Back

Tonight, our director finally returns to us from smoggy London and we resume rehearsals proper.

Jon says he's all refreshed and ready to play. I'm not sure the cast is feeling quite the same sense of rejuvenation as I happen to know that many of us are more bogged down than usual with work and personal concerns.

Nonetheless, there is a palpable sense of impatience and eagerness to dive back into the Mad Forest, given the time we've had to process not only the accent but also the facts surrounding the historical events the play touches on, not to mention their impact on the daily lives of the Romanian people.

Of tremendous help in getting us acquainted with the history and language of Romania was Candice's Romanian friend, Albert Simsensohn, who was eight years old when Ceausescu was overthrown. Albert spent two evenings with us, during which he gave detailed notes on the Romanian alphabet, accent and pronunciation. Furthermore, he regaled us with an eclectic range of personal anecdotes and stories that vividly fleshed out the reality behind the facts and figures we had all been reading up on.

No amount of research could have painted for us, the way Albert did, such a clear picture of the day-to-day struggle to obtain basic necessities like bread, eggs and other things that Singaporeans take completely for granted. For instance, the majority of us, who rely at least partially on caffeine fixes at some point during our day, can barely imagine living in a pre-revolution Romania, where coffee and chocolate was so hard to come by that they were actually used as bribes. Meat was available pretty much only on the black market, and bread had to be queued for; parents would despatch their children to join the line early in the morning.

Albert also gave us a glimpse into how his own family coped with the communist regime, describing how his father hooked up Christmas lights to a car battery to provide illumination during the almost daily blackouts, and how he sat Albert down at age 6 to try and explain to him why he should never ever tell anyone that he had accidentally come upon his parents tuning into Radio Free Europe and had heard the commentator call Nicolae Ceausescu a fool. (It was then that I truly understood the dynamics of the confrontation between my character, Flavia, and her son, Radu, about the importance of toeing the party line, at least in public.)

Yet living under communist rule was not all bad. Boys and girls had access to free education, and women were regularly employed in occupations that are more conventionaly male-dominated in many other countries. Unemployment simply did not exist as all citizens were assigned jobs upon completing their education.

The more we find out, the more it becomes apparent how much there is to know and understand. It is a confusing, painstaking business...but one to be joyfully embraced as part of the process of immersing ourselves in the world of Mad Forest.

Six weeks to go before we open, and I'm sure many more discoveries lie in store, both about the socio-political context of our play and about about the characters we portray. I'm excited; I know that much!