Cheyenne Phillips (left) and Charlene Shepherdson (right) take a break from researching on their Eurasian heritage. Photo: Gwen Pew

“Did you know that Centre 42 might have been a Japanese brothel back then?” smirks Cheyenne Phillips. She flips through the pages of a book entitled Singapore Eurasians: Memories and Hopes and reveals a map of Waterloo Street from the 1930s, hand-drawn from memory by a man named Patrick Klassen. Pointing to a box labelled “JAPANESE HOTEL” – which sits next to another box labelled “MAGHAN ARBOTH SYNAGOGUE” – Cheyenne explains that the word “hotel” was often a euphemism.

Cheyenne and her collaborator Charlene Shepherdson – who are both Eurasians and both performance poets, and collectively known as CharChey – are currently researching the Singaporean Eurasian culture for a project they’ve named For the Record. Having scoured the National Archives, libraries, and online resources in an attempt to piece together a narrative of their heritage, they’ve acquired their fair share of interesting facts and stories.

It all started when the two friends were talking about their heritage after a few drinks late one night, and they realised that not a lot has been written about Singaporean Eurasians. So they decided to take it upon themselves to start the conversation.

A scene from Charlene and Cheyenne’s performance of For the Record.

The first phase of their investigation culminated in a performance, also called For the Record, which weaved together their research, family history, and personal stories in a series of songs and poems. It was developed over the course of four months with support from Centre 42’s Basement Workshop programme, and was staged at The Arts House in February this year.

“We wanted the show to not just be a transfer of knowledge [about the Eurasian culture], but to look at why it’s important,” says Charlene. “I’m proud of it, but it’s definitely a work in development and it’s far from finished. We just wanted to invite people into the conversation.”

To continue that conversation, the pair are now working on an exhibition titled (pre)position, which will be held at Centre 42 and around the Waterloo Street area for a few weeks from 16 June this year.

“We’re thinking of doing it sort of like a scavenger hunt,” explains Charlene. “We want people to get involved to uncover the story of different places, and explore how places feed into someone’s identity.”

The idea is for participants to embark on a walking trail around Waterloo Street and Queen Street, which used to be one of six main Eurasian enclaves in Singapore. Up to 20 families had lived in the area since the 1880s, many of whom would send their children to the missionary schools in the area, including St. Joseph’s Institution, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, and St Anthony’s Convent.

Along the way, visitors to (pre)position are encouraged to make pit stops at various locations to learn about the little things that make being Eurasian special. They’ll also get to try their hand at various games and exercises that are designed to mimic Charlene and Cheyenne’s research process. For example, they might be asked to determine the identity of Eurasian women by matching their maiden name with the surname they took on after they got married.

Charlene and Cheyenne during a rehearsal session at Centre 42.

On top of that, the pair will be displaying their research and poems for browsing at Centre 42, and showcasing original artwork in the Courtyard. At the time that we met Charlene and Cheyenne for the interview, they were still experimenting with the media and form that the works will take. However, they knew that they’ll be playing with found poetry and materials that will deteriorate over time.

“We want to explore the idea of layers and how things get lost,” says Charlene. It’s a metaphor for how easily history, heritage, places and identity can be forgotten, especially in a city that’s constantly rebuilding itself.

“Everything in Singapore is only permanent for the time being,” Cheyenne adds wryly.

Indeed, even the exhibition is only temporary. But the duo are also working on a manuscript that comprises the drafts and script from their February show, poems that didn’t make it into the performance, and their research materials including photos and maps. They’re hoping to complete a draft by July, and have it published sometime next year.

For now though, the focus is on the exhibition, which they insist is not just for their fellow Eurasians, but for everyone who’s interested in the Singapore story. After all, as Charlene recalls, an audience member called Gwyneth Teo commented after attending the opening night of For the Record that the Eurasian culture “goes beyond East-meets-West or the marriage of cultures. It is as simple as that families who have been here for four generations and longer – since Raffles and Farquhar’s time – have a lot to tell us about what’s missing from our history books. In short, the Eurasian story is the Singaporean story.”

