Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, Absence Makes the Heart… is an attempt to trace the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre, from the early days of its birth to the present moment. Featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi, the work asks: How much do we miss those who have gone missing?

SynopsisThe ArtistsResourcesExhibitionVideoPhotos

The 1962 play Mimi Fan by Lim Chor Pee, widely recognised as Singapore’s first English-language play, featured two Indian characters, Baram and Sheila Rani. In the ’70s and ’80s, playwrights Robert Yeo and Michael Chiang showcased more Indian characters in their plays. While Yeo’s were politically-minded individuals with oratorical gifts, Chiang’s were larger-than-life scene-stealers in sparkling comedies. In the 1990s, complex and even iconic roles were written, from Vinod in Haresh Sharma’s Off Centre to Nisha in Elangovan’s Talaq.

However, from the 2000s onwards, fewer roles were being created for actors of Indian ethnicity. Some playwrights claimed the acting pool had dried up. But some actors counter-claimed that there was little substantial work for them in the theatre industry.

Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, Absence Makes the Heart… is an attempt to trace the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre, from the early days of its birth to the present moment. Featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi, the work will ask: How much do we miss those who have gone missing?

Please note that this showcase has been given the following consumer advice: Advisory 16 (Mature Content and Coarse Language).

REGISTRATION

Saturday, 28 October 2017, 8PM
Sunday, 29 October 2017, 3PM
@ Centre 42 Black Box

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

IMDA Rating:
Advisory 16 (Mature Content and Coarse Language)

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Aswani Aswath
When she’s not wearing the teacher hat, Aswani Aswath is a freelance writer who believes that stories provide a voice for the powerless and platforms inviting discussion and change. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the National University of Singapore, Aswani was a Writer-in- Residence for Buds Theatre Company. Her works have been staged in schools, Singapore Youth Festival competitions and community projects that were commissioned by the National Library Board and EmancipAsia. Aswani also writes for Tamil theatre and her recent scripts include Kadal + Karai and Pazhuppu for Ravindran Drama Group and the Asian Youth Theatre Festival.

Alfian Sa’at
Alfian Sa’at is well-known for frank, insightful, and provocative literary and dramatic works, written in English and Malay. As the Resident Playwright of W!ld Rice, he has written acclaimed plays such as the Asian Boys trilogy (2000, 2004, 2007), Cooling-Off Day (2011), and the historical epic Hotel (2015, co-writer). Alfian is also an author with published collections of short stories and poems. He is a four-time winner of Best Original Script at the annual M1-The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards and a 2001 recipient of the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature.

Reading Material

#1: LOSING THE ENGLISH ADVANTAGE

#2: THE PLAYS OF ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART…

Programme Handout

This Vault was accompanied by an exhibition also titled Absence Makes the Heart. Held at Centre 42’s front courtyard from 28 Oct to 5 Nov 2017, the exhibition featured images of Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi posing as characters from six of Singapore’s most iconic plays. These characters were previously played by Chinese and Malay actors. The exhibition panels can be viewed below:

     

Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, Absence Makes the Heart… is an attempt to trace the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre, from the early days of its birth to the present moment. Featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi, the work will ask: How much do we miss those who have gone missing?

“Absence Makes the Heart…” was presented on 28 & 29 Oct in the Centre 42 Black Box. The work traced the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre, from the early days of its birth to the present moment. “Absence Makes the Heart…” featured excerpts from English-language local plays throughout Singapore theatre history, and interviews with prominent Indian theatre practitioners. “Absence” was written by Aswani Aswath, dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, and performed by Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi. This edition of the Vault was accompanied by an exhibition featuring images of the Indian actors playing iconic characters in Singapore English-language theatre, previously played by their Chinese peers.

Source: Centre 42 Facebook

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The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart… traces the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre. Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, and featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi.

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Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, Absence Makes the Heart… is an attempt to trace the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre, from the early days of its birth to the present moment. Featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi, the work will ask: How much do we miss those who have gone missing?

You can view the 60-minute recording of the 29-October performance below:

The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart… traces the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre. Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, and featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi. Find out more here.

