Pantang. Photo courtesy of Theatre Lab Productions. It’s probably just a coincidence that the train I was taking on my way home broke down and I absentmindedly hopped on the bus with the most longwinded route. After watching more than an hour and a half’s worth of a show featuring people talking about ghosts, ghosts and more ghosts. A show that’s titled Pantang. Yes, probably coincidence. Or is it? Tan dan dan! The Spirits Play is actually on right now, but tonight I thought of catching another play about ghosts—and it turned out to be a rather nice night out, too. This Theatre Lab Productions/N3 Solutions production is quite straightforward, rolling out accounts of supernatural encounters. You’ve got ghost stories set in toilets, HDBs, hospitals and, of course, theatre venues, as recounted by ordinary folks, well-off couples, NSmen, old peeps, school kids. Don’t be deceived by the publicity photos, however. While I expected terror and horror, it’s actually tinged with humour and shock tactics are used very sparingly. Pantang isn’t exactly a spook fest as it is an earnest, humble tribute to the tradition of ghost storytelling. Admittedly it’s a mixed bag. You’ve got stories already heard countless times but there are also those that are quite new and fresh. Co-directors Gavin Low and Luke Kwek (who’s also the writer) keep things from getting redundant by diversifying things: shifting between enactments, breaking the fourth wall, video testimonials. Bamboo curtains on either side serve as both wall and screen and are used rather effectively, ditto the on-the-serviceable-side lighting employed. Because Pantang doesn’t really have any pretensions of punching above its weight, the cast of Sindhura Kalidas, Wilson Xin, Al-Matin Yatim, Chery Yang and Sophie Khoo do just enough hold things together, with Khoo (who also co-produces with Chan Jun Kai) and Kalidas giving the best performances of the lot. The thing about staging a play about ghosts and the supernatural (and not just a play with ghost characters) is that it’s very hard to pull off. Sure, you can do something fun like the underrated H Is For Hantu, but what else can you do with it that hasn’t been done in the realm of cinema? Pantang is most effective in giving you the creeps when it recognises that the best way to tell a story about an encounter is to literally tell it—when it’s allowed to breathe and build up, as in that segment about a couple’s encounter with a malevolent “black spot” on the wall of their flat. But at the same time, there’s also another aspect of this culture that I was reminded of. That ghost storytelling is also a communal ritual. And in this aspect, the unexpected moment, the big reveal, isn’t nearly as important the feeling of being a part of it. When you will yourself to enter that zone of possible fright and when you enact this fright along with the rest of your fellow listeners. This folk aspect is something that it slowly disappearing, I think. Perhaps one still gets that going to the cinema, but it’s a different kind of feeling and one mediated by a flat screen and the absence of live-ness. Which is why I find Pantang somewhat refreshing. It’s definitely not perfect, but in its almost naive and eager desire to share what it holds dear, it can be quite the charmer. Although I have to add, perhaps it should’ve been staged during the more relevant Hungry Ghost Month rather than the pegging it to the rather, ahem, dead and blah Halloween. Tan dan dan! (Pantang runs until Sunday at Goodman Arts Centre. Tickets here.)