By Gwen Pew
Published on 21 April 2017

Update (8 June 2017): (pre)position will now be taking place exclusively at Centre 42. There will be an Opening Night event happening at Centre 42 on Friday 16 June, where Charlene and Cheyenne will be holding a series of live readings, an artist talk, exhibition tour, as well as a pot-luck picnic. Registration is free but please sign up here. A second night of readings will take place on Friday 30 June, and you can register for that here.

Find out more about CharChey’s project here, and check out the exhibition around Waterloo Street from 16 June 2017 onwards.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #1.

Nelson Chia stands before the timeline of Yeng Pway Ngon’s novel, Art Studio. Photo: Gwen Pew

Nelson Chia is a busy man. Just last month, Nine Years Theatre’s production of Fundamentally Happy – Haresh Sharma’s 2006 English-language play – hit the stage as part of the Esplanade’s The Studios 2017 season. It’s the first time the piece had been performed in Mandarin, and Nelson was responsible for both translating and directing it. He also gave a few talks: one at the Esplanade with Zulfadli Rashid (who had adapted another Haresh Sharma play, Hope, into Malay), and one at Centre 42 with actress Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit and researchers Wong Chee Meng and Shawn Chua as part of the Living Room series.

But there’s no rest for the wicked – or the artistic.

In the midst of everything mentioned above, Nelson has been taking part in Centre 42’s Fellowship programme, a grant scheme awarded by invitation that supports the research and development of a project proposed by the artist. In Nelson’s case, he embarked on an epic journey between March 2016 and August 2017 to adapt Cultural Medallion recipient Yeng Pway Ngon’s seminal Chinese novel Art Studio into a stage play. The story follows various characters who lived through Singapore’s tumultuous post-independence years.

On top of being recognised for his award-winning work as an actor and director, Nelson has developed a reputation as a translator in the local theatre scene over the years. He founded Nine Years Theatre with his wife Mia Chee in 2012, and has since adapted nine classic plays – including Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men – into Mandarin.

Seeing as Yeng Pway Ngon’s novel and the script that Nelson is working on are both in Chinese, the endeavour may sound like a departure from the latter’s recent work. But he has a confession: “Translation is not my personal interest,” he admits. “I never studied it and I have no real methodology – I do it more by feel.”

What he is interested in is language. Which explains his enthusiasm for the Art Studio project. He had wanted to explore cross-genre adaptation, and settled on the task of converting a local novel into a play. “Reading is quite a private activity, but theatre has an audience. You’re reading aloud, and it’s a [physical and visual] performance,” he explains. “I want to see what the novel and the stage can do that the other cannot.”

He divided the process into four stages. Phase one took place in May 2016, when he recorded six actors as they took turns reading the 496-page Art Studio out loud over the course of three days. Then, in July, he began phase two by running a series of workshops with the actors to begin exploring the text. One exercise involved them creating a physical timeline of the story – which is stuck on the wall of Nine Years Theatre’s Aliwal Arts Centre home like a tapestry – so that they could visualise the structure of the work. Phase three saw Nelson pack his bags to spend two weeks holed up in a hotel room in Bangkok to write. He came back, as promised, with the first draft of the script, which brings them to the currently on-going phase four: the test reads.

Nelson is not required to stage the work as part of Centre 42’s Fellowship, which is more concerned with the developmental process. However, his project caught the eye of Ong Keng Sen, the artistic director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). “Keng Sen met me and said he wanted to do something with Nine Years Theatre, so I told him about the projects I’m working on. He’s interested in Art Studio because it’s something we’ve never done before,” says Nelson. “Technically, it’s our first original work, and it’s pushing the company to do something that’s out of our comfort zone.” The play will be opening this year’s SIFA and performed at Victoria Theatre from 17 to 19 August later this year.

Adding to his already-full plate, Nelson is also directing a Vault presentation for Centre 42 on 5 and 6 May this year, in reciprocation of his Fellowship grant. Titled Dialects & Dialectics, the showcase is a double-bill featuring The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole and No Parking On Odd Days, two of the most famous monologues by the late local theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun.