MIMI FAN (1962)

Playwright:
Lim Chor Pee

Company:
Experimental Theatre Club

Date:
19 – 21 July 1962

Venue:
Cultural Centre Theatre

Cast:  
Lim Teong Qwee, Annie Chin, Leaena Chelliah, Ronald Bloom, Kiru Joseph ,Teoh Jin Hong, Major Ho, Ong Thiam Kim

 

A WHITE ROSE AT MIDNIGHT (1964)

Playwright:
Lim Chor Pee

Company:
Experimental Theatre Club

Date:
18 – 20 June 1964

Venue:
Cultural Centre Theatre

Cast:  
Philip Ng, Chen Li-Ching, Khoo Hin Hiong, Ooi Phaik Har,  Kiru Joseph,  Leela Subbaiah, Chan See Foon, Ian Lang, Primrose Lim

 

ARE YOU THERE SINGAPORE (1974)

Playwright:
Robert Yeo

Director:
Prem Kumar

Company:
University of Singapore Society

Date:
25 – 27 July 1974

Venue:
Cultural Centre Theatre

Cast:
Esther Leong, Lim Kay Tong, Gulam Husain, Raymond Ong, Jamshid Medora

 

ONE YEAR BACK HOME (1980)

Playwright:
Robert Yeo

Director:
Max Le Blond

Company:
University of Singapore Society

Date:
19 – 22 November 1980

Venue:
DBS Auditorium

Cast:
T. Sasitharan, Chia Chor Leng, Magdelene Leong, Kheng Lim

 

ARMY DAZE (1987)

Playwright:
Michael Chiang

Director:
Lim Siauw Chong

Company:
TheatreWorks

Date:
22 – 28 June, 3 – 9 August 1987

Venue:
Drama Centre, Fort Canning Park

Lead Performers:
Clifton Turner, Hassan Othman, Ivan Heng, Lee Weng Kee, S. Sivanathan

 

BEAUTY WORLD (1988)

Playwright:
Michael Chiang

Composer & Lyricist:
Dick Lee

Director:
Ong Keng Sen

Company:
TheatreWorks, for Singapore Festival of Arts

Date:
4 – 5 & 11 – 12 June 1988

Venue:
World Trade Centre Auditorium

Lead Performers:
Christina Ong, Claire Wong, Ivan Heng, Jacintha Abishegenaden, Lim Kay Siu, Lok Meng Chue, Margaret Chan

 

ROUND AND ROUND THE DINING TABLE (1988)

Playwright:
Ovidia Yu

Director:
Ovidia Yu

Company:
The Necessary Stage, for National University of Singapore Student Union Arts Festival

Date:
24-27 August 1988

Venue:
Drama Centre Theatre, Fort Canning Park

Cast:
Steven Lim, Rani Moorthy, Melina Nathan, K. Rajagopal, Jothi Saunthararajah

 

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER (1992)

Playwright:
Robin Loon

Director:
Alec Tok

Company:
TheatreWorks

Date:
7 April 1992

Venue:
Drama Centre Theatre, Fort Canning Park

Cast:
Alex Abisheganaden, Rosaly Puthucheary, K. Rajagopal, Nora Samosir, Noraizah Nordin, Yolande Goh, Diong Chae Lian

 

BUANG SUAY (2000)

Playwright:
Elangovan

Director:
Elangovan

Company:
Agni Kootthu

Date:
23 April 2000

Venue:
Drama Centre Theatre, Fort Canning Park

Cast:
S. R. L. Jothy, Ahamed Ai Khan, Nick Ng, Vishnu, Zakee bin Ismawee

 

FLUSH (2001)

Playwright:
Elangovan

Director:
Elangovan

Company:
Agni Kootthu

Date:
19 – 20 Oct 2001

Venue:
LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts Studio Theatre

Cast:
Mary Pereira

 

TOP OF THE WORLD (1995)

Playwright:
Haresh Sharma

Director:
Alvin Tan

Company:
The Necessary Stage

Date:
25 – 27 Aug 1995

Venue:
Victoria Theatre

Cast:
Abdulattif, Alin Mosbit, Daisy Irani-Subaiah, Low Kah Wei, Rani Moorthy, Pamela Wildheart

 

BALEK KAMPONG (2011)

Playwright:
Haresh Sharma

Director:
Alvin Tan

Company:
The Necessary Stage

Date:
1 March 2011

Venue:
The Necessary Stage Black Box

Cast:
Jo Kukathas, Sukania Venugopal, Siti Khalijah Zainal

 

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE SHOLAY (2011)

Playwright:
Shiv Tandan

Director:
Huzir Sulaiman

Company:
Checkpoint Theatre, for NUS Arts Festival

Date:
25 March 2011

Venue:
University Cultural Centre Theatre

Cast:
Sara Abraham, Rahul Ghai, Nishant Jalgaonkar, Kubhaer T. Jethwani, Dipika Suresh, Shiv Tandan

 

YOU ARE HERE (2015)

Playwright:
Pooja Nansi

Director:
Joel Tan

Company:
Checkpoint Theatre, for Singapore Writers Festival (Part of What I Love About You)

Date:
6 – 7 November 2015

Venue:
The Arts House

Cast:
Pooja Nansi

 

 

By Daniel Teo
Published on 27 Oct 2017

The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart… traces the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre. Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, and featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi. Find out more here.

