many elderly, after having reached the stage of life where independence becomes highly impossible and not wishing to burden their progeny or even close friends with the responsibility of caretaking, often think: it would be better for everyone if I was gone.
Yet, as with every other misfortune in life, we as individuals perhaps often think: that can’t be my grandparent/elderly figure in my family. They always seem happy.
According to Samaritans of Singapore, the suicide rate of elderly between the ages of 70–79 increased by 60% in 2022 alone. Without even going into further examination and interrogation of what that figure means and its breakdown into the demographics of the elderly reported, this simple number paints a macabre and sorrowful picture of how the infirm elderly person living out their last days in Singapore may sometimes see themselves.
And, as portrayed in And the Cats Dance by the Light, medical professionals often write off these patterns of thought in elderly as depression, prescribing them for therapy. But as so aptly put by Harry in the play:
“I am so old that I’m about to die. And you want to resolve my childhood issues?”
Entropy
Eventually, the onslaught of change that assails Harry begins to slow. Yet life — and its resounding, poignant losses — continue to dragoon Harry into accepting the changes — the losses — around him. The loss of his house, the loss of Mary, the impending loss of his grand-daughter as she begins the process of moving abroad — even as audience members watching Harry’s life play out, the pace at which life moves feels exhausting. And yet, even more change still is foistered upon him — because he can no longer take care of himself, Gary insists for his father to move in with him. After the move, Harry’s son comes back one day and, with trepidation, tells his father that the Cat was run over by a car.
Harry breaks down audibly, the last member of his once three-member family now lost to the afterlife.
Eventually, however, it seems as though Harry does manage to reach some form of reconciliation within himself — some form of peace, as it were. Close to the end of the play, Harry’s son and grand-daughter discover that their aged father and grandfather respectively has climbed up onto a tree to see the sunset, deaf to the alarmed exclamations that he could be in danger of falling. It seems that Harry realises that loss or no loss, to accept or not to accept — life still moves on.
Harry’s version of coming to terms with life — though heartwarming and bittersweet — makes one wonder if truly, the societally-recognised and -accepted goal of life must indeed always end in the acceptance of what we cannot change and the idea of letting go.
What happens to the elderly, even those whose lifespans are cut short by the misfortunes of life, should they be unable to let go?
Is remaining bitter, remaining uncomfortable, and remaining unable to accept loss truly such an undesirable state of existence?
Being uncomfortable and unable to accept change has always been viewed as a transition stage — even in the popular model of the 5 stages of grief, denial (or a refusal to accept the state of reality as it is) is always listed as the first stage, while acceptance is listed as the last — the ostensible “target” or “goal” that everyone going through grief should seemingly aspire to.
But And the Cats Dance by the Light made me wonder: what about those of us who do not find peace, acceptance, and perhaps are even unwilling to do so.
What — then?
This review was written with contributions from Esther Tan Zhi Xuan.
And the Cats Dance by the Light was the first graduation production of ITI’s Class of 2024. Adapted from The Wind Came Home (2014), written and staged as part of ‘Both Sides, Now’ by Kok Heng Leun and Tan Wei Ting, it was originally co-presented by Drama Box and ArtsWok Collaborative.
Harry and Mary live alone with their cat. Their son and granddaughter visit occasionally, coming and going, their lives shifting further from the family home. As Mary’s primary caregiver, Harry has shouldered his responsibilities with cheerfulness and optimism, but when his health reaches a critical point — he finds himself struggling.
Can he still choose his life with Mary?
Can he accept the reality of change? And will the cat ever help?
Life continues to bring the unexpected, and the family must make their way.
Through devised movement and puppetry, with humour and gentle observation, And the Cats Dance by the Light invites audiences to reflect on the intricate tapestry of human connection. From the original script, The Wind Came Home (2014), this reimagined play is directed by Tan Beng Tian and performed by the ITI graduating class of 2024.
For more information, please refer to the programme booklet here.
