It was in April 1992, at the opening of the Singapore Press Holdings Young Playwright Series, when then-Senior Minister of Education Tay Eng Soon intoned, “Ours is still a traditional society which values what is private and personal and is not comfortable with public values and explicit discussions of sexuality and what it considers as deviant values. By all means, let our “cultural desert” bloom. But please let the blossoms be beautiful and wholesome and not be prickly pears or weeds.”

The mid-80s to the early 90s was a particularly prolific period for Singapore theatre. This was the decade which theatre academic Robin Loon described as a “golden age” for local drama. Researcher Terence Chong also noted this period as a time when theatre-makers, both queer and queer-allied, felt emboldened enough to “perform their authenticity”.

The Vault: Desert Blooms delves into these ten years of Singapore theatre history, unearthing an abundance of LGBTQ-themed plays. Some of these plays are now celebrated works which continue to be restaged. Others, despite breaking new ground, have faded into obscurity.

An accompanying exhibition, titled The Desert Blooms, features nine of these plays. The exhibition details who, when and how these plays were created, and also touched on any resistance these plays might have encountered when they were staged for the first time. The Desert Blooms exhibition runs from 30 Nov to 20 Dec 2019 in the Centre 42 Library.

Here are the plays referred to in The Vault: Desert Blooms, with those featured in The Desert Blooms exhibition indicated with an asterix (*):

1986: Lest the Demons Get to Me by Russell Heng*
1987: Army Daze by Michael Chiang
1988: Rigor Mortis by Haresh Sharma & Alvin Tan
1988: Jackson on a Jaunt by Eleanor Wong*
1988: As If He Hears by Chay Yew*
1989: Liwat [Sodomy] by Nizam Rahman
1990: Akka அக்கா by G. Selvanathan*
1991: The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate ‘S’ Machine by Tan Tarn How
1991: Marrying by Ovidia Yu
1991: Imagine by Ovidia Yu
1992: Another Tribe 异族 by Otto Fong*
1992: Lives Elsewhere 生命他乡 by Lee Chee Kin
1992: The Next Generations 后代 by Lim Soon Lan
1992: Posteterne 英台起诉记 by Goh Boon Teck
1992: Three Fat Virgins Unassembled by Ovidia Yu
1992: The Famous Five Go on an Adventure by Robin Loon
1992: Glass Roots… Please Don’t Step on Them by Haresh Sharma
1992: Porcelain by Chay Yew
1992: Private Parts by Michael Chiang*
1992: Mergers and Accusations by Eleanor Wong*
1993: Land by Haresh Sharma
1993: Don’t Go Swimming, It’s Not Safe by Josef Ng
1993: Brother Cane by Josef Ng
1993: Bugis Street: The Musical
Music by Raymond and Edmund Ooi,
Lyrics by Tan Hwee Hua and Mock Pak Lum
Book by Koh Buck Song and Tan Hwee Hua
1993: We Are Family by Otto Fong
1994: A Language of Their Own by Chay Yew*
1995: Half Century by Russell Heng
1995: Wills and Secession by Eleanor Wong
1995: Purple by Goh Boon Teck*

And to find out more about making theatre in the 1980s and 1990s, here’s some further reading:
Singapore Theatre in the 1980s
Singapore Theatre in the 1990s

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The Vault: Desert Blooms is a lecture-performance tracing the history of Singapore theatre from 1985 to 1995 through a queer lens. Desert Blooms was created by Ng Yi-Sheng, directed by Tan Shou Chen, and performed by Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Yap Yi Kai and Izzul Irfan . Find our more here.

With original English-language plays by the likes of Lim Chor Pee and Goh Poh Seng in the 1960s, it seemed like Singapore theatre was off to a promising start. But just a decade into Singapore’s independence, it was Goh that made the above statement calling time on the local theatre scene.

Perhaps rumours of Singapore theatre’s death in the 1970s had been greatly exaggerated. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that arts writers like Clarissa Oon can call the decade as Singapore theatre “in transition”, especially with the “first golden age of Singapore theatre” just around the corner in the 80’s.

Here is a glimpse into how Singapore theatre was alive and kicking in the 1970s through three key trends of the decade.

• 1. A hardy (but amateur) lot
• 2. A lack of good local full-length plays
• 3. State interventions

• Contrary to expectations and predictions, interest in drama did not collapse.Violet Oon

  Early in the 1970s, the withdrawal of the British troops from Singapore spelt doom for a largely amateur and expatriate theatre scene. Stage clubs in military bases like Tengah and Nee Soon wound up as its British members and audiences left the island. In 1971, the Singapore Herald reported that local theatre enthusiasts were predicting Singapore theatre would “die a natural death in a year’s time”. Nancy Byramji for the Straits Times painted a mournful picture of “empty seats” in theatre houses.

  But all was not lost. A year later, New Nation’s Violet Oon jauntily wrote, “Contrary to expectations and predictions, interest in drama did not collapse.” Oon pointed out that the void left behind by the British groups was in actual fact space for newer players to emerge, albeit inexperienced.

  Active amateur theatre groups of the decade included the Stage Club and The Young Musician’s Society, alongside collectives started in the local university, like Experimental Theatre Club, University of Singapore Society and University of Singapore Drama Society. But while the 1970s in Singapore was marked by high economic growth rates and a newfound prosperity for the fledgling nation, these local theatre groups didn’t seem to be part of the success story, struggling for money, audiences, members, and even space.

  Former members of these groups painted a bleak picture. In the Singapore theatre history publication Theatre Life!, Kate James said that Experimental Theatre Club could be performing to an audience of just 20 people, and Lim Kay Tong declared “there was no theatre scene” because productions were far and few between. “Turnover of membership is very high. Our problem is to get a core of members who will be there to keep the interest going,” said D. Murugan, president of the Experimental Theatre Club. Murugan also bemoaned the lack of rehearsal space, with his club wandering from one home of a “kind host” to another.

  All these problems were pegged to an absent professional theatre industry. Donald Moore writing for New Nation was harsh in his critique of the Singapore English-language theatre scene at the time: “The Western theatre is the prisoner of its own inevitably amateur status, incapable of producing anything but mediocrity. With the best will in the world, little is possible in the theatre without long and arduous training, professionalism, and a modicum of genius.”

  Yet, for all these problems, the amateur theatre groups of the 70’s soldiered on. Amy Chua for the Straits Times called these groups a “hardy lot” who were “self-supporting”, continuing the stage productions year on year out of passion for theatre.

   

• As you write a play, you feel justice will not be done to your work – so you fight shy of writing it.Goh Poh Seng

  Local theatre groups in the 1970s preferred to stage Western plays in the belief that local play-writing was both scarce and of low quality. This wasn’t an entirely grim situation. Clarissa Oon wrote, “Although the reliance on foreign plays set back the development of a Singaporean voice, the fact that these [Western] scripts tended to be well-crafted allowed homegrown directing and acting talent to shine.”

  Still, a good full-length original Singapore play was an extreme rarity in this decade. Some locally-written short plays did make it to the stage during the decade, and on one occasion in 1972 were described as “show[ing] some promise”. But from the 70’s, only two stand-out full-length Singapore plays emerged.

  The first was Robert Yeo’s Are You There, Singapore?, about a group of Singaporean students studying in London. Yeo was then a published poet and a first-time playwright. Are You There, Singapore? was staged by the University of Singapore Society in 1974 to full houses of local audiences. Reviewing Are You There, Singapore? for New Nation, Violet Oon was effulsive in her praise for the original work: “[I]t convinced me more than ever that Singaporeans should act in plays written by our own people because then we can identify with the ideas, moods and nuances. Double meanings can be understood and appreciated. This feeling seems to be shared by other people because it is about the best-attended play I’ve seen.”