…over six-sevenths of the native population are unable to decipher [English] street signs and advertisements and even, in most cases, to read the names of the street.

Source: The Babel of Tongues in Singapore. In Malaya Tribune (17 October 1935), http://tinyurl.com/yavgn9f7

However, among the three largest ethnic groups in Singapore, the Indian population led the way in English literacy. The same 1931 census report found that 14.3% of the Indian population were literate in English, compared to 10.6% and 7.0% of their Chinese and Malay counterparts respectively.

While English literacy can refer to learning English as a second language in a vernacular school as well as receiving an education where the main language of instruction was English, Indian children in early twentieth century Singapore were more likely to go to an English school than an Indian vernacular school, especially among the Tamil-majority.

Tamil education in Singapore began with the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles who needed English-educated Indians with the knowledge of Tamil. This led to the formation of Anglo-Tamil schools where Tamil was the medium of instruction and English was also taught.

In later years, however, interest in learning Tamil as a first language declined as English-educated parents preferred to send their children to English-medium schools.

As early as 1957 there were ten times as many Indian children in English schools as in Tamil schools. This showed that the Indian population valued English education, more than education in Tamil as the first language.

Source: Importance of learning one’s mother tongue. In The Straits Times (27 August 1982), http://tinyurl.com/yaeaytmp

The Indians are, it is regrettable to have to say, perhaps the community here who have not taken any interest in their national languages. The Penang Indians are more keen on this subject, as evidenced by the fact that they have already over thirty Tamil schools in that Settlement. Singapore Indians are lagging far behind. Maybe they are of opinion that English is enough for their children.

Source: Indian Education in Singapore. In Malaya Tribune (22 January 1934), http://tinyurl.com/ybg75yv8

Popular accounts of this phenomenon tended to cite a very pragmatic reason for the Indian population choosing English over their mother tongues – there were simply better job opportunities if you had received an English education than if you had graduated from a vernacular school.

This attitude of the Indian population was understandable as prospects in the employment field were better for the English-educated school leavers than for those who came out of Tamil schools.

Source: Importance of learning one’s mother tongue. In The Straits Times (27 August 1982), http://tinyurl.com/yaeaytmp

I am a Tamil with a [sic] little knowledge of my mother tongue. There are many Tamil parents here who have not taken much interest in seeing that their children study the language. This is a great pity, and is unjust to the children. When I compare other communities with mine, I have to admit that the Tamils are at the bottom of the list. There is no other community in the world that despises its own mother tongue as does mine in this place…

It is plain that Tamils are sending their children to English Schools only for the purpose of obtaining jobs in the Government, or in firms, or anywhere, and not to obtain knowledge…

Source: The Tamil Language. In Malaya Tribune (17 February 1930), http://tinyurl.com/yb347h6v

An English education in colonial times did indeed have its advantages – more Indians were able to occupy higher-ranking positions in schools, hospitals and even government.

Historically, Indians were the first non-white population in Singapore to acquire a high standard of English. Many Indian families have used English exclusively as the home language for more than a generation. In the top ranks of the civil service and the professions (doctors, schoolteachers and principals), in the years immediately after independence, Indians were over-represented.

Source: Multiculturalism in Singapore: an instrument of social control by Chua Beng Huat, http://tinyurl.com/y8brh2jr

The promotion of English as a language to unite the various ethnic groups existed even during colonial times. But it was the People’s Action Party, which came into power in 1959, that fervently pursued the idea of a bilingual nation and English as lingua franca. Subsequent national policy decisions cemented English as a first language of the nation and the language of instruction in all schools.

English literacy rates in all three major ethnic groups rose steadily as all children in Singapore had to receive an education in English, with a mother tongue as a second language. The 2010 population census found that among Singaporeans aged 15 years and over, English literacy rates were 87.1%, 77.4% and 86.9% among the Indian, Chinese and Malay resident populations respectively.

