SINGAPORE — If SIFA artistic director Ong Keng Sen had planned this year’s edition to be one hell of a roller coaster ride, he certainly succeeded. I thought the first week’s triple-whopper of Facing Goya, Mystery Magnet and Nikhil Chopra’s 50-hour performance was going to be the most “out there” moment before we’re eased back into relatively more familiar terrain, which seemingly peaked with the exquisite weirdness of Peter Pan last week.

I certainly didn’t expect something like Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida).

Far from being a kind of festival denouement, it was a b****slap so strong and so unexpected, you woke up in a completely different dimension.

Here was Shakespeare going Greek done by The Wooster Group going Native American — and all seemingly happening in someone’s garage, with props and costumes cobbled from the set of Mad Max and sounds provided by an Animal Collective breakaway group.

We’re deep into the Trojan War caused by the ship-launching babe Helen, but it’s another woman who’s at the centre of this drama: The Trojan Cressida, who’s swapped for a hostage and finds herself prisoner of the Greeks — much to the displeasure of her new beau Troilus. Interspersed with this is the testosterone showcase and the tale of two camps: The besieged Trojans’ Paris, Hector and co. and the invading Greeks’ own Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon posse.

There’s a lot going on. This production bombards you with more layers than a kueh lapis. So much so that it took me the whole first part to actually get the hang of it. The second most obvious element is the meta-ness of it all, primarily courtesy of video screens showing scenes from movies (spotted Warren Beatty, Elizabeth Taylor…), a previous documentation of Cry, Trojans! itself, and what looked like documentaries of Inuits and other native Americans. The movements seen in these run parallel to those of the actors onstage (who’s mimicking who, I have no idea, but the documentaries could just as well have been recreated based on the performers as much as the other way around).

Which brings us to the first most obvious element: The Redface Strategy.

The idea of a predominantly white cast playacting as Native Americans (without necessarily having to paint their faces red) has gotten some flak in the US. Elizabeth LeCompte, director and founding member of the famous experimental theatre group, has pointed out that it was an approximation of Hollywood’s own misrepresentation of “Injuns”. The look, the performance — the pow wows, the yelps and dancing, the feathers-in-head — was an extension of its supposed enquiry into the speech patterns of Indians in popular media.

Like in Amid The Clouds, I don’t think I’m the right position to comment on the ethical aspect of the decision except for this: Seriously, under that non-stop deluge of things happening left, right and centre and with no time to let your brain breathe, can you blame the critics?

You had walk-outs yet again in Cry, Trojans! but as was the case in Facing Goya, it actually got better in the second half for me. Story-wise, hings got more exciting — the Greek/Trojan clashes, some moment of cuckolding and, in its depiction of the brutality of war, the issues of exploitation and the violence done against women as the boys play hero (or Cowboys and Indians?) surfaces. And after the first part’s unexpected assault on the senses, now it was an expected assault on the senses and I was prepared to grasp its theatrical language.

The strangest thing about this was that after it was all over, the first thing that came to mind was how I was actually up for another one. Not immediately, mind you, as I’ll probably need sufficient time to recover after stumbling out in a daze last night. I wouldn’t call it an enjoyable play and the way it stimulates is rather irritating or even abrasive, but it was certainly an Experience.

Well, that’s that. SIFA 2014 has almost come to a close. Stay tuned for our wrap-up in tomorrow’s papers or in our online Arts section. In the meantime, I, RAT Who Survived SIFA Marathon, raise my hand in customary greeting and ask, “How?”

Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida) runs until Sunday at SOTA Studio Theatre. Tickets from SISTIC. For more info, visit https://sifa.sg/. You can check out our take on the previous SIFA 2014 shows here at For Art’s Sake (http://tdy.sg/artssakeblog)