  Three years later, chemist Li Lien Fung would pen The Sword Has Two Edges based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which, like Yeo, was her first full-length English script. Li’s play was staged by the Experimental Theatre Club in 1977 and achieved similar box office success. Oon called The Sword Has Two Edges “undoubtedly the best local play I’ve seen produced so far.”

  These two works proved that there was an appetite for Singaporean plays. So why weren’t more full-length local works written during the decade? While Goh Poh Seng admitted that local writing wasn’t up to par, but he also pinned the blame on the amateur groups. “The frustrating thing is that there are no theatre groups in Singapore of any standing or standards at all,” he wrote in New Nation in 1976. “As you write a play, you feel justice will not be done to your work – so you fight shy of writing it. One is always accepting limitations – bad actors, amateur directors, no decent lighting and stage facilities, and so on.” Which should come first – good plays or good theatre groups? “It’s a vicious cycle,” declared Goh.

• In 1977, the Ministry of Culture convened an advisory committee on drama comprising a number of theatremakers and chaired by Robert Yeo. A number of initiatives emerged from the recommendations of the committee to boost Singapore theatre-making and -going.

  One of these initiatives was the Drama Promotion Scheme, a $2,000 grant for theatre groups to stage productions. The Business Times in January 1978 reported that the scheme carried two conditions: all profits from the production would go back to the Ministry, and ticket prices had to be kept low to encourage public attendance.

  The advisory committee’s recommendations also spawned a nation-wide playwriting competition, as well as an annual Drama Festival. The inaugural Drama Festival was a two-week affair in August 1978 at the Victoria Theatre with 15 stage performances. The Ministry of Culture, which organised the festival, intended for the event to “raise the standard of drama performance and encourage appreciation of drama among Singaporean”. The Ministry later described the first Drama Festival as a “reasonable success [with] attendances averaging 60 per cent and above at most performances”.

  Also of note was the first Singapore Festival of the Arts in 1977 – a precursor of today’s Singapore International Festival of Arts – organised by The Young Musicans’ Society. (The running of subsequent editions was taken over by the Ministry of Culture and its successors.) The Singapore Festival of the Arts provided yet another platform for theatre groups to create and stage work for local audiences.

  But the 1970s was also a chilling time to be in theatre with cultural policing by the State. Some of it was relatively benign, like national policies barring foreign men with long hair from entering the country. Other measures were more restrictive – Ministry of Culture regulated and censored material for public consumption, including play scripts. For example, the University of Singapore Drama Society was banned from staging Yukio Mishima’s Madame de Sade in 1972 because the Ministry had deemed the script “unacceptable”. A performance permit for Yeo’s sophomore play One Year Back Home was also held back for over a year until sufficient revisions had been made to its overtly political content; the play was eventually permitted to be performed in 1980.

  Perhaps most severe of all government interventions in the decade was the crackdown on political dissidents suspected of pro-communist activities. In the mid-1970s, alleged enemies of the state were detained without trial, including many local practitioners of Chinese theatre, which at the time was producing socially and politically charged works. Among the Chinese theatre practitioners detained were dramatist Kuo Pao Kun and his wife Goh Lay Kuan, founders of the Practice Theatre School (now The Theatre Practice). Koh and Goh were detained in 1976 and held for four-and-a-half years and six months respectively.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 19 April 2019

References

Business Times. (1978, January 23). Upturn for local drama. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Byramji, N. (1971, April 11). The empty seats that wait for the young ones to grow up. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Chua, A. (1976, December 16). The cultural desert. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Goh, P. S. (1976, October 1). Playwrights don’t use ordinary speech – that’s why they are a failure. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Lam, D. (1978, August 28). Ministry: First Drama Festival a success. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Loon, R. (2016). Singapore English Theatre: Dynamic and diverse. In Singapore Chronicles: Theatre (pp. 17-41). Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies & Straits Times Press.
Moore, D. (1971, July 24). The state of the arts in Singapore. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
New Nation. (1978, May 28). Focus on stage. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Oon, C. (2001). Theatre Life!: A history of English-language theatre in Singapore through The Straits Times (1958-2000). Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings.
Oon, V. (1972, January 8). A not-too-drastic drop in standards. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Oon, V. (1972, April 28). Local plays show some promise. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Oon. V. (1974, July 26). Bob’s play goes off like a shot. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Oon. V. (1977, August 26). Breathes life into history. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Singapore Herald. (1971, January 29). Local drama groups inactive. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Straits Times. (1972, December 9). Govt bans play to be staged by University Drama Society. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Straits Times. (1978, September 26). High turnover impeding steady growth of drama. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.

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The Vault: Gossip, Symphony & Other Matters features three performance responses to Robert Yeo’s One Year Back Home. The three performance responses are created by the graduating students of the NUS Theatre Studies Theatre Lab, engaging with and responding to the ideas, dramaturgy and theatricalities in One Year Back Home. Gossip, Symphony & Other Matters is presented by Centre 42 and NUS Theatre Studies. Find our more here.

One Year Back Home is the second play in Robert Yeo’s The Singapore Trilogy. Set in 1972, returning characters Hua and her brother Chye, and their mutual friend Fernandez, are back in Singapore after completing their studies in London.

Hua is a single mother to a five-year-old daughter who was conceived during the events of the first play. She begins dating Gerald, but chooses to keep her daughter a secret from him.

Chye and Fernandez become political opponents, the former contesting in the election as a member of the ruling Political Action Party, and the latter, in the opposition Workers’ Party. The play concludes with Chye elected into Parliament and Fernandez arrested for making inflammatory statements at a rally.

First Staging

Buoyed by the immense success of Are You There, Singapore? in 1974 , Yeo wrote the sequel One Year Back Home in 1979. But he had difficulty in finding willing parties to stage his script.

Yeo told the Straits Times‘s John De Souza in 1980 that one producer was “scared” to stage One Year Back Home, fearing retaliation over the play’s political content. Local writing was also much derided at the time – an industry peer allegedly told Yeo, “Why write new plays when there are so many good ones already written?”

Yeo eventually turned to Max Le Blond to produce and direct One Year Back Home under the aegis of the University of Singapore Society, the group that also staged Are You There, Singapore?

But there was another snag in bringing One Year Back Home to the stage. In July 1979, Yeo wrote to the Ministry of Culture to obtain a permit to perform the play in September that year. One month later, his request for the permit was rejected. It was only in May 1980, after more letters, phone calls, interviews and revisions to the script, that the Ministry of Culture permitted One Year Back Home to be performed. (Yeo recounts the 18-month journey to obtain the permit in the preface of the published script.)

One Year Back Home was finally performed from 20 to 22 November 1980 at the DBS Auditorium. (The play would receive one more staging in 1990 in TheatreWorks’ festival of Singapore theatre history The Retrospective.)

Responses

Local audiences thronged the auditorium eager to see the follow-up to Yeo’s Are You There, Singapore?. Theatre critics of the time, however, were divided over their evaluation of the sequel.

Margaret Chan, writing for New Nation, was emphatic in her praise of the production: “Last night I had the closest encounter with good Singapore theatre, and it was thrilling.” She called Le Blond’s direction “artistically and technically tight” and remarked that the Singaporean-ness of Yeo’s text made the experience “living theatre”.

Wong Hsien Cheen, also reviewing for New Nation, and Goh Kian Chee for the Straits Times, were in agreement that Yeo’s text was ponderous and heavy-handed. Wong wrote, “What emerged was a hotchpotch of sterile views which reduced Fernandez and Chye to caricatures… What is evident is that Mr Yeo must find some way of unburdening it of the heavy rhetoric which mucks up the whole thing.”

Goh echoed this view: “I would be failing if I did not point out what I consider to be its two major inadequacies: One, it is too didactic, at the expense of entertainment. And two, it reads better than it sounds, and even at that, there really are too few punch lines.”

