Centre 42 » Jean Tay https://centre42.sg Thu, 16 Dec 2021 10:08:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.30 THE SHAPE OF A BIRD | by Jean Tay https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-by-jean-tay/ https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-by-jean-tay/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2018 08:01:59 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=8990

GR Shape of A Bird

Reading-Presentation Details:

12 July 2015, Sunday
8pm
Rehearsal Studio @ Centre 42

  • Inspired by Antigone as well as stories from the Cultural Revolution, The Shape of a Bird evokes a magical world of warring birds and cicadas through the creative use of puppetry. Within an isolated cell, a Writer tries to retain her imagination and freedom by writing stories and letters to her daughter. She forges a tentative friendship with her jailor, even as she resists his attempts to force a confession out of her. In the meantime, she creates a magical world of birds and cicadas in her mind, which features a young heroine, Ann, who similarly defies the authorities to put her stories on the page and bring her brother back to life. However, as the pressures on the Writer intensify in the real world, she is forced to choose between her stories and her own daughter. Gradually, the boundaries between the two worlds dissolve, and events go spinning out of the Writer’s control, in both her real and imagined life.

    The Shape of a Bird is playwright Jean Tay’s latest creation. With the support of the Centre’s Guest Room programme, Jean, together with director Mei Ann Teo and a team of actors, works towards presenting a work-in-progress play-read on 12 July 2015 in the Rehearsal Studio. Thereafter, input from invited audiences will feed into refining the play for a future staging in 2016.

  • Jean Tay, Playwright
    Graduated in 1997 with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA, Jean Tay has under her belt a number of award-winning plays. In 2006, Everything But the Brain was awarded Best Original Script for the Life! Theatre Awards. Boom was conceptualised at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2007, and developed and staged by the Singapore Repertory Theatre in September 2008. It was nominated for Best Original Script for The Straits Times’ Life! Theatre Awards in 2009 and is now an ‘O’ and ‘N’ Level Literature text in Singapore schools

  • Following the Guest Room work-in-progress showing, The Shape of A Bird will be premiering at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016 in January 2016. The Centre continues to support the play’s development under its Basement Workshop programme. Jean Tay and her collaborators in the newly formed collective Saga Seed Theatre will be rehearsing at Centre 42 in the first half of January leading up to the production’s premiere.

    Read more about The Shape of A Bird under our Basement Workshop programme here.

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THE SHAPE OF A BIRD | by Jean Tay & Saga Seed Theatre https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-in-residence-basement-workshop/ https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-in-residence-basement-workshop/#comments Tue, 27 Feb 2018 10:12:56 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=8313 The Shape of a Bird Banner

Photo by Wee Li Lin
SynopsisCreation ProcessCreative Team
Within an isolated cell, a writer tries to retain her imagination and freedom by writing stories and letters to her daughter, even as she resists attempts by her jailor to force a written confession out of her.

Meanwhile, within the magical world that the writer creates, her young heroine, Ann, similarly defies the authorities to put her stories on the page and bring her brother back to life. However, as pressures on the writer intensify in the real world, she is forced to choose between her stories and her own daughter.

Before long, the boundaries between the two worlds dissolve, and events go spinning out of her control in both her real and imagined life.

Written by Jean Tay (Everything but the Brain, Boom) and co-directed by US-based Singaporean theatre/filmmaker Mei Ann Teo (Lyrics from Lockdown) and Benjamin Ho (Paper Monkey Theatre), the workshop production of The Shape of a Bird evokes a magical world of warring birds and cicadas through the creative use of puppetry, brought to life by performers Tan Kheng Hua, Brendon Fernandez, Jean Toh and Thomas Pang.

