“Sau(dara)” was performed as part of a double bill, which was co-presented by Centre 42 and Malaysia’s Five Arts Centre in March 2019.

As an applied theatre practitioner, I am most interested in the phenomenological human condition. Essentially, phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness, as experienced from the first-person point of view. We are each the complex sum of our experiences. As Sau(dara)’s dramaturg, I am interested in an individual artist’s intentionality within the work. I seek to place his or her direct experience of participating in a creative process under a magnifying glass, for it is an intersectional human context that I will endeavour to comprehend.

As a dramaturg working with an eclectic ensemble of artists from various backgrounds and artistic disciplines, nothing stimulates me more than sitting down over coffee and simply getting to know my multi-disciplinary collaborators as human beings. As we embark on the mission to create a multi-disciplinary and highly personal response to Leow Puay Tin’s seminal play Three Children, I was keen to create the space for everyone to mull over two things. The first is the team’s creative input (sharing personal stories, finding common ground as modern Malay women in Singapore), and the second is their degree of autonomy (the process of giving and receiving direction, breaking out of their comfort zones) in a creative process. As usual, the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.

That was exactly what we did on the first day I joined the team in January 2019. At that point, Sau(dara) had already showcased its first iteration under Centre 42’s The Vault, and it was going to be reworked to form part of a double bill called Are You Game, Sau(dara)?, which would be staged in both Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The cast and I spent our first four hours together responding to a single line, “Tell me about your journey as a performer”. The sociological paradigm of the modern Malay Muslim woman who chooses the performing arts as her vocation, be it as a musician, a traditional or contemporary dancer or vocalist in a band, is worth excavating and analysed from a dramaturgical perspective. In Singapore, she is the minority amongst minorities. In Kuala Lumpur, maybe she is? Maybe she’s not? What a delicious point of inquiry!

The “Sau(dara)” team, including Grace (far right) rehearsing at Centre 42. Photo: Bhumi Collective

As Amin’s second pair of eyes, my area of observations and probes ranges from stage blocking, set and lighting design to the cast-generated play script. A concrete example would be my perspective of the opening scene in the original cast-generated text. Titled “Summary”, the scene was confessional, a generous invitation into the world of four saudaras – young maidens facing days of gentle breeze, raging winds, blazing heat and everything in between.  The scene was emotionally driven, replete with strong, impassioned vocabulary such as shame, disappointment or the sense of being put one’s place. It was also vague and inaccessible to me, as I hold the standpoint that we cannot impose feelings on the audience. We can, however, encourage and cultivate it. I consulted with Amin and the cast to disclose gritty details, to visit the real events that resulted in those lingering emotions, and eventually to share them with an audience.

A reaffirming takeaway is that it takes a bedrock of trust to facilitate such an intimate process and I am thankful to be able to draw from my Theatre for Development (TFD) experiences. TFD is a participatory theatre practice that allows communities to write their own stories, and perform them in a drama based on the messages that emerge from the storytelling process. It is a practice that operates from the performers’ perspectives. From day one, Amin and I shared the consensus that our performers must use their own language and idioms of expression. In a sense, Sau(dara) is a truly performer-centred work, where both the director and dramaturg had to work conscientiously together to demystify the ‘expert syndrome’ within the rehearsal room.

Another example, which I would fondly cherish, is traditional Malay dancer [Nurul] Farahani literally finding her inner roar within the context of fighting over a seat on the bench, which we lovingly refer to as “bangku” (Malay for bench). Nearing the end of the performance, in Scene 10, the bangku is literally a seat at the table coveted by all the young artists. Sweet Farahani’s instinct is to avoid the scrum; she would not allow herself to last for more than a second in the struggle. Three weeks into the process, we organically found the space for a conversation of how art compels us to venture into new territory and gain new experiences safely. Scene 10 demanded her grit and tenacity, and it would only work if she summoned enough courage and energy while banishing her instinct to avoid confrontation. Farahani had nothing to lose in the rehearsal room and after a particular invigorating attempt, I asked her if she liked what she just experienced. She said she did, and that scene was never the same again. The applied theatre practitioner in me also slipped in a little suggestion: that what she discovered in the safety of the rehearsal room was hers to keep. If she liked that feisty, unrelenting Farahani on the bench, she can keep her, bring her into real life and the real Farahani will never be the same again. Much like Scene 10.

