The Fourth Trimester tells men to step up as parents

Realist playwright Faith Ng's The Fourth Trimester is given a restaging three years after it debuted to acclaim.

- Clement Yong

Isabella Chiam and Joshua Lim as struggling new parents in The Fourth Trimester.

(JOSEPH NAIR)

It remains forensic in its examination of parenthood - that no-win early 30s rite of passage, marking adulthood but also the loss of self-hood, and that moment when youth’s ambition becomes a matter of choosing regrets one can live with.

Three couples come under Ng’s microscope, each a variation on a theme.

There is Sam (Isabella Chiam) and Aaron (Joshua Lim), whose cluttered three-room flat occupies two-thirds of the stage. Their story equally predominates, and one suspects it is closest to Ng’s own experience. Sam, in a moment of vulnerability, lets slip she is a writer and husband Aaron is the sweetest of men.

Both, nonetheless, lose their wits and temper at the constant braying of their newborn baby boy, failing to latch onto Sam’s breasts for milk and assessed to be “failing to thrive”.