黄城

Disclaimer:
This post acknowledges the effort, time and hardship put in by the entire crew and aims to input one's own observations and takeaways from the plays.
(Hence if anyone is offended by it then don't read it anymore, listen to some nice songs and play games.)
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It seems that during this period of time I started to prefer simplicity, and thus throughout the play I sort of summarised each play into simple sentences, inserted with much sarcasm.
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Play 1
bitch fight. pseudo-touching scene. mother's day hence mothers are important.
Seriously, the main plot of the play involves the mom shouting at everyone for being bad in various senses, and then starts a verbal war with her daughter because her daughter is always not studying, while the daugher shouts back because the mom is always not at home. And this all started because their maid was away and so she could not make 寿面 for the grandmother's birthday. And this war stopped halfway because the grandmother went missing (I was deducing she went to buy 寿面 LOL), and they realised she went to visit the already deceased grandfather. And it ends with a happy note where everyone decides they shall just go and eat outside.
The moral of the play is quite clear-cut: family, mother. But it was super boring, because it was so cliched and dull, but probably that's cus it is everyday life. Because I can actually imagine such a scene happening in real life, quarreling over a away-for-trip maid. Though it does leak a bit of dark humour in the sense that the stereotypical 'rich' Singaporean families are basically nonfunctional without their maids. Whether it is true or not depends, though the stereotype is there.

Play 2
family is important, again. dubious bromance (now kiss). retarded male ego. fanyi style romance, or not. ???
The concept is good. Good in the sense that it is not everyday life, but still the idea has been around for quite a while so .. 3 different people were informed by a seemingly higher order being that they only have 1 day left in life, and so obviously they chose to treasure their last day and do what they could not but should have things on that last day. It is a pity though, that the 3 people's scenarios were just so overused. Family, love, friendship. One who rarely goes home to visit her mother due to work, one who has a long-term one-sided staring only relationship with a patron at his shop, one who broke a friendship with another due to his ego.
Once again, emphasis is being put on these themes, when every single play is probably going to put emphasis on this theme as well. So as you can see, if you want to persuade people to treasure their family, it is ok. But because it is such an overused topic, you have to be creative. And this is not very creative, because the 'limited lifespan' concept has been around for quite long. Though the play does end with a twist, where the three people finally decide to do what is right (or in another sense, logical) but we did not see the outcome, and whether they really died in the end. After which the play was left on a cliffhanger, where the 3 people were frozen in motion with random passers-by walking around them (someone enlighten me on this), and suddenly another person among the audience was notified that she only had 1 day left. So I agree the ending is creative, because the play was left hanging, and by selecting a 'member' of the audience it is possibly trying to bring across the point that we 'might' only have one day left, just that we do not know, and hence should always live our days like they are the last. Small details during the entire play were nice too.

Play 3
flirting. perfectionist. car lover. nani. deus ex machina.
Shows a class and members of the class, how some of them have certain problems in life and how they managed to overcome it. One suddenly became broke and so has to learn how to be 精打细算, one is a perfectionist and finds everyone else sucky to work with and one is a spoilt son of a rich family who finds no point in anything and would rather just write a cheque for them. Then in between there's the usual boy-girl drama, which as it does not contribute to the plot whatsoever, shall be labelled as 'fanservice'. The class decided to set up a car-washing service accompanied with a mass dance for a donation drive, and then the nani part comes along when the GOH of the event wanted his car washed, and they screwed up because apparently the chemical used to clean wheels would remove the paint on the car body (shall check the accuracy of that later) and somebody mistook one for the other. dude I'm quite sure they would even smell different how to mix up. And then when the GOH is super pissed about it the deus ex machina came! But instead of 'a miracle appeared' it is 'a wife appeared', because the wife somehow managed to drive some sense into the GOH that teenagers tend to do stupid things because they are rash and so they should be forgiven. And here an entire 'recall the past' scene was put in, which reminds me of how fans of Naruto were groaning about 80% of the series were flashbacks and fillers. And so the GOH forgave them and gave them a cheque which judging from the surprised/shocked look on everyone it's probably a few million. And everyone lives happily ever after and dances and shouts that they succeeded. Double speaking, both succeeded in the donation drive and the entire 黄城 play itself. The end. I actually found no moral in this story. I feel as though they tried to tell the audience something, but each small part was done hurriedly and thus nothing was put through, except perhaps 'treasure your youth (because it is the time when you can make stupid mistakes and be forgiven)'.
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Overall impression: mildly disappointing. Themes discussed: Family, love, friendship, teamwork, youth, treasuring time.
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On a side note, for a more optimistic review refer to Jingyi's blog.