Credit source: M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016
Inspired by Antigone as well as stories from the Cultural Revolution, The Shape of a Bird evokes a magical world of warring birds and cicadas through the creative use of puppetry. Within an isolated cell, a Writer tries to retain her imagination and freedom by writing stories and letters to her daughter. She forges a tentative friendship with her jailor, even as she resists his attempts to force a confession out of her. In the meantime, she creates a magical world of birds and cicadas in her mind, which features a young heroine, Ann, who similarly defies the authorities to put her stories on the page and bring her brother back to life. However, as the pressures on the Writer intensify in the real world, she is forced to choose between her stories and her own daughter. Gradually, the boundaries between the two worlds dissolve, and events go spinning out of the Writer’s control, in both her real and imagined life.

The play was supported under the Centre’s Guest Room programme earlier in 2015 where the text was presented in a read to an invited group of audience members comprising of playwrights, producers and theatre practitioners.

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Co-producer/ Playwright – Jean Tay
Jean Tay graduated in 1997 with a double degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA. She has been nominated thrice for Best Original Script at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards, winning for Everything but the Brain in 2006. For her fiction, she was awarded Weston Prize for Fiction from Brown, as well as the 1st and 3rd prizes from the National Arts Council’s Golden Point Short Story competition in 1995 and 2001 respectively.

Jean was attached to the Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT) as Resident Playwright from 2006 to 2009, and since the start of 2012, has been helming SRT’s Young Company’s Writing Programme. She is also currently an adjunct lecturer in playwriting at Nanyang Technological University. Her plays Everything but the Brain and Boom have been published by Epigram Books, and Boom is currently used as an ‘O’ and ‘N’ Level literature text.

Jean’s most recent projects include being scriptwriter for the 2015 National Day Parade Golden Jubilee celebrations and collaborating with Drama Box on It Won’t Be Too Long: The Cemetery for Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015. Jean is the founding Artistic Director of Saga Seed Theatre, set up in 2015 to bring Singaporean stories to the stage, and provide a platform to showcase and nurture local talent.

Co-director/ Dramaturg – Mei Ann Teo
Mei Ann Teo is a Singaporean theatre/film maker working internationally and based in the US. Her work has toured the US and international festivals including M1 Singapore Fringe Festival and Belgium’s Festival de Liege (Lyrics From Lockdown), Beijing International Fringe Festival (Labyrinth: Defining Humanity), Edinburgh International Fringe (MiddleFlight), INFANT Experimental Theatre Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, Shanghai International Experimental Theatre Festival, Dumbo Arts Festival, and the Montreal World Film Festival.

She has worked at The Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, The Hungarian Theatre of Cluj Romania, Theatre of Yugen, Crowded Fire, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.

As Resident Artist at Pacific Union College for seven years, she created a program focused on devised ensemble work through collage and documentary theatre techniques. She is the 2015 Phil Killian Directing Fellow at OSF, a Hemera Foundation Tending Space Fellow, Asian Cultural Council Fellow and a recipient of the Network of Ensemble Theatres Travel Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation Grant.

She has an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University, and is currently an Artist in Residence for The Performance Project at University Settlement 2015/2016 and the Assistant Professor of Directing and Dramaturgy at Hampshire College.

Co-director/ Puppetry Consultant – Benjamin Ho
Benjamin is a madman who vows his love and life-long devotion to inanimate objects called PUPPETS. He accumulated mileages from land, sea and air, just to acquire knowledge and skills so as to bring these puppets to life! His mastery of puppetry has not gone unnoticed. He has shared his great love with local audience through many production companies such as TheatreWorks, The Theatre Practice, The Finger Players, Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble, The Necessary Stage, W!ld Rice and Singapore Hokkien Huay Guan Arts and Cultural Troupe, just to name a few; and audience abroad through participation in various puppetry festivals in Asia and Europe. Injection of life into puppets is not only his sole purpose in life; he also aspires to take this educational and meaningful art form to greater heights by combining his mastery of puppetry with multimedia and our rich Asian culture and stories, to enthuse and engage his audience, young and old.

In 2009, under the support of the National Arts Council’s International Arts Residency (IAR) initiative, Benjamin participated in the La Mama International Symposium, a training programme for professional directors held in Umbria, Italy.