I constantly scrutinise my role as a dramaturg and how it evolves in different contexts of collaboration. In the case of Sau(dara), my duty was to pinpoint the DNA of the response to Three Children. Within this context, the DNA lies in the four young Malay female performers who Amin wants to empower, and what they are searching for. Theatre-making is essentially a rehearsal for real life, and I’m always trying to get a sense of the performers’ personhood through playing drama games. Through play, I record their authentic interactions with the original play and open them up for discussion and reflection in the rehearsal room. It is the opposite of escapism through performance making. The Sau(dara) team collectively discovered that they should look backwards in order to move forwards. Amin and I witnessed transformative qualities in each and every performer as they grew in confidence, by locating their professional and personal centres and identifying the directions they want to work towards. This is a result of their complete ownership in Sau(dara).

By Grace Lee-Khoo
Published on 5 April 2019

Find out more about The Vault: Sau(dara) here and Are You Game, Sau(dara)? here.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #9.

A scene from the recording of Three Children (1988) by TheatreWorks.
(L to R) Claire Wong, Lok Meng Chue, Lim Kay Tong
Click to watch snippets of the recording on TheatreWorks’ YouTube channel.

Synopsis

Three Children is about three grown-up siblings – two sisters and a brother – returning to their childhood home on Kappan Road in Malacca. There is no linear narrative in the play. Instead, the three characters (and a narrator) race through a mindboggling series of children’s songs, games and sketches.

Earlier Incarnations

Leow Puay Tin wrote Three Children in 1985 during a playwriting course, basing the play on her own formative years growing up on Kappan Road. At the time, the Malaysian actor-writer was well-known for having originated the role of Emily Gan in Stella Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill in 1984. But she had also written four short plays, including Three Children, by this point.

Three Children was first staged on 1 September 1987 in a free lunch-time performance at the Shell Theatrette at Raffles Place. This early incarnation of Three Children was performed by the Malaysian theatre collective Shell KL Drama Group, and directed by Chin San Sooi from Kuala Lumpur-based theatre company Five Arts Centre.

The 1987 production of Three Children was not received well. Business Times theatre critic Jamie Lye reported audience members walking out in the middle of the performance. Writing about the play in verse in mockery of the play’s lyrical text, Lye said: “Full of abstract notions/That did not stir emotions/Just a lot of stylish lingo/And a plot that stayed in limbo”.

The next time Three Children saw the stage was on 7 July 1988 at the Experimental Theatre in Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, performed as part of a double bill with another of Leow’s plays, Two Grandmothers. Chin directed the production, and Leow herself performed as one of the sisters.

The Singapore-Malaysia Collaboration

In 1988, Malaysian theatre doyen Krishen Jit met Ong Keng Sen, who had recently become Artistic Director of Singapore theatre company TheatreWorks, after the former penned a review about the TheatreWorks musical Beauty World. It was this meeting – at Hilton Hotel Coffeehouse, according to From Identity to Mondialisation – which sparked off a formal creative exchange between Krishen’s company Five Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur and TheatreWorks in Singapore.

For Ong, the collaboration was a turning point for TheatreWorks. About the new direction the local company was embarking on, Straits Times reporter Judith Holmberg wrote: “There are some who describe the change in gear as much-needed, citing that the group has been losing its impetus, sliding away from its original goals and becoming predictable in its presentations.”

As a first project in the cross-Causeway exchange, Ong and Krishen would co-direct a TheatreWorks production of Three Children. Work on the play would begin in September 1988.

Creating “Three Children”

Actors Lok Meng Chue, Claire Wong and Lim Kay Tong were cast as the three sibilings, and Neo Swee Lin would play the narrator. Work on the TheatreWorks production started three months before its November opening. Krishen travelled to Singapore on weekends to work with the cast.

While Leow had re-written her play, the actors were not allowed to look at the script for most of the rehearsal period. Instead, Krishen led the actors through devising sessions, a creative process completely new to them. Wong said, “He started by feeding us lines, then bare outlines of situations and said: ‘Do what you can with it.’ We weren’t sure where were heading. He just kept saying: ‘It’s got to come from within!’ He wanted us to use our whole bodies, to tap whatever resources we had, not just our faces or voices.”

In the 1992 programme of Three Children, co-director Ong echoed: “One thing we were very clear of: the final production of Three Children would spring from the imaginations of the actors themselves. The actors would build the world of these 3 children, viewed through children’s eyes. The directors would act as catalysts, pushing them to explore and confront themselves. The whole process was built on experience, memories; felt by the body rather than rationalised by the mind.”

Looking back on the rehearsal process for Three Children, Lok commented, “Everything was so abstract, we had nothing to hold on to.”

On top of devising, the actors were put through rigorous skills training. A voice teacher, as well as a taichi instructor and a Chinese opera expert were brought in to train the actors. According to Krishen, “Good acting means using the right techniques, and you have to learn the techniques before you can use them.”