In addition, both Chan and Wong noted that the production was drawing laughter from the audience for its portrayal of Singaporean colloquialisms. The lighter moments though, were to the detriment of the production’s more serious scenes. Wong recounted, “At some point in the evening, the humour probably became too infectious, and the final scene when the Internal Security men came to arrest Fernandez was not greeted by the hushed unease of violated human liberties, but unbridled laughter! I suspect that, quite inadvertently, Robert Yeo has written a successful political comedy.”

Goh neatly summed up his experience of One Year Back Home: “Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend One Year to those seriously interested in the development of drama in Singapore. It is not a great play, but it is interesting enough for an evening out.”

Significance

Despite mixed reviews of its debut production, One Year Back Home would become an important entry in the Singapore dramatic canon.

Yeo appears as a sort of maverick for portraying local politics so vividly in One Year Back Home, especially when the sequel was written just a few years after eminent dramatist Kuo Pao Kun was arrested for alleged communist sentiments in his works. Yeo was quoted as saying, “[M]y play is a breakthrough because I’m taking on sensitive material, but I’m doing it from the point of view of an artist and I’m using the medium of a play to say these things.”

Even before the premiere of One Year Back Home, news media reporting on the production picked up on the political content of Yeo’s play. In a preview of the play published in New Nation a month before the production, Chan wrote, “The play, meant to be a social commentary, turned out to be political… Topical issues are aired in the battle [between Chye and Fernandez] such as the need for an opposition for its own sake in a democracy, blatant materialism breeding greed and tragic loss, the chit fund crash of that time and the need to conform.”

One Year Back Home and the rest of the Singapore Trilogy are also noted for their realistic portrayal of Singaporeans and Singapore society. In the infancy of the Singapore theatre landscape, it was Yeo’s belief that writers and practitioners should first focus on rendering Singaporean-ness as closely as possible in text and on stage. “What I’m trying to do is to reflect, to mirror reality,” Yeo said in an interview in 1980. “Now is the time, I feel, to start writing about the things around us… not symbolically or metaphorically, but realistically.”

Academics K.K. Seet and Chitra Sankaran historically situate the social realism of Yeo’s plays in their introduction to the Singapore Trilogy: “Yeo’s political dramas of the 1970s and early 1980s can be regarded as trailblazers, ushering in succeeding decades when Kuo Pao Kun would resort to allegory to question the status quo or Tan Tarn How would infringe on taboo areas and confront conservative political sensibilities through the veil of satire.”

One Year Back Home would also be heralded as one of the earliest examples of successfully representing the local patois on the page. In particular, Hua and Chye’s mother, Mrs Ang, is highlighted for her naturalistic speech in the play. Yeo had found a way to portray how a non-English educated Singaporean might speak English in a manner that felt more authentic and acceptable than attempts by forebearers like Goh Poh Seng and Lim Chor Pee.

“There are some ‘lahs’, and ‘aiyahs’ but the characters being English-educated speak well enough to develop dialogue,” an unnamed local writer observed in One Year Back Home. “Mrs Ang, Chye’s mother is not English educated and speaks broken English. She is Peranakan, and Mr Ang senior is Hokkien. So both compromise and speak English at home. That’s how the wily Robert Yeo has slipped out of the trap of authentic communication in this case.”

According to Seet and Sankaran, Mrs Ang’s language features “a range of linguistic registers [extending] from Standard Singapore English to different forms of colloquial Singapore English […] including rich code-mixing and code-switching”.

Examining the significance of One Year Back Home against the backdrop of Singapore English-language theatre history, academic Robin Loon observed that the play and its box office success in 1980 was an indication that “there [was] an audience for locally-written English language plays [and that] the dramatist and playwright’s voice was also growing and beginning to engage with immediate social and political issues.”

By Daniel Teo
Published on 16 April 2019

One Year Back Home can be found in:

Yeo, R. (1990). One Year Back Home: A play in five scenes. Singapore: Solidarity Foundation.
Yeo, R. (2001). The Singapore Trilogy. Singapore: Landmark Books.

Other Sources:

Chan, M. (1980, October 10). From concern in the wings to centre stage. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Chan, M. (1980, November 21). Local idiom brings play to life. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
De Souza, J. (1980, November 20). A playwright’s reality. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Goh, K. C. (1980, November 21). Not great, but… In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.
Loon, R. (2016). Singapore English Theatre: Dynamic and diverse. In Singapore Chronicles: Theatre (pp. 17-41). Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies & Straits Times Press.
Wong, H. C. (1980, November 23). A success as political comedy. In New Nation. Downloaded from NewspaperSG.

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The Vault: Gossip, Symphony & Other Matters features three performance responses to Robert Yeo’s One Year Back Home. The three performance responses are created by the graduating students of the NUS Theatre Studies Theatre Lab, engaging with and responding to the ideas, dramaturgy and theatricalities in One Year Back Home. Gossip, Symphony & Other Matters is presented by Centre 42 and NUS Theatre Studies. Find our more here.

The creators of The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl (from left to right): Sarah Amalina, Brenda Tan, Lee Shu Yu, and Eugene Koh. Photo: Gwen Pew

Written in 1982, Stella Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill is one of the most well-known and beloved plays in the Singapore English-Language Theatre canon. And now, 36 years after the monodrama was first written, a group of young theatre practitioners have decided to revisit the work and examine it in a new light through Centre 42’s Vault programme. Titled The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl, this new creation is written and co-directed by Eugene Koh, co-directed by Lee Shu Yu, performed by Brenda Tan, and stage managed and documented by Sarah Amalina. It mixes parts of the original play text with new writing and multi-media, and aims to explore what Emily might look like in the social media age through a new character called Elisabeth, who the team devised together.

The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl will be performed at Centre 42 on 29 and 30 June. In this interview, we chat with Eugene, Shu Yu, and Brenda to find out more about what we can expect.

How did the idea for The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl come about?
Eugene Koh (EK): We were taking the module ‘Singapore English-Language Theatre’ in NUS [National University of Singapore], and in one of the first lessons we were talking about Emily of Emerald Hill, and Dr. [Robin] Loon [lecturer and Centre 42’s co-founder] mentioned that you can never tell who Emily was addressing: the audience in the 1950s, or in the future, or in the past. It made me wonder why, then, is this play so recognized and remembered, if the audience are not sure where to place themselves? And I drew the parallel to YouTube videos, where everything seems like it’s happening in the present, even though you know it’s made in the past. So it started from that idea.

What are you hoping to explore through this work?
Lee Shu Yu (LSY): When you look at Emily as a character, there is a lot of debate about whether you should like her or hate her, so we wanted to capture that through Elisabeth as well. We wanted to represent a kind of performativity of identity through the lens of social media, because nowadays that’s what’s happening around us, so we wanted to represent that onstage.

Brenda Tan (BT): We also wanted to explore how Emily navigates with the space and interacts with different characters through Elisabeth. It’s interesting to see her as a sole character and focus on how her body and voice changes.

How did you go about exploring the characters of both Emily and Elisabeth in your upcoming work?
BT: Emily is a very established character who has been portrayed by a ton of really great actors over the years, and you see different people bringing out a different side of Emily – Margaret Chan was very motherly, Ivan Heng was more performative and funny, etc. So in drawing the parallel to Elisabeth being a millennial who uses the internet and navigates around the social media space, we wanted her to be someone who is approachable. She’s performative in a way, but still true to her own character.

Do you see The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl as an extension or an adaptation of Emily of Emerald Hill?
LSY: It’s a sequel, adaptation, and reinterpretation all at once. It is a sequel in terms of timeline and Elisabeth’s relationship to Emily; it’s an adaptation because we took our reference from the source material; but it’s also a reinterpretation because we took certain themes and moods of each scene but used them in our own way.

What was your process like in creating The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl?
EK: It was collaborative.