Co-producer – Thong Pei Qin
Thong Pei Qin’s theatre journey began as a student director for National University of Singapore (NUS) Theatre Studies’ The West Wing, which toured to Shanghai in 2008. She graduated with a BA degree with honours in Theatre Studies in 2009, and eventually brought NUS Thespis’ devised work, Re: Almost Left Behind, to the Singapore Arts Festival 2011, as a site-specific production spread throughout The Substation. Thereafter, she earned her MA degree in Theatre Directing with distinctions from the University of Essex, East 15 Acting School. Directing overseas, she collaborated with international artists on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Rhoding House, London, 2012), before training in directing at GITIS: The Russian University of Theatre Arts, Moscow. She also assisted in directing David Schneider’s premiere of Making Stalin Laugh (Tristan Bates Theatre, London, 2013).

Back in Singapore, some of her directorial credits include Alan Ayckbourn’s Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations (The Arts House, 2014) for children, as well as Ovidia Yu’s Life Choices (Centre 42, 2014). She has worked with different theatre companies such as TheatreWorks, Nine Years Theatre and Faust International Youth Theatre, and enjoys staging picture book adaptations for disadvantaged children. Currently, she is honoured to be on board The Finger Players’ Watch This Space (Directors’ Cycle, 2014-15), and is also teaching theatre modules at both NUS and the National Institute of Education.

Actor – Tan Kheng Hua
Kheng Hua is a well-known award-winning theatre and television actress/producer in Singapore. She is regarded as a veteran of Singapore theatre and was recently selected as one of 50 iconic local stage personalities in an exhibition celebrating 50 years of Singapore theatre. Onstage, she has appeared in lead roles in local landmark plays including Beauty World, Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral and Animal Farm. Most recently, she was seen in W!ld Rice’s Cooling Off Day and TheatreWorks’ Fear Of Writing.

Kheng is a household name in Singapore from her role of Margaret in Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, as well as in well-received television dramas including War Diary, The Singapore Short Story Project and The Pupil.

She is one of the more prolific stage and television creative producers in Singapore, with credits including the critically acclaimed original musical cabaret The Dim Sum Dollies® from 2004 to 2006.

Kheng was co-creator, producer and performer for the sold-out No.7 (Georgetown Festival 2011). In 2014, she brought more than 64 Singaporean and Malaysian artists together to Georgetown Festival in The SIN-PEN Colony, celebrating Singapore and Penang’s shared heritage in food, visual art, music, theatre and design.

On the international scene, she was cast in The Philanthropist, The Patriarch, Serangoon Road and scored a major role as the Empress Dowager in the Netflix Original Series Marco Polo.

In 2015, she directed a site-specific dance for Singapore’s only arts-walkabout OH! Open House and was one of the 20 Singaporean contemporary artists chosen to represent Singapore in a showcase presented by the Singapore Tourism Board in Beijing, London and New York City.

Actor – Brendon Fernandez
Brendon’s theatre credits include Public Enemy (2015), The Importance of Being Earnest (2014, 2013, 2009), The Optic Trilogy (2013, 2001), Company (2012), La Cage aux Folles (2012), Romeo & Juliet (2012), Equus (2011), To Kill a Mockingbird (2010), The King Lear Project: A Trilogy (2008), Boeing Boeing (2005), Everything but the Brain (2005), Landmarks: Asian Boys Vol. 2 (2004), Bent (2003), Rent (2001) and The Theory of Everything (2000).

Actor – Jean Toh
Jean Toh graduated from the BA(Hons) Acting Programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. Her stage credits include The Lower Depths, Tartuffe and An Enemy of the People (Nine Years Theatre), Abigail Williams in The Crucible (Toy Factory Productions), Decimal Points 7.7, Decimal Points 810 (Cake Theatrical Productions) and Stand Behind the Yellow Line (Singapore Repertory Theatre). TV credits include main roles in HBO Asia’s Grace and Mediacorp’s Working Class. In 2013, she was the selected artist by Institut Français to attend the Avignon Theatre Festival in France. Jean is a founding and core member of Nine Years Theatre Ensemble Project.

