There is a palpable tension between the public and the private in these spaces which is referred to as liminality. Liminal spaces are the places of ambiguity, where we transition between the public and the private. In the in-between, where the lines blurred, all bets are off and the possibilities are endless – ideas, art and culture can flourish.

Public toilet graffiti, or latrinalia¸ is especially interesting because of its location. In a space meant for a base bodily function (waste production), the highest forms of human creativity can be found. Latrinalia.org is a website which documents toilet graffiti art from around the world.

Latrinalia is one ‘category’ of graffiti; others range from crude scribblings to simply breath-taking works of art. Here’s a list of 20 beautiful pieces of street graffiti art.

Yet, liminal spaces are also temporary spaces. This in-between-ness is fleeting – liminality dissipates once we leave the space for the public or the private.

The play Invisibility conveys that in our urban lives, we are normally invisible: In private, we are totally separated from society (see Invisibility and the Hermit Life); In public, we disappear into the crowd:

But perhaps it is in liminal spaces that we can become visible. Would you consider theatre to be a liminal space?

By Daniel Teo
Published on 20 May 2015

The Vault: #3 three revisits Invisibility, refreshes and retells the stories in them through the eyes of theatre design collective INDEX. #3.1 In/Visibility by lighting designer Lim Woan Wen is the first of three installations.

Find out more about The Vault programme here.

A motif running through the play Invisibility is the idea of hermit-hood.

Being a hermit entails living your life in seclusion, away from other people. Hermits choose to live alone for various reasons. There are “push” factors which drive people out of civilisation into a life of solitude, such as war and poverty. There are also “pull” factors which attract people to a hermit’s life, such as being free from rule and living sustainably.

Here are 10 stories of real-life hermits who have shunned civilisation and willingly lived in seclusion for years. View.

City Hermits

While hermits do actually live alone, the play also tackles feelings of loneliness in the midst of other people, being a veritable hermit in a crowded city.

Being a city hermit is also known as experiencing “urban loneliness”. Some social science researchers argue that the phenomena of urban loneliness is reaching crisis proportions, while others decry it as a myth. There is, however, agreement on a link between urban living and mental health disorders. And tech pundits are convinced that smartphone technology will help alleviate the plight of urban loneliness. In Singapore, there are concerns with loneliness affecting the mental health of elderly Singaporeans, even those living with their families.

Urban loneliness has been a subject of many artists wanting to shed light on this social phenomena. Local examples include 4:30 (2005) by filmmaker Royston Tan and an exhibition by local photographer Nguan entitled “How Loneliness Goes” which featured a series of images exploring isolation in a dense, urban setting.

Here’s the song “Unbearable Loneliness” by Jonathan Lee. Enjoy.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 19 May 2015

The Vault: #3 three revisits Invisibility, refreshes and retells the stories in them through the eyes of theatre design collective INDEX. #3.1 In/Visibility by lighting designer Lim Woan Wen is the first of three installations.

Find out more about The Vault programme here.

Date	Production Details
1996, Aug 15-25	By The Necessary Stage Venue: The Substation Director: Kok Heng Leun Lighting Designer: Lee Cheng Heng Invisibility (1996) Programme Cover. Credit: The Necessary Stage Excerpt of the director’s message: “In this busy city, I often see people working hard for their daily bread and at the same time, looking quite lost… Why? How I wish I knew what we are really after.” The Invisibility (1996) programme booklet is available for viewing in Centre 42’s The Repository.
1997, Dec 19-21	By The Necessary Stage Venue: Ping-Fong Theatre (Taiwan) For the Ping-Fong Experimental Theatre Festival Director: Kok Heng Leun
2000, Sep 13-17	By Drama Box Venue: Chang Clan General Association, rooftop Director: Sim Pern Yiau Producer; Lighting/Set Designer: Kok Heng Leun
2009, Apr 2-4	By Light Republique Venue: LASALLE, Creative Cube Director: Peter Sau Lighting Designer: Jonathan Sin [View light plot of this production]
2010, Feb 19-20	Title: Invisibility/Breathing, a response to InvisibilityBy Drama Box and Cake Theatrical,  A Huayi 2010 festival commission Venue: Esplanade Theatre Studio Director: Natalie Hennedige Lighting Designer: Lim Woan Wen
2014, Nov 27-29	By Intercultural Theatre Institute Venue: Drama Centre Black Box, National Library building Director: Kok Heng Leun Lighting Designer: Lim Woan Wen Sound Designer: Darren Ng

Responses and Reviews to stagings of Invisibility:

• On the inaugural production in 1996:
  “What better fantasy can a voyeur have than to be invisible while snooping around?… For a view of the action, which will take place at The Substation’s Guinness Theatre for 11 days from Thursday, the audience will have to climb up platforms built about 1.2 m above ground on three sides of the stage, much like an arena…
  To let his cast of eight get a feel of the city, Kok [Heung Leun] has sent them to different corners of the island around midnight, from Orchard Road and Geylang to East Coast Park and 7-Eleven convenience stores, to observe the people there.”…
  “As it is, we are such a self-centred society that people are oblivious to whatever goes on around them. They just pretend they are invisible to each other!” he says. ~ Source: “Would you like to be invisible and snoop around?“ By Wong Chee Meng (The Straits Times, 13 August, 1996)

• On the Taiwan production in 1997:
  “A recent performance by a Singapore theatre group has changed the impression some Taiwanese had of the drama scene here…
  The Taiwanese media and drama critics were also surprised that a small and somewhat sterilised place like Singapore could produce such a daring and thought-provoking play. Wrote a critic from Taiwanese daily Min Sheng Pao: “The play is not the dull production we expected from Singapore. The director used lighting, sets and dramatic effects to create an ever-changing visual experience. The whole process was so fluid, yet simple. This is a mature production indeed.”… ~ Source: “Hey, peep into S’pore life is an eye-opener“ by Chin Soo Fang (The Straits Times, 8 January 1998)

• On the rooftop production in 2000:
  “There is always some form of distraction or diversion of our attention either from the OHP visual projections or the noise from the surroundings. The choice of the small open-air rooftop generates a sense of uncanny proximity of the audience to the drama but the audience seldom gives an acknowledgement to those sitting right across their faces…
  The play’s strengths rest mostly on the sparkling dialogue in the script by Quah Sy Ren and so you can imagine my disappointment when at the night of the performance, the noises from the overhead airplanes and nearby street operas threatened to drown out the actors’ voices. The actors were also visibly struggling with the distractions. Yet strangely, these unforeseen disruptions added shades to the play. Indeed, true to the play itself, the cacophony mimics that of the city’s mind-numbing music and gives reinforcement to A’s shouts to the neighboring flats: “CAN YOU HEAR ME!” ~ Source: “Seen and heard in Geylang” by Adele Tan (The Flying Inkpot, 13 September 2000)

“The four actors played out vignettes of city life in all the available spaces around the audience on that rooftop. Their movements made it necessary for the audience to change its sitting position constantly. Audience attention was also deflected sporadically by the flashing of photographic and advertising images on an overhead projector. What resulted was the suspension of the audience in a state of constant restlessness and distraction. This feeling of connection and disconnection from all that was going on around oneself seemed particularly in tune with the play’s central concern with the loneliness of urbanites. I wonder if the theatre company was aware that on the first night of performance the actors would have to vie for audibility against two Chinese operas, one performed at the temple next door and the other from a stage further down the street. No matter. What I thought would be a cause of annoyance turned out to work quite well with the play.” ~ Source: “Ambitious play on lonely urbanites” by Yeo Wei Wei (The Straits Times, 15 September 2000)

•  On Intercultural Theatre Institute’s 2014 production:
  “Directed by Drama Box’s artistic director Kok Heng Leun, the 1996 Mandarin play by Quah Sy Ren will be readapted into a multilingual production using texts as varied as Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s existentialist Notes From Underground and A Madman’s Diary by 20th-century Chinese writer Lu Xun, as well as writing from the play’s diverse cast who hail from countries such as the Philippines, Bolivia, Singapore and Italy.” ~ Source: “Breathe, calm down and act” by Nabilah Said (The Sunday Times, 25 November 2014)“Despite the characters divulging their desires to the audience, the performance seems to fall flat and stagnant contrasting the personal and potentially riveting content… Brief interactions between solitary individuals characterize the play. Being a cast with diverse nationalities proved an advantage to exploring marginalized foreigners, isolated in an alien land… Despite the wealth of experiences the cast can potentially offer, the direction resorts to the same didactic style- victimizing and painting a shallow image of those marginalized. In a scene, Denise Mordeno Aguilar played a Filipino immigrant complaining about the current surge of immigrants from various countries. Afterwards, her character was not seen again. Issues, such as identity and belonging, are prematurely discarded, diluting the potency of the play.” ~ Source: “Invisibility by Koh Heng Leun, ITI” by Iffah Adawiyah (The Review Room, 2 December 2014)