BT: We literally sat in Eugene’s room, and he had post-it notes of different scenes from Emily of Emerald Hill stuck on his wardrobe door. And we were like, “Hmm this one is nice. Okay, let’s move this here…” And we just kind of see how it fits and which scenes from the original text we wanted to keep.

EK: As for the voice of Elisabeth, most of it came from Brenda. She would improvise certain scenes.

BT: It can be difficult because I also make YouTube videos, so in many of these instances I am being me and I can relate, but at the same time I have to be very careful and remember that it’s also not me.

LSY: So every time Brenda comes up with something, we will take it apart and discuss what’s interesting about it, how it’s similar to Emily, or why it’s relevant to today’s life.

Brenda, you mentioned that you’re also a YouTuber in real life. What’s that like for you?
BT: I started making YouTube videos just as I entered university, so for two and a half years now. My videos are mostly about skincare, makeup, and fashion, but some people who follow me will request videos and I’ll do them. So it became about food, lifestyle, home, and other personal stuff. More recently, I started talking about social issues because not a lot of people are talking about them. It’s been such an adventure. I didn’t expect to have an audience, because I initially made the videos as a companion to my blog. I’ve always been a social media baby. I found that it’s the best way to make very quick, sincere interactions, and I never thought it’s fake because you know how Singaporeans are really shy, so when someone wants to reach out to me, they will write me an email or they’ll slide into my DMs [direct messages] [laughs]. It’s nice to be able to pour my heart out in front of the camera and find that there’s a group of people who feel the same way and actually want to have a sincere conversation about it.

There’s a multimedia element in The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl. Can you tell us more about that?
EK: Emily of Emerald Hill uses a lot of media that was fairly new at the time – things like voice recording or projector slides – to enhance the theatrical illusion of the play. And for us, we felt that we should pay homage to that by using social media in our performance as well.

LSY: I think one big thing that kept coming up as we were thinking about it was the staging of it. We have multimedia going on in the background, but we also have a live performer. So which is more ‘live’ and which is more ‘present’?

What were some of the challenges that you faced during the creation process?
LSY: Interestingly, the big challenges we had actually worked out pretty okay – in terms of when we were brainstorming about creative ideas, working out plot holes and things like that. The main roadblocks were things like looking for archive footages and going through the paperwork of obtaining them. Thankfully people like [producer] Jeremiah [Choy] and Centre 42 helped.

Who is your ideal audience for this work?
BT: People who are genuinely interested in seeing how Emily of Emerald Hill has evolved – people who are hopefully familiar with the play and the themes that it discusses. Hopefully, our piece will provide them with a platform for deeper conversation.

Do you feel like it’s more for the millennial generation – since you’re referencing the social media world so much – or is it for everyone else as well?
EK: I guess both. Those who are more familiar with the earlier stagings of Emily of Emerald Hill will pick up more on how things have changed. With the millennial generation, I guess they would recognize the environment that Elisabeth is in and, through that, understand what Emily of Emerald Hill is about. So, the net is fairly wide?

BT: Also, if it piques an interest in people who have never read or watched Emily of Emerald Hill to pick up the script to read it, you know, then that’s great!

By Gwen Pew
Published on 21 June 2018

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The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl is an adaptation of Stella Kon’s much-loved play Emily of Emerald Hill. Created by Eugene Koh and Lee Shu Yu, and performed by Brenda Tan, @thisisemeraldgirl combines new writing, multimedia, and Stella Kon’s original text in a monologue exploring family and social life in a social media age. Find out more here.
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At the time, Singapore was emerging as a new economic powerhouse, and a young generation of English-educated Singaporeans were ready to create and consume theatre. This was the decade when many of the seeds for today’s scene were planted.

By the 1980s, the country was experiencing high levels of economic growth thanks to an export oriented economic strategy. The blip of the 1985 recession nonwithstanding, Singaporeans enjoyed material affluence and, as the fruit of meticulous state-centered planning, a middle class began to emerge by the mid 1980s. Accompanying this emergence were the emotional stirrings over larger questions of national identity and culture. The English-educated middle class was searching for its soul. It was against the backdrop of these emotional stirrings over national identity that a Singapore English-language theatre was born in the mid-late 1980s.

The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and resistance by Terence Chong. Routledge, 2011 (p.4).

Here are three trends which defined the 80’s in Singapore theatre.

• 1. The Search for a Singapore Theatre
• 2. Proliferation and Professionalisation of Theatre Groups
• 3. State Support for the Arts

• 1. The Search for a Singapore Theatre

  The turning point of Singapore English theatre which heralded this unprecedented activity in 1985 – at a time of economic recession previously unknown in modern Singapore and reducing company sponsorship of the main festival in Singapore – is not something that can be pinned down to one particular event. But chief amongst the many factors must be, I would suggest, an increasing recognition that writers, directors, actors and audiences required there to be a phenomenon recognisable as Singapore theatre.

  Singapore English Drama: A Historical Overview by David Birch. In 9 Lives: 10 Years of Singapore Theatre 1987 – 1997 (pp.41-42).

  Early in the decade, there was an insistent call for original Singaporean plays. Part of the demand was State-led, with annual play-writing competitions organised by the Ministry of Culture and the Singapore Cultural Foundation beginning in the late 70’s. On the ground, theatre practitioners and academics like Max le Blond were leading the charge for the creation of more Singaporean dramatic texts.

  Some of the material available for staging is, in fact, pretty ghastly stuff, totally lacking, even on the most generous of estimates, in the barest essentials of theatrical validity.

  On the other hand, there have been local scripts which have amply proved themselves in performance in recent years – demonstrating their capacity to fill the house for a two-night or three-night run.

  Year of the local playwright? By Max le Blond. In Straits Times (24 January 1982), https://tinyurl.com/y9rorexe

  By house-filling scripts, le Blond, a university lecturer and theatre practitioner, was referring to The Sword Has Two Edges by Li Lienfung, staged in 1977, and One Year Back Home by Robert Yeo, staged in 1980.

  But the problem wasn’t entirely a lack of good home-grown plays. Local plays were not often staged in early 80’s, as theatre academic David Birch points out in 1984:

  If you attended the several hundred English plays that have been staged here since 1959, you would have seen a total of 19 English plays or adaptations written by Singaporeans (excluding schools plays).

  […]

  Is it because there aren’t any writers of English plays here? Hardly. In the 1983 national playwriting competition, half of the 224 entries were in English. That hardly suggests a death of playwrights in English.

  Why are local English plays so rarely staged? By David Birch. In Straits Times (23 September 1984), https://tinyurl.com/y7tlhjpt

  The biennial Singapore Festival of Arts was taking incremental steps to help develop and showcase Singapore theatre. In 1982, it commissioned the musical Samsung and the Chettiar’s Daughter, a local adaptation of the British classic The Beggar’s Opera. It featured an all-local cast, and was directed by Australian Tasker. In 1984, the festival mounted Bumboat!, a showcase of local play-writing and performers. American Tzi Ma was flown in to direct the production alongside Singaporean Lim Siauw Chong.

  In a review of the 1984 Singapore Festival of Arts, theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun criticised the festival’s tepid attempts at creating opportunities to forge a local theatre created and performed solely by local theatremakers, without any foreign involvement.

  Given the due recognition for Bumboat!’s present success, can we envisage what could have happened to the exercise if it were left entirely to the local talent?

  Two things would have happened:

  Firstly, the development of the indigenous English-stream theatre would have taken a much more advanced step; we would have had a total integration of our writing, directing, acting and staging resources.

  Secondly, the play would have decidedly more indigenous in substance. Theatrically, it could have been a better production, or it could have been one not as good. But it would have been unmistakably more Singaporean.

  …

  From Samseng [and the Chettiar’s Daughter] to Bumboat!, there was a discernible conservative mentality over-shadowing the English-stream which failed to allow the indigenous talents to have a free hand to take over the entire stage and initiate their very own theatre, imprinting a stamp wholesomely theirs.