Actor – Thomas Pang
Thomas Pang holds a First Class Degree in Acting from LASALLE (’15), and a diploma from the San Francisco School of the Arts (’08). Recent work includes The Good, the Bad, and the Sholay with Checkpoint Theatre, Versus at Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015 with Cake Theatrical Productions, and Tribes with Pangdemonium Productions. Thomas has also performed internationally, in Vietnam at the Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Schools Conference 2013 with Aubrey Mellor, and the world premiere of Philip K. Gotanda’s No.5: The Angry Red Drum in San Francisco (’09). Thomas is deeply grateful for all the mentorship and support he has received.

Credit source: M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016
 Development Milestones 

The Shape of a Bird was developed in residence at Centre 42’s Basement Workshop on January 2016.

12 July 2015:
A work-in-progress preview presented to a select group of audience

15-16 January 2016:
World Premiere at Esplanade Theatre Studio as part of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016

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THE SHAPE OF A BIRD by Jean Tay | Saga Seed Theatre https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-by-jean-tay-saga-seed-theatre/ https://centre42.sg/the-shape-of-a-bird-by-jean-tay-saga-seed-theatre/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2016 09:20:40 +0000 http://centre42.sg/?p=4424

“The shape of metaphors”

Reviewer: Walter Chan
Performance: 16 January 2016

Jean Tay gets political in her new play.

Photo credit: Wee Li Lin

“Stories have power.”

This is the essential message that Jean Tay’s The Shape of a Bird conveys. Incidentally, its title also reveals its theme of censorship – if you can’t write about a bird, you write around the shape of a bird.

Audiences familiar with Tay’s previous works like Boom and Everything but the Brain might be a little surprised with the explicit political overtones of this play that is still a work-in-progress. An imprisoned writer (Tan Kheng Hua) tries to write letters to her daughter (Jean Toh), communicating via stories, while an oppressive authority (Brendon Fernandez) tries to keep them apart.

The writing style is undeniably Tay’s. The play has a graceful and delicate charm that expertly flits between the harsh austerity of the prison cell and the magical wonder of the imagined story-world.

Yet, the plethora of theatrical elements employed to connote the differences between the two worlds make for a stifled viewing experience. We have light patterns, puppetry, noisy (not to mention trite) sound effects, masks, folding paper as props, actors playing multiple characters, and the list goes on… This makes the entire piece rather crowded, and not in a good way.

Nonetheless, this piece remains an achievement in itself. Although the combination of the theatrical elements described earlier is jarring and confusing, the individual elements are creative and inspired in their own way.

Of course, the highest praise is reserved for last. The ensemble (Tan Kheng Hua, Jean Toh, Brendon Fernandez, and Thomas Pang) deliver a brilliant and riveting performance, even for a script that Tay feared was “impossible to stage”! They showcase a sense of fluidity in shifting across characters and supple physicality in their body movements. They are also able to evoke a palpable terror that hangs over the entire play, but with tiny glimpses of hope and wonder that burst forth in rare moments.

This play joins the glut of political plays afflicting Singapore theatre at the present. Is there an unwritten rule that “you can’t call yourself a Singaporean playwright until you’ve written a political play”?

That said, Tay cleverly manages to couch the usual anti-totalitarian critique within the theatre of the fantastic, tempering politics with an epic mode of storytelling. Is Tay, then, writing around the shape of political critique? Hmm…

In sum, The Shape of a Bird is a play that poses huge technical and creative barriers to surmount. There is still a lot more work to be done before it can call itself a “finished product”. Yet, even at such a premature stage of its drafting, it brims with such immense potential and I cannot wait to see the finished product.

 

Do you have an opinion or comment about this post? Email us at info@centre42.sg.

 

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

THE SHAPE OF A BIRD by Jean Tay | Saga Seed Theatre
15 – 16 January 2016
Esplanade Recital Studio

The development of The Shape of A Bird was supported by Centre 42’s Guest Room and Basement Workshop programmes.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Walter Chan has recently starting dabbling in play-writing, most usually writing ‘for fun, but hopes to develop his hobby into something more substantial in the future.

 

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