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Explanation -

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Explanation -

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1. Plight of caregivers to mental patients
2. Ignorance of the Singapore society to mental health issues and patients
3. Hypocrisy of society towards the mentally-ill (patients and ex-patients)
4. The role of religion in one's life
5. Prejudice towards mental patients perpetuated by society (man and media)
6. Inadequacy of Science and Medicine when dealing with mental illness

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1. A2S1: NUS Arts Faculty
2. A2S2: Halfway House
3. A3S1: Army Barracks

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1. Breaking fourth wall
2.

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the events that occured were not presented in chronological order.  this was done deliberately to display the physical manifestation of the state of mind of mental patients. the confusion and lack of chronology highlights the ignorance of society towards mental health issues as the audience will find it difficult to comprehend and understand the lack of chronological order in the scenes. this evokes confusion and uncertainty as the progression of scenes are unpredictable.

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The lighting during the play never fully switch off, it only fades away leaving minimal light left on stage. This makes the audience confused as to when an Act/Scene ends. The transition of scenes is not clear. The purpose of a play is for the audience to follow and understand the life of the characters portrayed. However, with the subtle transitions made, it will be harder for the audience to follow as they do not know what is happening during the play. Especially if the audience is not used to watching plays, they will not understand the purpose of the subtle transitions.

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the flashbacks allows the audience to better understand the state of minds of people with mental illness as it reflects the state of mind of the mentally ill & their triggers. Since scenes of triggers are constantly presented in flashbacks & through the lack of chronology, it shows how much of an impact society has made towards these people with mental illnesses as it reflects how they constantly remember these events throughout their life. eg. NUS scene & arm barracks scene

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The transition from Act 1 Scene 4 to Act 2 Scene 1. At the end of A1S4 when the lights fade with music on, at the beginning, the lights come on and people were walking around randomly which confuses the audience.
During the conversation in A2S1 between Charlie and Vinod, Charlie brought up 3 words "Hardy, Keats, Yeats" which audience may not understand because its published too long ago.
In A3S3, Mak, Vinod, Mok, Robber, Fong, Azman, Saloma all appeared together in the same scene. This confuses the audience as Mok who was at the army camp appeared at the Void deck suddenly to trap Vinod in his thoughts. Trivalise issue of losing helmet (Protection), and still not being able to find it. This is an issue which society often dismisses and they treat physical conditions more seriously than mental conditions.
In A3S2, Azman brings Saloma to his house. The scene ends without a proper conclusion. This is a cliff hanger. It evokes foreshadowing and it makes the audience frustrated since no answer is given even though the scene was built up. The next scene after Azman was the army scene . The sudden transition makes it confusing for the audience because there is no link in between the scenes.

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Breaking of the fourth wall allows the audience,which are society, to realise that even when mental patients try to integrate back into society, they can't. It seems to be that during the play, the audience is never allowed to just watch the play, but instead are constantly reminded of the role that they play in society towards mental patients. In A5S1, after Vinod breaks the fourth wall by calling out someone in the audience, asking if they were Mr Chow, Mr Chow then comes on to the stage. In this scene, the example of how society treats mental patients are then presented in the form of Mr Chow,who is a "normal" person that takes advantage of mental patients by using them to seem like a caring person, and attain a Community Service Award.

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audience without a drama or lit may not understand stage directions and the themes that are conveyed through them. For example in a5s1 where vinod was having a monologue about the role of religion in one's life and when ah seng was an aside talking about the state of the work environment of the mental patients working for mr chow when mr chow and vinod was arguing.

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Act 4 scene 1 portrayed Emily through the use of magic realism in Vinod's dreams. Emily foreshadows Vinod's eventual 🤬, both attempted to help Saloma but failed, which was quite surprising as Vinod was still Saloma's pillar of support then. Also, audience may not know that Vinod's thoughts and insecurites are conveyed through projection of Emily instead of Emily talking to him. Subsequently, they will not understand that Vinod's insecurites were exposed in this scene for the first time through 'Emily' repeatedly assuring him that he was helping Saloma.