  Setting the stage for indigenous English-stream theatre here by Kuo Pao Kun. In Singapore Monitor (13 July 1984)., https://tinyurl.com/ybmdsdgc

  The latter half of the 80’s saw some of Singapore theatre’s most iconic works being staged by Singapore theatremakers. These were runaway successes at home and aboard, including – to name a few – Stella Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill, staged at the 1985 Drama Festival; Kuo Pao Kun’s monologues The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole and No Parking on Odd Days, premiered in English in 1985 and 1986 respectively; and Michael Chiang and Dick Lee’s musical Beauty World, staged at the 1988 Singapore Festival of Arts.

• 2. Proliferation and Professionalisation of Theatre Groups

  The 80’s was also marked by emergence of many English-language theatre groups. Former Straits Times theatre critic Clarissa Oon attributes this surge in local amateur theatremaking to the English-language education policies implemented in the preceding decades.

  …the 1980s was a time when a Singapore English-language theatre took shape, fed by a groundswell of stage talent and audiences. Education policies of the 1960s and 1970s are key to understanding the shift in the status of English drama from a minority concern to a mainstream activity. As the government decided to promote the use of English for economic development, Chinese-, Malay- and Tamil-medium schools saw dwindling enrolment before ceasing to be viable.

  […]

  The effect of these education policies was swift and significant. Young English-speaking Singaporeans formed their own theatre groups in the 1980s, and English-speaking audiences – increasingly affluent and searching for an identity – were converging at the theatre. At the same time, the supple of talent and audiences to the theatres of the other language streams dropped dramatically.

  Theatre Life!: A History of English-language Theatre in Singapore through The Straits Times (1958-2000) by Clarrisa Oon. Singapore Press Holdings, 2001 (pp. 99-101).

  Amateur theatre groups born in the decade tended to emerge from schools and universities, groups like Third Stage, The Necessary Stage and Action Theatre. The latter two groups would later go on to become professional theatre companies. Third Stage, however, with its focus on original works about Singaporean issues, operated for only four years in the 80’s as its members were detained without trial under charges of anti-government conspiracy in 1987.

  Other notable amateur groups during the decade included William Teo’s Asia-in-Theatre Research Circus, and Christina Sergeant and Shirley Smith’s Actor’s Theatre Circle.

  In the past year or so, many new and talented young drama groups, actors, directors and playwrights have emerged into the public spotlight.

  Most shone in the Drama Festival ’87, held from August to September, and if they develop as well as their debuts promise, should keep local theatre exciting at least until the 1990s.

  The groups range in age from Necessary Stage and Arts & Acts, formed last year, to the barely month-old Play-Acts Productions of Siglap Community Centre.

  […]

  All seem to share common emotions – a fearless, non-academic, “real-life” approach to drama, and a need for self-expression through theatre.

  Dramatic developments by John de Souza. In Straits Times (30 December 1987), https://tinyurl.com/yajhvdcd

  Amongst the first theatre groups to go professional was TheatreWorks, founded in 1985 by Lim Kay Tong, Justin Hill, and Lim Siauw Chong.

  The first professional theatre company for adults has been quietly launched.

  Sixty-seven people showed up last weekend to join TheatreWorks.

  […]

  The TheatreWorks personnel were relaxed and businesslike. The venture has just been registered as a private limited company, so the essential business of compiling files and contacts, taking photographs, holding interviews (average time per candidate was 14 minutes) and the subsequent evaluation of data was conducted cheerfully and meticulously.

  Justin Hill, project manager of the company, fronted an explain-the-aims session – to put on plays of particular relevance to Singaporeans; to entertain; to reject artistic xenophobia; to nurture local plays; to develop potential; to consolidate theatrical talent; to attain high standards in theatre, and, ultimately (“in four or five years”), to have people earning a living in Singapore theatre.

  Launch of play group by Kate James. In Straits Times (9 March 1985), https://tinyurl.com/yalncq9e

  Theatre academic Robin Loon concludes that the 80’s was a time of the “start-ups”, seeding explosive growth in the English-language theatre scene in Singapore in the following decade.

  This period can be best summarised as a foundational period. As much as the audience was looking to theatre in search of its identity, so were these companies and groups. It was in the next five years that all the groups would come into their own, creating a specialised segment and focus in the scene for themselves.

  Singapore English Theatre: Dynamic and Diverse by Robin Loon. In Singapore Chronicles: Theatre, 2016 (pp.31-32).

• 3. State Support for the Arts

  The 80’s was a time when present-day State support structures for the arts were taking shape. National platforms like the Singapore Festival of the Arts (a precursor of the Singapore International Festival of the Art) and the Drama Festival functioned, in part, as commissioning bodies for local theatrical works. Annual national play-writing competitions, beginning in the late 70’s, were organised by the Ministry of Culture and Singapore Cultural Foundation, with cash rewards for prize-winning scripts. The latter organisation also disbursed grants for arts production and scholarship.

  Max le Blond, lecturer at the National University of Singapore and theatre director, was quoted as saying:

  Government support for local theatre is increasing and we have much to be grateful for, but more can be done. No theatre, no matter how eminent and powerful, can survive in a context such as ours without governmental support.

  How we can encourage the birth of a Singapore theatre by Sunny Goh. In New Nation (8 May 1981), https://tinyurl.com/ydbvyr8o

  One of the most impactful and enduring State-driven initiatives to emerge from the decade was the Arts Housing Scheme. It was the brainchild of Juliana Lim, then with the Ministry of Community Development, for disused state-owned heritage properties to be rented out to arts groups who lacked headquarters and rehearsal spaces.

  In 1983 and 1985, we conducted surveys on the housing arrangements for arts groups and found that except for groups which were aligned to clan associations or churches, the majority were “nomadic” in nature.  They held their rehearsals in the homes of Committee members, at the now demolished Drama Centre’s “Practice Rooms A & B” (where the new Annexe of the National Museum now stands), in school halls and community centres, as and when they were available and the groups could afford it.

  […]

  In 1985, I was sent to West Berlin to attend a Seminar on Cultural Administration organized by the Goethe Institut.  There, I saw a railway station and other old buildings converted into arts spaces.  This was also the case in Australia which I toured in 1988 – Gormon House in Canberra, Victoria Meat Market in Melbourne, Gertrude Street in Sydney and many others.

  Every quarter, the Land Office circulated a list of disused Government buildings, mostly disused schools to all ministries. The organisations which normally responded to the offer were the charitable service organizations.  It dawned on me that the arts were as needy as these charitable groups but not knowing whether our requests would be well received, I invited a Mr Rajaratnam of the Land Office for a chat. He was kind enough to come over to my office at City Hall and after sharing with him about “Cultural Vision 1999”, our conversation went something like this (truly!):  Juliana: “Mr Raja, we desperately need buildings for the arts”. Mr Raja: “No one ever told me this before”.  Juliana: “I’m letting you know now!” From that day onwards, Mr Raja became my best ally for arts development. He sent us a seemingly endless supply of buildings.

  The first property to be rented out to arts groups was a former school building that was to become Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre. Five arts groups moved into the premises in 1986, among which was amateur theatre group Third Stage.

  The school bell no longer sounds at Telok Ayer Primary School in Cecil Street. Passers-by are more likely to hear the sound of Chinese musical instruments, Broadway songs and the shuffle and tap of dancers in rehearsal.

  The classrooms where teachers often used to have sort throats because they had to shout to be heard by students is now home to five cultural groups. And more disused government buildings may be put to similar use in future.

  […]

  Since October, the Telok Ayer school’s 39 classrooms have been let out at a nominal monthly rental of $10 a room by the Ministry of Community Development, which took over the building from the Land Office in September.