If the adoption of English minoritises non-English speaking Chinese, it has also simultaneously eliminated the privileges of Indians prevalent during colonial days….once English-language education was available to all through the national education system, the over-representation of Indians in the civil service and professions disappeared. By the sheer statistical weight of making up over 75 per cent of the population, top civil servants were almost all ethnic Chinese within twenty years.

Source: Multiculturalism in Singapore: an instrument of social control by Chua Beng Huat, http://tinyurl.com/y8brh2jr

With all ethnic groups receiving education in English, the local Indian population no longer had the linguistic advantage it once had during colonial times.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 26 Oct 2017

The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart… traces the presence and absence of Indian roles in Singapore English-language theatre. Written by Aswani Aswath and dramaturged by Alfian Sa’at, and featuring the actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Sivakumar Palakrishnan and Grace Kalaiselvi. Find out more here.

“The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart…” stars local Indian actors (pictured from left to right) Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai,Sivakumar Palakrishnan, and Grace Kalaiselvi. It’s happening at Centre 42 on 28 & 29 October 2017.

“Ramesh Panicker… R. Chandran… Who else?” Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at was sitting in the Centre 42 office on a cloudy Monday morning, trying to list established local Indian stage actors off the top of his head. “They’re very good, but we keep going back to the same actors over and over again. Or we import them from Malaysia – I mean, Jo Kukathas is everywhere when we’re looking for Indian actresses, right?” he grins.

Alfian is no stranger to talking or writing about topics that are considered taboo. Over the last two decades, he has discussed politics in his poetry collection A History of Amnesia (2001), sexuality in his plays The Asian Boys Trilogy (2000, 2004, 2007), and race and religion in Nadirah (2009), to name just a few examples.

And now, he’s setting his sights on something that he feels is absent from the Singapore stage – Indian representation. The idea came when Alfian initiated a casual gathering for practitioners to come together to talk about diversity on the Singapore stage. At one point, veteran director Alec Tok expressed his sadness that they were having that discussion that day, as there used to be many wonderful English language plays with complex, nuanced Indian characters in the pre-2000 years. It occurred to Alfian that there is a vast body of work in the Singapore theatre canon that many practitioners have either forgotten about, or have no knowledge of, which might shed some light on the way things were for ethnic minority actors back then.

To explore this, he proposed to create a work under Centre 42’s Vault programme, which will examine the trajectory of Indian roles throughout the history of Singapore English-Language Theatre. For him, the Vault is the perfect platform to revisit some of these older plays. “I’ve been to a few of the Vault presentations, and I must say I like the kind of work that is produced in terms of examining the archives, in terms of taking a look at the theatre history that we have. I somehow feel that we don’t do that enough,” he says.

Acknowledging that the story of Indian representation is not necessarily one for him to tell as a Malay playwright, he teamed up with local Indian actors Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Grace Kalaiselvi, and Sivakumar Palakrishnan, and invited Aswani Aswath – the young resident playwright at Buds Theatre Company – to write the script for the Vault project. Alfian himself assumes the role of the dramaturg. The resulting piece, titled The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart…, will be presented at Centre 42 on 28 and 29 October 2017.

Chicken and egg problem

Alfian Sa’at. Photo: Daniel Teo.

To get the research process started for Absence, Alfian assigned each actor a period to focus on. “Each actor had the responsibility of going through particular decades [of Singaporean plays] in search of the elusive Indian actor,” Alfian explains with a wry smile.

Soon, they found that Alec was right – Indian characters weren’t so elusive in plays written between the 1960s and 1990s after all. They found Sheila Rani and Baram in Lim Chor Pee’s 1962 work Mimi Fan (which is often hailed as the first English-language Singaporean play), and they found Reginald Fernandez in Robert Yeo’s Are You There, Singapore? (1972). There were still notable and challenging roles written for Indian actors in the 1990s, such as Vinod in Haresh Sharma’s Off Centre (1993) and Nisha in Elangovan’s Talaq (staged in Tamil in 1999 and translated into English in 2000, although the English performance was eventually banned). But there is a noticeable decline in the number of plays with Indian actors after that.

So where did the Indian characters – and the talent pool of Indian actors – go?

To find out, the team spoke with prominent Indian personalities from the arts community, such as Haresh, veteran practitioner and educator T. Sasitharan, playwright and actor Rani Moorthy, actor and singer Jacintha Abisheganaden, and director and screenwriter K. Rajagopal.