Taichi and Chinese opera would make their way into the production as well, evincing Ong’s desire for intercultural theatre in Singapore. Ong said, “The English-language drama scene here has no history. Theatre groups have ignored Asian theatre as if we’re living in a desert, when the fusion between East and West should work particularly here.”

The TheatreWorks production of Three Children premiered on 11 November 1988 at the Drama Centre.

Responses to “Three Children”

The 1988 production of Three Children was critically lauded in spite of being a challenge for both actors and audience.

Adeline Woon of the New Paper commended the cast’s performances, noting the excellent vocals and facial experiences, as well as the influence of taichi on the fluid body movements onstage. In sum, she wrote, “The play is as demanding on the audience as it is on the actors. It needs concentration to follow a play that has no plot but switches from one little story to another. But it is well worth the effort.”

T. Sasitharan, writing for the Straits Times, was effulsive in his praise for the production. He wrote, “Suddenly it transpires that a tale is unfolding. At times it is banal, sometimes bizarre, but it is imperative that you watch […] Soon, too soon, it is over; only resonances linger, an afterglow of dreams.”

Jamie Lye, who reviewed the 1987 performance by the Shell KL Drama Group, still thought Leow’s play was “self-indulgent” and headache-inducing. But, she was impressed by the actors’ performances and the directorial vision of the production: “Theatrework’s production of 3 Children was a dramatic masterpiece – a milestone production for the company.”

TheatreWorks re-mounted Three Children as a touring production in 1992, with Krishen and Ong returning as co-directors. Lok and Wong also returned to perform, with Loong Seng Onn taking on the male lead and Tan Kheng Hua assuming the role of narrator. The 1992 production was staged in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 27 September 2018

References

De Souza, J. (1987, 31 August). Three ‘revisit’ their childhood to see understanding of adulthood. In The Straits Times, p.31. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Holmberg, J. (1988, 27 September). A change in the gear in the Works. In The Straits Times, p.25. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Koh, B. P. (2013). From Identity to Mondialisation: TheatreWorks 25. Singapore: TheatreWorks.

Lye, J. (1987, 3 September). A slice of life that’s not very nice. In Business Times, p.13. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Lye, J. (1988, 21 November). The players, dear, not the play. In Business Times, p.13. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Mulchand, S. (1988, 17 October). Three arts that doth a good actor maketh. In Business Times, p.12. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Prema, L. E. (1988, 4 November). Trust him to push you into the deep end. In The Straits Time, p.1. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Rowland, K. (Ed.) (2015). Staging History: Selected plays from Five Arts Centre Malaysia 1984-2014. Malaysia: Five Arts Centre.

Sasitharan, T. (1988, 14 November). World of dreams, memories, folklore. In The Straits Times, p.3. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Three Children. (1992). House programme.

Woon, A. (1988, 12 November). Three Children takes a look at life and fate. In New Paper, p.25. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

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The Vault: Sau(dara) is a contemporary response to Leow Puay Tin’s Three Children. Created by Bhumi Collective, Sau(dara) is an homage to the 1988 production of Three Children which draws from the original text and the performers’ childhood memories, is based on play and traditional Indonesian Pakarena dance, and features newly-composed music. Find out more here.

The Vault: Sau(dara) is a contemporary response to Leow Puay Tin’s Three Children created by young theatre company Bhumi Collective. Sau(dara) draws from Leow’s text, the performer’s childhood memories, and traditional Indonesian Pakarena dance.

SynopsisThe ArtistsResources

Thirty years ago, a remarkable English-language theatre production was staged in Singapore. Three Children, written by Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin, is a story about three grown-up siblings who return to their childhood home to confront their past.

The 1988 production of Three Children by TheatreWorks took many bold steps at a time when professional Singapore theatre was in its infancy. It brought together theatre powerhouses from both sides of the Causeway – Krishen Jit and Ong Keng Sen – who shared directing duties. Together with the cast, they created a boundary-pushing, multicultural work that challenged both local theatre and its audiences.

In 2018, young theatre company Bhumi Collective revisits Three Children. In homage to the 1988 production, the creative team draws from the original text and the performers’ childhood memories. Sau(dara) is an original work based on play and traditional Indonesian Pakarena dance, and features newly-composed music. Performed in English and Malay, English translation provided.

REGISTRATION

Friday, 5 October 2018, 8PM
Saturday, 6 October 2018, 5PM & 8PM
@ Centre 42

Admission: Give-What-You-Can
(Cash only, at the door)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

SOULTARI AMIN FARID, Artist Facilitator
I feel like my whole existence is about the arts. I got my pseudonym, Soultari, in a dream, a portmanteau of soul and “tari”, which is dance in Malay. I guess a side of me wishes to dig deeper into our humanity. Hence, tapping into one’s soul could help in answering that predicament. I hope through my works, I continue to be critical of our existence and bring others along into this exciting journey. Oh, hi. My name is Soultari Amin Farid.