  5 cultural bodies move into Telok Ayer school by Irene Hoe. In Straits Times (1 January 1986), https://tinyurl.com/ycezqb8q

Further Reading

Theatre Life!: A History of English-language Theatre in Singapore through The Straits Times (1958-2000) by Clarrisa Oon. Singapore Press Holdings, 2001.
The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and resistance by Terence Chong. Routledge, 2011 .
Singapore Chronicles: Theatre. Institute of Policy Studies & Singapore Press Holdings, 2016.
Singapore Arts Manager 1980’s/90’s: Memories & Musings by Juliana Lim.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 15 June 2018

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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.

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The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl is an adaptation of Stella Kon’s much-loved play Emily of Emerald Hill. Created by Eugene Koh and Lee Shu Yu, and performed by Brenda Tan, @thisisemeraldgirl combines new writing, multimedia, and Stella Kon’s original text in a monologue exploring family and social life in a social media age. Find out more here.
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Synopsis

Emily of Emerald Hill is a monodrama about the life of Emily Gan, a Peranakan matriarch who resides in a mansion on Emerald Hill. Emily talks about her life, from coming to Emerald Hill as a young bride in 1929, to raising her family and managing her home and social life in the 50’s and 60’s, to being a lonely elderly widow with modern Singapore coming up around her.

First Stagings

Stella Kon first wrote Emily of Emerald Hill in 1982. With the play, she won the 1983 Singapore National Playwriting Competition – organised by the Ministry of Culture – for the third time. Kon had previously won the competition in 1977 with The Bridge and 1982 with The Trial. Up till Emily, Kon’s plays had not been staged in Singapore.

In an afterword to the published script of Emily, Krishen Jit quoted Kon as saying she was “Singapore’s greatest never-produced playwright”. Producers had claimed The Bridge and The Trial were unfeasible works because they had large casts (18 and 12 respectively). But even with just one actor, Kon found no one was willing to stage Emily in Singapore.

[W]ell, this one-woman-play format, it was very unseen in Singapore. You know that I didn’t invent the form, I’d seen one-person plays abroad, but it wasn’t known here. So the local directors, they asked[,] how can one person maintain the attention of the audience for that length of time.

Konfrontation and konversion: Stella Kon gets her groove back by Richard Lord. In Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, 1(4), https://tinyurl.com/yclm8vun

Across the Causeway, however, was a different story as Kon’s works had been performed by Malaysian English drama groups in the 70’s. Emily first came to life on stage in a production by Malaysian theatre company Five Arts Centre. Directed by Chin San Sooi and performed by Leow Puay Tin, the monodrama was staged in November 1984 in Seremban and Kuala Lumpur.

Spurred on by the embarrassment of having an award-winning Singaporean play premiere elsewhere, the Singapore Ministry of Culture offered a $3,000 production grant for Emily to be staged in Singapore. The response was lukewarm:

Lim Kay Tong, a journalist and actor, had mulled over the possibility of staging it, but felt it would require ‘somebody quite remarkable’ to portray the role of Emily.

[…]

Max Le Blond, a lecturer at the National University of Singapore and theatre director who has read parts of the play, finds it interesting, but feels he can’t spare the time to stage it at the moment.

“I would like to do it very much but I don’t see myself having the time until next year,” he says.

[…]

Robert Yeo, a lecturer at the Institution of Education and chairman of the Culture Ministry’s Drama Advisory Committee has, meanwhile, been taking the play around, trying to interest people in the production.

But he has yet to get any confirmation from either an actress or a director.

Poor Emily will have to wait by Kannan Chandran. In Straits Times (6 December 1984), https://tinyurl.com/yc8nozyd

Theatre critic Kate Janes wrote a scathing response in the Straits Times:

The real scandal about English plays which are gathering dust in the Culture Ministry is this: One writer has won the first prize on three occasions and yet, not one of the plays has been performed in Singapore.

Neglect your art, neglect your soul. Artistes? Use them, or lose them. Stella Kon is at present living in Britain.

Come on Singapore, stand up for your own plays by Kate James. In Straits Times (30 December 1984), https://tinyurl.com/ybl2ubm2

In 1985, Emily finally came to the Singapore stage as a commission of the 1985 Singapore Drama Festival. Premiering on 4 September, the production was directed by Max Le Blond, and performed by actor Margaret Chan, who was seven months pregnant at the time with her second child.

Responses 

To the 1984 Emily of Emerald Hill in Malaysia:

There was a minimum of stage effects, props and music. The lighting, I thought, could have been better. However, Puay Tin saved the show with her superb performance… In fact, all the other principals concerned – playwright Stella Kon, director Chin San Sooi and producer Su Ong Sok Cheng – deserve our congratulations.

One woman well worth watching by Chin Kee Onn. In Straits Times (6 December 1984).

To the 1985 Emily of Emerald Hill in Singapore:

By the time Margaret Chan had taken her second curtain call, the tears hadn’t yet dried on some faces though they were wreathed in smiles.

[…]

While Leow Puay Tin who played the part of Emily in KL production, was more the nonya, Margaret plays Emily as the person who comes from the outside and controls the family.

Dr Kon said that while Puay Tin’s strength lay in making the transitions from little girl to society wife to doting grandmother, Margaret’s forte was in playing the matriarch.

Tears and smiles greet Emily by Rececca Chua. In Straits Times (6 September 1985), https://tinyurl.com/y8fqlts4

It was beyond stereotype, beyond caricature. Chan’s performance and Le Blond’s dramatic craft yielded a lucid character that was identifiably Singaporean, yet substantial enough to transcend the parochial.

A theatre groping for significance by Krishen Jit. In Straits Times (27 September 1985).

…intellectually and emotionally, it was weak. It did not delve into thoughts and feelings except on a superficial level. We do not come out with any real understanding of Emily.

…the play was also somewhat dissatisfying because of the compression of time. One lost a sense of time frame, especially in the second act.

Sheer indulgence in nostalgia by David Gabriel. In Straits Times (9 September 1985), https://tinyurl.com/ybtqnsxe

Some of the actors who have played Emily

Leow Puay Tin (1984, 1987, 2010)
Margaret Chan (1985, 1986, 2010)
Claire Wong (1989)
Pearlly Chan (1990, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016)
Jalyn Han (1991 , in Mandarin)
Ivan Heng (1999, 2000, 2011)
Neo Swee Lin (2010)
Brigitte Damiens (2015, in French)
Karen Tan (2015)

Further Reading

Classic Singapore plays #3 – Emily Of Emerald Hill by Corrie Tan. In Straits Times (26 August 2014).
Emily of Emerald Hill by Stella Kon. Constellation Books (2002).
Esplanade presents The Studios: fifty (2015).

By Gillian Ong and Daniel Teo
Published on 8 June 2018

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The Vault: @thisisemeraldgirl is an adaptation of Stella Kon’s much-loved play Emily of Emerald Hill. Created by Eugene Koh and Lee Shu Yu, and performed by Brenda Tan, @thisisemeraldgirl combines new writing, multimedia, and Stella Kon’s original text in a monologue exploring family and social life in a social media age. Find out more here.
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Left: Aerial photograph of Pasir Panjang in 1949. (Image credit: National Archives of Singapore)
Right: Satellite image of Pasir Panjang in 2017. (Image credit: Google Maps)
Neo Pee Teck Lane is highlighted in yellow in both images.

Singapore’s fast-changing landscape has always been rich fodder for the work of local theatremakers. There was Stella Kon’s landmark monologue Emily of Emerald Hill (1984), in which an aged Emily Gan laments the new apartment blocks surrounding her mansion on Emerald Hill. There was also Drama Box’s It Won’t Be Too Long (2015), a two-part work about spaces in Singapore, comprising The Lesson, a forum theatre piece charging audiences with selecting a fictional site to be torn down for a new MRT station, and The Cemetery, one-part movement work and one-part verbatim theatre based on the demolition of Bukit Brown Cemetery. And most recently, there was Haresh Sharma’s musical Tropicana (2017) based on the infamous cabaret and night spot in Orchard Road which closed in 1989 and was subsequently demolished. Our relationship with our ever-shifting physical environment has spawned such dramatic works and more that deal with themes like memory, loss, politics and governance.