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During the robbery scene, many characters entered the stage. Audiences may not understand that it is a flashback and may be confused about what is happening in the present. There is no indication that they are having a flashback. If they dont understand that the characters are having a flashback the theme that Sharma is trying to convey that the past will affect the present will not be effective. And audiences will not understand how the characters are still largely affected by the past events and how they contributed to Vinods deteriorating mental state. Sharma’s themes are not clearly conveyed

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Flashback to Act 3 scene 1, The flashback towards all the causes of their mental illness would not make sense to casual readers as they would not know the significance of it or that it is even a flashback.this is because they do not know the narrative device used by the playwriter.This would lead to the chronological order being confusing for most people as they do not know the significance of the scene

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zThere are characters such as Emily Gan who is just the manifestation of Vinod's thoughts and more than half the time shes on-stage, she isnt ACTUALLY present in that moment. She's just a thought that occurs in Vinod's mind and not physically there, but mentally there. However as it is a play, Emily obviously NEEDS to be on-stage to br able to say her lines &all those, it may confuse the audience. Also, the play has many flashback, such as Act 2 scene 1 (NUS Arts faculty), Act 3 Scene 1 (Army) & Act 3 Scene 2 (Azman incident) which as confuse the audience as there is no certain indication that says "hey!!!this is gonna flashback scene!!!!!!!!", the audience may get confused as to whether the scene thats playing now is a flashback or a progress scene. IF the audience catches on that its a flashback scene, the next scene MAY NOT be a flashback scene. The audience will not have a certain and any confirmation while watching the play and while the play progresses on on whether what kind of scene it is. There's a constant confusion on whether the characters like Ah Seng and Emily Gan is actually THERE or just a representation of the character's thoughts. The reappearance of characters for different reasons throughout the play further confuses the audience. For example when Emily Gan first appeared at Act 2 Scene 2 at the halfway house with Saloma & Nirmala, it is a very clear-cut that it is a flashback as (i go home and continue XDxD)

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A3S3- robber scene - allows audience to understand the idea of how the past will always affect the present, and allow them to reflect on how they have affected another person’s life. this scene also allows audience to see how both saloma & vinod’s past triggers of their mental illness still affect them now, allowing audience to understand that society is the main cause/trigger of mental illness

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There are transitions in which a character’s past is shown, and as it continues on, it goes to show another scene, in which the audience might be confused on whether it is the future of the present, or the future of the past, which further confuses the audience when scenes are meshed up together to make the story. There are also certain months where scenes are extremely focused on, such as December when the story is about to end, while the story skips certain months entirely without mention of any of the characters’ progress throughout the story, which can confuse the audience when they are unsure if they are moving back in time or moving forward, a problem which is exacerbated when flashbacks are put into the plot. The unreliability of the characters’ narrative can also add to this problem as the audience are clearly aware that the characters are not in a mentally sane mindset, mainly through Saloma and Vinod’s flashbacks in which both of the characters break down, blurring the line between reality and their own hallucinations. This is especially evident during Act Three, Scene III when the story shows a flashback of Vinod’s past in which he breaks down in front of the army, which immediately moves to a scene in which Saloma appears, where her presence comforts Vinod, silencing him while both of them move to their rooms. This can be rather confusing for the audience with the appearance of Saloma, something completely unexpected for the audience, at a point of time where Vinod has not met Saloma yet. After that, their actions are seen to be simultaneous while they move around their rooms, which the audience doubts the significance of such actions, and whether the two are in the same timeline or each in the present or past. The unreliability of Vinod’s narrative is also highlighted when the scenes show that he himself, is also confused of the timeline in which he questions “was last night the night he got best speaker? Was it the night he first met Saloma?” The audience then doubts the true chronology of events that have happened, and if certain events are really a figment of Vinod’s imagination or the reality. After Emily’s intervention in Vinod’s dreams, the timeline is again blurred despite the play describing how many weeks have went passed. The audience would be unsettled on how many weeks have passed, as only small description of what Vinod is doing updates the audience, while in contrast, not much is said about Saloma with a mere “One morning” without any mention of where and when throughout the whole year. The audience then are confused if the two characters’ timelines overlap or if they follow after each other. After then, lights fade, giving no clue what follows right after. There are also different narrations from the characters’ point of view, in which these narrations might act differently from the characters’ behaviors, making the story even more confusing for the audience when they are unclear on who is speaking and who is not, when the narrator and both the character speaks at the same time.