“这 次演出，整体制作精致得多，剧场空间、灯光、音乐等等，具有专业水准，也是十八年来整体艺术培育的成果展现。这些艺术家都经过多年磨练，也跟导演合作多次 而培养深厚默契。我不得不说，从积极的角度来看，新加坡整体艺术氛围成熟许多，从Sasi, Ivan Heng, Alvin Tan这一代的艺术家得到文化奖的肯定，就可以看到具体成果。庆亮正是他们这一代比较年轻的，不过，他的起步也正赶上整个世代的崛起…
演出结束，在剧场外见到庆亮的儿子，第一次正式跟他握手说话。我其实很想说，他是在第一次《市中隐者》即将上演时出生的。不过我没有说，只是在心里感叹，十八年了啊，只是这么一转眼呢。” ~ Source: “十八年后” on A Stranger at Home [Quah Sy Ren’s personal blog], 2 December 2014)

[Translation: “The overall production of the show is much more sophisticated than it was eighteen years ago. The set design, lighting, music, etc., were all put together professionally. It goes to show the progress made in the last eighteen years. These artists have been training for years, and under the guidance of the director [Koh Heng Luan], have grown in depth. On a positive note, the arts scene in Singapore has matured over the years. This can be seen from the recognition that earlier generations of artists have been receiving recently. Sasi, Ivan Heng and Alvin Tan, for instance, have been awarded with the Cultural Medallion. Heng Luan is younger than these artists, but he is certainly catching up with them… At the end of the show, I met Heng Luan’s son for the first time outside the theatre. I wanted to tell him that he was born at the time of the first staging of Invisibility. But I didn’t. I just thought to myself how quickly eighteen years has flown by.”]

By Daniel Teo
Published on 14 May 2015

The Vault: #3 three revisits Invisibility, refreshes and retells the stories in them through the eyes of theatre design collective INDEX. #3.1 In/Visibility by lighting designer Lim Woan Wen is the first of three installations.

Find out more about The Vault programme here.

Credit: Nanyang Technological University

Quah Sy Ren is an associate professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chinese division at Nanyang Technical University. His main research interests are in Chinese Literature and the history of Singapore Theatre. Quah also sits on the board of directors for Practice Performing Arts Centre (renamed The Theatre Practice Limited as of 2010) and The Finger Players.

In addition to Invisibility (1996), Quah has also authored other plays as well as written and edited several books.

About the Play:

• Published synopsis:
  “Invisibility is a poignant tale about alienation and the search for meaning in modern urban society—various people on the margins of society seeking to connect with others in juxtaposition with the tale of a man searching for the secret to make himself invisible. … Drawing from diverse sources of Chinese literary classics and graffiti as modern social commentary, this critically-acclaimed play by Quah Sy Ren takes you on a voyeuristic ride towards urban myth.” ~ Source: Publisher Ethos BookA browsing copy of the published play is available in Centre 42’s Book Den. View it here.

• Quah Sy Ren’s message to audiences of the play (1996):
  “Perhaps many in the audience would not understand this play. Don’t worry, sometimes I don’t understand all of it myself. A play is not a thesis. I wrote it based upon my feelings and I hope the audience will watch it with their feelings. Feelings are immediate and direct, yet most of the time, they are also very ambiguous. In these times, we are often too logical and too serious. Perhaps this is precisely why I sometimes want to write plays. To part ways with reason; to uncover the feelings of man.” ~ Source: Invisibility [1996] Programme, Centre 42 The Repository

• A review of the English translation of the manuscript:
  “Invisibility is translated from a Chinese play written by Quah Sy Ren. A more literal translation of the original Chinese title, Cheng Shi Yin Zhe, will be: The Invisible Hermit In The City…The play is filled with an insidious sense of loneliness and estrangement. The only way to resist being engulfed by the invisible force that makes everyone faceless and invisible, as the play seems to propose, is to retreat into one’s own private world. Retreating into private spaces is the only way to salvage some sense of self in this engulfing invisibility. These private spaces can take the physical form of a toilet cubicle (a recurring imagery in the play), or the mental space of thinking alone. By adopting this paradoxical strategy, however, one is actually surrendering one’s own visibility…

  In terms of language, despite the occasional slipping in and out of local expressions, the Chinese original, which at times reads like a cross-talk script, is coherent and fluid. In the English translation, however, the translator occasionally loses his invisibility as he struggles to bring forth the writer’s humour in his language play.

  Invisible thoughts, invisible survival, invisible rule. At the end of the day, the writer, the translator and the reviewer find themselves failing in their attempt and struggle to be invisible.” ~ Source: “Now you see it, now you don’t” by Lee Chee Keng (The Straits Times, 2 December, 2000)

By Daniel Teo
Published on 13 May 2015

The Vault: #3 three revisits Invisibility, refreshes and retells the stories in them through the eyes of theatre design collective INDEX. #3.1 In/Visibility by lighting designer Lim Woan Wen is the first of three installations.

Find out more about The Vault programme here.