For Neo Kim Seng, My Grandfather’s Road was a chance to consolidate memories of his childhood on Neo Pee Teck Lane. Present-day Pasir Panjang, the area where Neo Pee Teck Lane is located in, has changed much since Kim Seng was a child. The beach, in particular, used to be a stone’s throw away from his house. In fact, Pasir Panjang means ‘long beach’ in Malay.

My favourite seaside activity was walking barefoot, rubber slippers in hand, on the black-greyish muddy seabed at low tide, running after the small crabs on the soft sandy shore and overturning the rocks to see the small colourful fishes hiding underneath.

Source: My Grandfather’s Road by Neo Kim Seng (p.37).

But just a few years into Singapore’s independence, land reclamation projects had already begun on the East Coast of Singapore, changing the very shape of the island and driving the sea further away from inland. And there was talk of similar projects in the southwest of the island.

The Minister for Law and National Development, Mr. E. W. Barker, told Parliament today that in future land might have to be reclaimed from the sea along Pasir Panjang to provide a warehouse zone.

Source: Reclamation along Pasir Panjang in future. In The Straits Times (8 September 1967), http://tinyurl.com/y7ygstqs

For Pasir Panjang residents, the threat of land reclamation was looming over their seafront existence.

This fear [of reclamation] may be unfounded,” said executive Mr. Tan Heng Kee, 33. “But a lot of people wonder if we’ll lose our precious seafront.”

“It’s bad enough that the increasing sea traffic and offshore oil refineries have polluted our part of the sea with oil…

“But there are strong rumours that when the Government is finished with its East Coast project it will turn in our direction. It’ll break our hearts.”

Problem No. 1 on the western front by Lawrence Basapa. In The Straits Times (4 August 1970), http://tinyurl.com/ydbcrpxf

In 1971, their fears came to pass when the government announced that the coast along Pasir Panjang would be reclaimed to create new land for warehouses. Land reclamation works were to be undertaken by the Port of Singapore Authority. The residents were unable to stem the tide of progress.

The House gave its approval to the reclamation of 91 acres of the Pasir Panjang foreshore for ware-house development.

In seeking approval for this reclamation scheme, Minister for Law and National Development Mr. E. W. Barker said: “As a result of industrialisation and expansion of trade, the need for warehousing facilities has become acute.”

He said the reclamation would cost $20 million and would take two years to complete.

Land to be reclaimed for warehouses. In The Straits Times (31 July 1971), http://tinyurl.com/ybov8pnd

In the years to come, tons of sand and soil would be dumped along the Pasir Panjang coast, driving the sea back over four kilometres away. The new land remained barren in the years following the land reclamation as well, to allow the soil to settle and stabilise enough for construction and development.

Those of us living along Pasir Panjang Road have been hoping for quite some time that something will be done to obviate the need for us to keep our windows closed from dawn to dusk because of the lorries carrying earth for land reclamation in this area.

Dawn to dusk dust problem. In New Nation (5 October 1971), http://tinyurl.com/y8563hdj

But for a young Kim Seng, the beach of his childhood would forever disappear.

…When the sea was being reclaimed, I would walk up the dunes of sand in the seabed, but it never felt the same without the seawater and sea creatures.

I can’t remember exactly how I felt. Maybe a little sad, as I was also moving out from Grandfather’s road soon. I was too young to remember. Maybe it was better that way. It must have been quite an ugly sight as more of the sea was reclaimed. But my beautiful seabed always remained in my heart.

Source: My Grandfather’s Road by Neo Kim Seng (p.37).

By Daniel Teo
Published on 22 Nov 2017

The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road sees independent theatre-maker Neo Kim Seng revisiting his 2015 work My Grandfather’s Road. Kim Seng refreshes his original English text with translations into Singaporean and Malaysian Cantonese in an exploration of regional variations within the language. The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road is presented 23 -25 November 2017 at Centre 42 Black Box. Find out more here.

In November 2015, independent theatre producer Neo Kim Seng presented a multidisciplinary showcase called My Grandfather’s Road as one of nine performances at Cake Theatrical Productions’ 10^th anniversary celebrations, Running with Strippers. My Grandfather’s Road comprised a photo exhibition, a book, and a monologue performance.

It was the second time that Kim Seng created a work with Cake – the first being a 2014 performance titled Decimal Points 810, which he conceived and directed.

“Decimal Points and Running with Strippers have always been about our commitment to experimentation, the alternative and innovative. [They showcased] works to which you couldn’t assign labels or categorise simply, but were about research and wilder artistic exploration,” says Natalie Hennedige, Cake’s artistic director. “Kim Seng’s creations would be an artistic extension of himself and of his current mind-space. What’s important to us is that each piece offers a facet into what the creator is expressing at that moment in time, and facilitating an environment where audiences can share in that creation.”

While Decimal Points 810 was inspired by Kim Seng’s open heart surgery in 2013 – “810” referred to the number of minutes for which he was unconscious – My Grandfather’s Road was more of an homage to his childhood growing up on Neo Pee Teck Lane, which was named after his paternal grandfather.

In an interview with The Straits Times published on 10 November 2015, Kim Seng said: “I’m very, very happy to be a part of [Running with Strippers]. When I wrote [My Grandfather’s Road], I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but at the end I realised it was about mortality and, more importantly, about renewing your relationships with people.”

He added in the same interview that the process of creating the work helped him come to terms with the difficult relationship he had with his late father, and brought him closer to his mother.

The photo exhibition for My Grandfather’s Road opened on 19 November 2015. For three days, it was displayed along the corridor outside Cake’s studio at Goodman Arts Centre, beneath the original Neo Pee Teck Lane street sign that Kim Seng successfully bid for in an online auction by the Land Transport Authority to sell off older white street signs in 2003. He won the sign at a price of $62. There was only one other bidder – his older sister, which he only found out about after the auction.

The images from the exhibition were taken from his parents’ old photographs and negatives. As he wrote on the wall text description for exhibition, however, his “parents collected quite a lot of photos, but they […] were limited to certain people, events and places.”

That is why Kim Seng supplemented the exhibition with a book – which is still available for loan at the National Library – and an English-language monologue, which was performed by Bjorn Lee Varella on 20 November 2015. The monologue is, in a way, a condensed version of the exhibition and the book. Together, they tell the story of his childhood, and of his relationship with his family.

Kim Seng received positive feedback for My Grandfather’s Road. Reviewing Running with Strippers for Today, Mayo Martin wrote that the entire event reminded him of “the alternative theatre scene of an earlier time (and of the gritty performance art events that still take place today), what with sweaty people waiting expectantly outside before cramming inside the room to see performances in less-than-polished circumstances, but certainly done with a lot of heart.”

Two years on, Kim Seng has decided to revisit the monologue as part of Centre 42’s Vault programme.

“My Grandfather’s Road first started out as a project with the encouragement of Cake Theatrical Productions to think about a project that may have a life after its initial presentation,” he wrote in his proposal to the Centre.

Cake’s Natalie is delighted that it will take on a second life. “It is always a great thing for a work to keep evolving and for Kim Seng to keep discovering and exploring his work in its various iterations,” she says. “We are extremely happy that he is visiting it again at C42’s Vault.”

The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road will be presented at the Centre 42 Black Box from 23 to 25 November 2017. This time, Kim Seng is working with actors Gary Tang and Tan Cher Kian to perform the piece in Singaporean Cantonese and Malaysian Cantonese respectively.

