Arts writer and former Straits Times theatre critic Corrie Tan interviews Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at about his life and work. The 75-minute Living Room Chat has been repackaged into a 3-part video recording.
Alfian 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 such as Corridor (1999) and The Invisible Manuscript (2012). 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. Corrie was a journalist with The Straits Times covering the arts and theatre scene in Singapore for the past six years. She was also on the judging panel for the Life Theatre Awards. Join Corrie and Alfian as they talk about his growth as a writer, the issues he explores in his work, and writing for English and Malay theatre. EVENT DETAILS Admission is free by registration.
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
8pm @ Centre 42 Black Box
Part 1: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at
Corrie gets Alfian to talk about his childhood as a “Mendaki kid”, singled out for his strong academic performance. The pair then move on to Alfian’s mentorship under The Necessary Stage’s Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma, and how it actually spurred him to move away from English play-writing towards poetry, short stories and Malay plays, all in a bid to differentiate himself from his prolific mentor. Corrie also brings up Alfian’s shortlived career as a theatre reviewer for the Straits Times.
Part 2: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at
Alfian and Corrie talk about censorship in the arts; telling alternative histories; verbatim theatre; developing memorable characters; intertextuality; and using social media as a public platform for discourse. Plays mentioned include “sex.violence.blood.gore” (1999), “Asian Boys Vol. 1: Dreamplay” (2000), “Asian Boys Vol. 3: Happy Endings”, “Cooling-Off Day” (2011), “To Cook a Pot of Curry” (2013), “Hotel” (2015), and “GRC” (2015).
Part 3: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at
Alfian fields questions from the audience.
Often referred to as Singapore’s enfant terrible, playwright and poet Alfian Sa’at is well known for both his wicked sense of humour and his razor sharp social commentary. In this edition of our Living Room programme, we invited former Straits Times arts writer Corrie Tan to have a dialogue with him about his life and works. We’ll be uploading the full video recording of the session soon, so watch this space! Photo credit: Sharmaine Goh
Source: Centre 42 Facebook
