"Can happiness pay the bills?"
Wife Sheila asks her husband, Oliver, pointedly as he deliberates whether to take on a publishing job. Ruminations go into overdrive when Oliver chances upon his Secondary School crush, Joycelyn, at the airport and goes on a trip down memory lane on a whim.
Whether to pursue one's heartfelt desires is a conundrum not easily answered. And that is what The Taste of Water brought to the forefront by drawing the parallel between the Secondary-School-Crush-Who-Got-Away aptly named, Joy- celyn and Oscar's increasingly elusive passion in art. It is the crossroads many (artists) face in pragmatic Singapore. By having their dialogues juggled between past- and present- Oscar and Joycelyn, one notices the unrestrained enthusiasm of their Past Selves and also, the apprehensiveness of the Present Selves. Just how much of our youthful ideals will we hold onto as we sail through the tides of time?
The Taste of Water was also an audible treat. The soundtrack reserved for the forbidden pair, Joycelyn and Oscar, contemplative. The track to the farewell dance seven years ago, sufficiently sinful. And the introspective monologues, presented in spoken word, lyrical.
Bound Theatre successfully yielded the magic of theatre to transport audiences to its world when in place of an extravagant set for the pair's secret childhood hangout in a tunnel that led to a condo playground, they used a single torch each on a pitch black stage with boxes.
For as much as The Taste of Water was an escape into the wilderness of "what-if"s, it was a (gasp-inducing) slap to the audiences' face. What will we do when it is our turn at the crossroads?