“So what we discovered in our interviews is that in the early days, there were many Anglophone Indians. That is specific to the history of the British Raj in India,” Alfian reveals. “They were great debaters and orators, and just really good in English lah. So going into theatre came naturally for a lot of them. It’s a stereotype, but the gift of the gab, the particular eloquence in English, was associated with Indian actors. And they got cast in a lot of plays.”

What changed was Singapore’s language and education policies.

After the People’s Action Party came into power post-Independence, the new government declared that English should be used as the lingua franca of Singapore. The bilingual policy was officially introduced in 1966, and all students were taught English as their first language by 1987.

“So suddenly the learning of English became available to everyone, no matter what your race was. And the edge that these Anglophone Indians had when it came to the English language wasn’t there so much anymore,” says Alfian. “So part of the reason [that Indians became less prominent on the Singapore stage] was also due to changes in national policies, the education system, and shifts in the language environment.”

He also notes that since Singapore theatre is dominated by social realist works, it’s not surprising that many roles in these naturalistic plays are now written for the English-speaking Chinese majority. And herein lies what he refers to as the chicken-and-egg problem. “There are not enough roles out there written specifically for actors with Indian ethnicity. It seems as if playwrights and directors think it’s going to be hard to cast, because there are very few really experienced [Indian] actors these days,” he explains. “But if you don’t give these newcomers the opportunity, then they won’t have [anything to put in] their CVs. So you do need to initiate a process where you will cast the newcomers, because this is what’s going to beef up their CVs over time.”

Indian 101

At the time that we interviewed Alfian for this article, Absence’s playwright Aswani had just completed the first draft of the script. It is roughly divided into two parts – the first is a sort of “Indian 101”, which addresses certain misconceptions about “Indian-ness”, and the second is a reading of excerpts from Singaporean plays that feature Indian characters, including some of the ones mentioned above.

But rather than a conventional reading of these works, Alfian also wanted to include a commentary from Sangeetha, Grace, and Sivakumar about how they would assess these roles as actors. So he invented what he playfully named the Palakrishnan-Kalaiselvi-Dorai test (or the PKD test for short). It is based on the Bechdel test, which indicates the active presence of women in film. For the PKD test, it is passed when 1) the play has at least one Indian character in it, 2) who is not used as a token or to fill up a quota, 3) and does not perpetuate stereotypes, such as Bollywood dancing or excessive melodrama. The idea is that the actors would perform the play excerpts, and then give them a score based on the PKD test’s criteria.

“I want the audience to get some kind of insight about what roles are considered nuanced and complex, and what are considered stock. I think if we can hear from these actors about what kind of roles they love sinking their teeth into, and what are the kind that they feel are quite cardboard, then maybe some of us can learn something from it,” says Alfian.

Apart from the performance presentation, there will be a mini exhibition in our Front Courtyard. It will comprise a series of portraits featuring the three Indian actors in iconic roles that are often played by their colleagues from other races.

“We wanted a photography component because I think as a minority person I find the image very powerful. As something that’s aspirational, as something that can disrupt dominant standards of beauty,” says Alfian. “It’s not a coincidence that certain things, such as a magazine cover featuring a black or Asian model, make the news and make a lot of people excited. So our alternative history photo exhibition consisting of minority actors in iconic Singaporean plays will, I hope, provoke some discussion about how we cast for our plays.”

His wish is that the conversations generated by the performance and the exhibition can collectively serve as a first step towards breaking the chicken-and-egg cycle. “One thing that I learnt [during my research for Absence] is that if we want to write Indian characters into our plays, we wouldn’t be introducing a new thing. We would actually be reconnecting with our own historical tradition,” he says. “I hear a lot of people saying – especially playwrights – like I don’t dare to write about Indian characters, because I feel I don’t have the authority to write about it. But how did someone like Ovidia Yu, for example, have the confidence to write about an entire Indian family in Round and Round the Dining Table? I mean there are ways to do it, absolutely. One way is to just do research – you talk to people and let them read and fact check your script. Otherwise, you workshop and devise with others.”

And by presenting this edition of The Vault together with his all-Indian team, Alfian shows that that can, indeed, be done. Here’s hoping that more theatre-makers will follow in his footsteps, and get one step closer to bringing more diversity to our stages.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 12 October 2017

Find out more about The Vault: Absence Makes the Heart… here, and join us at Centre 42 on 28 & 29 October 2017.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #3.