LYN HANIS REZUAN, Performer
Hi! I’m Lyn and I think I started my involvement with the arts since I was 13 in secondary school with Malay dance as a CCA. Polytechnic didn’t quite fit my M.O., so I jumped ship from there to pursue performing arts in Jakarta. After graduating in December last year, I’ve been more involved with the local performing arts scene. During my free time I’m pretty laid back and try to catch up on my Netflix and Anime. I am also a pretty big Cat person

SYAFIQAH ‘ADHA SALLEHIN, Performer
Hey, I’m Syafiqah. You can call me Syaf. I have an affinity with music and keyboards since young. I started playing classical piano as a little child, and then became curious about traditional Malay music and picked up the accordion in my late teens. Music composition became one of my musical strengths, so as I grew into a young adult, I attempted to refine it at a local music conservatory. Now I play, create, teach, direct, live and breathe music. But once in a while, I get bored so I love taking on challenges to try out new things. Sometime soon, I’d love to travel out more into the world with all that I can offer.

SURYANA NORDDIN, Performer
“When I grow up, I want to be a Malay teacher…or a singer. No, no, no…I want to be a teacher.”
That was my childhood dream. But as I grew older, I eventually gave up becoming a teacher because I got rejected so many times. So I just continued to study and (barely) got myself a Degree.
When I was in tertiary level, I took up theatre as my CCA, although I don’t really know why I did it. But I enjoyed it anyways. Then in 2013, somehow, I became a wedding singer. Five years on, I’m still singing and doing theatre. I teach too, occasionally. I guess I’m destined to be a performer. I just got to believe.

SYAFIQAH SHAHARUDDIN, Performer
Hello i’m Syafiqah, almost everyone i know calls me Syafiq. This name has been with me since my Poly days so yes, Syafiq it is…
Still a student in SIM doing Accounting.
I entered the Malay Arts in primary school where i joined Malay Dance as a CCA and since then I knew it was something i wanted to do for a long time. Twelve years later, I’m still here doing it. Not to be dramatic, but I cannot remember how it feels like to not have Dance as a part of my life. I was given the opportunity to groom and choreograph the Malay Dance students in Temasek Polytechnic recently but I’m still getting the hang of it.

MOHAMAD SHAIFULBAHRI, Executive Producer/Co-Artistic Director, Bhumi Collective
Hi, I’m Shai but I’m not that shy except for when I was a child. My parents wanted to bring me to drama class but I would only do so if I could wear sunglasses…because I was urm, shy. For the record, I ended up not going for any. When I was in primary school, I wanted to be an author when I grow up. I actually wrote my own horror stories (I loved the Goosebumps series) and would print and collate them into a file and my friends in school would take turns to read them. I don’t watch horror movies anymore because I’m an adult now and I can choose not to!
Film was my first love but when the theatre bug bit me, I was infected. It’s become a part of me, coarsing through my bloodstream and I’m unable to imagine a life without the performing arts. I ran my own community theatre group for 10 years and have now co-started an actual company, which is a rollercoaster ride. The world can still be a big and scary place from time-to-time but I’m so blessed to be able to do what I do with an amazing bunch of people.

IFFAH IDI, Production Stage Manager
Oh, hello. I don’t know why everyone is introducing themselves when their name is right there *roll eyes*. I am a newbie in the industry but my love for the arts started at 9, playing the Angklung for my school’s ensemble. It shifted into playing the saxophone and trumpet for my school’s Military Band and even learning a little bit of Malay Dance along the way. I fell in love with theatre at a later age, 16 going on 17, being a part of Titisan Temasek when I was in Temasek Polytechnic. I graduated, placed my Engineering Diploma aside, took a gap year and now, I am a fresh graduate of LASALLE’s Bachelors of Arts in Arts Management. I entered LASALLE with a goal to give back my service to the industry once I completed my education, so here’s me leaving my little mark, enjoy!

Reading Material

#1: ABOUT THREE CHILDREN

#2: SINGAPORE THEATRE IN THE 1980s

#3: INTERVIEW WITH CREATIVE TEAM

Programme Handout

 

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The Vault: Sau(dara) is a contemporary response to Leow Puay Tin’s Three Children. Created by Bhumi Collective, Sau(dara) is an homage to the 1988 production of Three Children which draws from the original text and the performers’ childhood memories, is based on play and traditional Indonesian Pakarena dance, and features newly-composed music.
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