Just like the original project, this version of My Grandfather’s Road is also about renewing relationships. The main reason he wanted to present the monologue in Cantonese this time is so that his mother – who is Cantonese – can understand better. But it is also a chance for Kim Seng to reconnect with his childhood through language.

As he puts it: “I would like to use the Cantonese version of the monologue to renew my relationship with a language that has been imparted to me as a child, and had never gone away but relegated for a long time because of personal and societal circumstances.”

The original “My Grandfather’s Road” was performed by Bjorn Lee Verella on 20 November 2015, as one of nine performances at Cake Theatrical Productions’ 10th anniversary celebrations, “Running with Strippers”. (Image credit: Neo Kim Seng)

Title:	My Grandfather’s Road
Date:	19-21 November 2015
Venue:	Block E #03-32 Goodman Arts Centre
Playwright:	Neo Kim Seng
Director:	Neo Kim Seng
Cast:	Bjorn Lee Verella

The programme booklet for “Decimal Points 810″ is available in The Repository. Click to view.

Title:	Decimal Points 810
Date:	25-26 April 2014
Venue:	The Substation Theatre
Playwright:	Devised
Director:	Neo Kim Seng
Cast:	Al-Matin Yatim Chang Ting Wei John Cheah Chin Rui Yuan Rachel Poh Anita Set Paula Sim Jean Toh Yazid Jalil

 

By Gwen Pew
Published on 16 Nov 2017

The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road sees independent theatre-maker Neo Kim Seng revisiting his 2015 work My Grandfather’s Road. Kim Seng refreshes his original English text with translations into Singaporean and Malaysian Cantonese in an exploration of regional variations within the language. The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road is presented 23 -25 November 2017 at Centre 42 Black Box. Find out more here.

In 2015, independent theatre producer Neo Kim Seng presented a work titled My Grandfather’s Road as part of Cake Theatrical Productions’ 10th anniversary celebrations, Running with Strippers. It comprised a photo exhibition, a book launch, and an English-language monologue, which together form a montage of his childhood memories growing up on Neo Pee Teck Lane – a road in Pasir Panjang that’s named after his paternal grandfather.

Two years on, Kim Seng has decided to revisit the monologue as part of Centre 42’s Vault programme. This time, he is working with two actors to present the piece in Cantonese, the spoken language of his childhood. Two versions will be showcased – one in Singaporean Cantonese, and one in Malaysian Cantonese – so that he can explore the regional variations in the language.

We chat with Kim Seng to find out more about My Grandfather’s Road.

How did the original My Grandfather’s Road in 2015 come about?
Cake Theatrical Productions invited me to be part of their Decimal Points project, spread over two years. I presented Decimal Points 810 in 2014 which was inspired by my open-heart surgery in 2013. The second presentation eventually became part of Cake’s 10^th anniversary celebrations, Running With Strippers. I originally wanted to continue with the second part of a planned trilogy, but Cake suggested that I think of a project that can have a life after its first incarnation. So I decided on a three-part project, a photo-installation, a book and a monologue about growing up on a road named after my paternal grandfather Neo Pee Teck Lane. It was not a nostalgic research project but looked at reconnecting with things and people from my past and present.

Why did you decide to revisit it now, and why in Cantonese?
My mother sat through two of my theatre projects and her grasp of English is not that strong. My original intention was just to make a project that she could fully understand. She was very animated and excited when she saw her photos on display at the photo-installation in 2015.

I have received encouraging response to the book. Some suggested that the book could be translated into Mandarin to reach out to more people. Then I thought, why not do a Cantonese version?

I grew up speaking Cantonese. I recently found out that my paternal grandmother was a renegade ma cheh (domestic helper) and I am more Cantonese than I thought. I am less fluent and speak less Cantonese now than when I was younger but somehow a language that you learn orally never goes away and becomes embedded in you. There is a strong emotional attachment to the sound of Cantonese although I may not fully understand the words. The project is about reconnecting to a relegated language, sound and people.

I also like to surprise people and challenge myself because not many people know that I can speak Cantonese.

Neo Kim Seng (right) poses with relatives at the 2015 presentation of “Running with Strippers”.

The Vault monologue presentation will have two versions – one in Singaporean Cantonese, and one in Malaysian Cantonese. Why are you interested in exploring the regional differences of the language?
This is mainly to explore how languages evolve and adapt over time and space/location. The Cantonese that we speak here adopts other Chinese and non-Chinese words over time. Even Hong Kong Cantonese words have crept into Singaporean Cantonese. I thought it would be interesting to find out how pronunciation differed and also different words were used.

Let’s talk about the process of creating The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road. Firstly, how did your actors, Gary Tang and Tan Cher Kian, get involved?
In the many years working in the performing arts field, what I enjoy most is working with new people, because I get a lot of new ideas and energy interacting with them. I had an open audition in June this year. Some friends recommended more experienced actors to me. I was also on the lookout for non-Chinese female performers who could speak Cantonese, because they would approach the stories differently. The first version of My Grandfather’s Road in English in 2015 was performed by a young male actor and I deliberately created a version where on-stage I was this vulnerable person telling bittersweet stories.

Gary was introduced to me by our mutual friend. Gary is very passionate about Cantonese and was on the lookout for opportunities to work on Cantonese projects, something not so common here. He was also very keen to explore the authentic sound of Cantonese and how it evolved over time.

Cher Kian (CK) responded to the audition call and at first only wanted to help with the presentation. He has not acted before but he’s an avid arts lover and attends lots of performances. So we spoke and I found out he is keen to be on the other side of the stage as well. I was very taken by his enthusiasm and interest. The bonus was that he grew up in Sabah and spoke Cantonese fluently.

“This photo is the only photo I have of Neo Pee Teck Lane. The cart on the right is Thaatha’s mee goreng cart!” says Kim Seng

How did you and Gary work to come up with the Singaporean Cantonese version? Was the process very different when you worked with Cher Kian on the Malaysian Cantonese version?
My original plan was to have the English script translated into Mandarin and from there translate the Mandarin into Singaporean and Malaysian Cantonese, for the presentation. The content for both versions will be the same. So I had the script translated into Mandarin by Low Kok Wai.

Gary is born Cantonese and a fluent speaker. Gary decided to rework the original English text into a storyteller version. So he’s a storyteller telling the stories of people who lived on Neo Pee Teck Lane. He wrote the Cantonese text based only on the original English text. Gary’s version is a remixed, reconstructed and reimagined version of the English stories.

CK’s version will be adapted from Kok Wai’s Mandarin translation and the original English text. CK will be performing as me/the narrator telling the stories and is more similar in style to the English monologue and written text.

So the two versions are different variations of the same stories. Since the book was published, I found out some new information and some of this was updated in the Singaporean Cantonese version. I did not want to update the Malaysian Cantonese version. The original English text had a lot of details and fragments of stories and it was impossible to condense all of them. So I went through the original script separately with each actor and we picked the smaller stories that resonated for each of their versions. Their personal response to the original stories was also crucial in shaping their reinterpretations.

I told Gary and CK that, for their presentations, they must speak Cantonese in a way that they are familiar and comfortable with. Their personal language is important in capturing the essence and sound.

And finally, tell us about one of your fondest memories growing up on Neo Pee Teck Lane.
My father once built this imposing fortress-like rectangular structure below our huge rambutan tree from old timber planks, for us to play. I can’t remember where he got those timber from. It was in the shape of a lorry. It was huge, maybe longer than a 14-foot lorry. The neighbourhood children had such great fun playing in it. But I think after a heavy thunderstorm, it became unsafe and father took it down. When I grew up later and see those wooden fortresses and buildings in Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films, I always remember our own wooden fortress under the rambutan tree.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 14 October 2017

Find out more about The Vault: My Grandfather’s Road here, and join us at Centre 42 on 23 – 25 November 2017 by registering for a seat 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.