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Breaking of the fourth wall makes it difficult for the readers to comprehend vinod's grave situation. If they dont understand the breaking of fourth wall, they will not understanding if Vinod is adressing the audiences or if he is just talking to himself. Hence the breaking of fourth wall may not be effective as they might not feel the impact and do not reflect on the themes.

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The idea of religion is very clearly presented. The opposing views of Vinod and Saloma is clear. Vinod does not believe in religion however Saloma is very religious. Sharma also shows how religion did not help Vinod as he finds loopholes and does not understand it and questions it. Whereas Saloma is very simple minded and believes god will help her. Hence the idea of religion is very clearly presented through the conflicting views of Saloma and Vinod

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Ambiguity of stage direction throughout the play. In this play, the past and present is being displayed at the same time in various occasions. For example, in Act 5 Scene 1 where Mr Chow, Vinod and Ah Seng are having 2 seperate conversations at the same time. In this scene, Ah Seng's voice is (...) in Vinod's head telling him to talk to Mr Chow about the injustice that the ex-mental patients at work face. While Vinod is talking to Mr Chow about this issue, Ah Seng is also on stage speaking to Vinod reminding him what to say. specifically about the issues they face. Ah Seng is a manifestation of Vinod's thoughts however he is present when that conversation was taking place. The audience would get confused as both past and present is taking place at the same time, making it difficult for the audience to differentiate...

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Sharma reflects the past and the present all at the same time on stage. For example in act 3 scene 3, i the robery scene there is a series of flashback of dialogues of Azman, Mok and Fong which contributes to vinod’s breakdown during the robery. Azman, Fong and Mom were not physically there on stage but their voices were heard during the robbery. What confuses the audience even more is that what the robber said is parallel to what PC said of vinod having ‘ no balls’. This reflects the state of mind of vinod as bits and pieces of flashback and voices are reflected at the same time on stage making the whole scene really chaotic and hard to follow. On top of that, this truly confuses audiences as they could not justify whether which is the present and which is just a mere voice in vinod and saloma’s head. Furthermore, all these voices adds up to the chaos during a robbery

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in act 5 scene 1 vinod was triggered in an argument with saloma and remembered his plight with mr chow. both mr chow and ah seng enters at different parts of the stage while in the scene of vinod and saloma at the void deck. sharma presents the past and present of vinod in latter time to evoke confusion from the audience making it hard for them to follow the order of the play. additionally, mr chow never addressed ah seng in the scene, evoking confusion as ah seng is physical manifestation of vinods thoughts. this highlights the theme of indignance and mistreatment of mental patients.

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The structure of the play is difficult to understand because Sharma may be trying to present how mental illness is complex and difficult to comprehend.

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Songs make the plot confusing (different scenes,characters and ideas but same music)?

ending of [Act 1 scene 3]- Class95FM Song starts and becomes louder as Saloma & vinod smile and part ways. Vinod is lip-synching and saloma is dancing

starting of [act 1 scene 4] Mak comes in and switches off the radio when she's not even in the previous scene and music ends SUDDENLY

Ending of [act 1 scene 4] continuation of song with vinod's sudden appearance(still lip-synching) but this time with Saloma&Mak in prayer garb.  Why does the music continue when Mak already switched it off? & why does Vinod suddenly appear at the end of this scene together with the music?