Both plays have been staged numerous times in English and Mandarin since they were written in the mid-1980s, but Nelson has decided to work with actors Tay Kong Hui and Hang Qian Chou to adapt Coffin into Teochew and No Parking into Cantonese. As Nelson puts it, “it’s a translation from one Chinese to another”.

As a result of the government’s 1979 Speak Mandarin Campaign, Chinese dialects have been on the decline, which Nelson believes has also eroded Chinese Singaporeans’ sense of identity and roots. Since both monologues are centred on an individual confronting the larger system, he hopes that “returning them to dialects and using a grassroot language will help bring out the plays’ sentiments”.

In playing with language in so many ways, Nelson has proved that he has come a long way since his first attempt at translation for The Theatre Practice’s 2002 production of Oleanna by David Mamet. At the time, The Flying Inkpot reviewer Adele Tan had called his translation “competent albeit sober”, and questioned why he “aimed for a straight translation and not a rewrite or adaptation”. By 2013, he’s already become a lot more confident, and he was praised by former Straits Times arts writer Corrie Tan for his “refreshing” translation of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men “that is as lyrical as it is incisive”. And judging by the way things are going, he’ll be pushing himself to try yet more new things for years to come.

But as for taking a break? Nelson shakes his head: “nothing planned yet,” he says. “Maybe a holiday at the end of the year!”

By Gwen Pew
Published on 21 April 2017

Find out more about The Vault: Dialect & Dialectics here, and register for the presentation at Centre 42 on 5 & 6 May 2017 here. More information about Nelson’s Fellowship project can be found here.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #1.

And just like that, Centre 42 is three years old! But even though we’ve called 42 Waterloo Street our home since April 2014, we still get curious passers-by knocking on our office door sometimes. “What is it that you do here?” they’d ask.

We’re not surprised – the exterior of our pre-war bungalow doesn’t give much away. Especially if you compare it to the 2000s, when its main occupant was Action Theatre. An outdoor stage and rows of curved wooden benches used to take up half the front courtyard, while diners would wander in and out of the semi-alfresco restaurant that occupied the other half.

42 Waterloo Street when it belonged to Action Theatre and Casa Latina restaurant. Photo: Casa Latina’s Facebook page

However, in 2013, the theatre company and the restaurant tenant moved out. The National Arts Council announced an open call for proposals for what they envisioned as “a centre for the development of text-based works” to take over the space. It would be opened in 2014.

Upon hearing this, a group of four seasoned local arts practitioners calling themselves TAFY submitted their proposal, which was partly based on the UK’s National Theatre and Royal Court. TAFY stands for Two-And-Fifty Years, as 2014 would mark the 52^nd anniversary of Mimi Fan. Lim Chor Pee’s play is widely regarded as the first Singapore English Language play to be written.

TAFY’s members included Casey Lim, an actor and director who used to be the associate artistic director of Theatreworks and was a co-founder of Checkpoint Theatre; Robin Loon, a playwright, academic and dramaturg; Chiu Chien Seen, a chartered accountant and independent producer who also co-founded Checkpoint Theatre; and Michele Lim, a producer, arts management consultant and theatre educator.

“There had always been talks, since the 1990s, about the lack of consistent new writings for Singapore,” Casey recalls. “Very often, Robin and I would chat about the many issues facing Singapore English Language Theatre. This is one of his many pet subjects.”

TAFY’s proposal was selected, and its members – who became the founding board of directors – called the new space Centre 42. The name is a nod to Centre 65, a now-defunct arts centre founded by the late playwright Goh Poh Seng in the early days of Singapore’s independence.

We welcomed over 3,000 people in one night at the 2016 edition of Late-Night Texting.

And so 42 Waterloo Street was given a fresh coat of dazzling blue paint, and Centre 42 began operations on 21 April 2014. It is to be a home dedicated to the creation, documentation and promotion of texts and writings for the Singapore stage. A range of programmes, which are named after various spaces in a house, were conceived to engage with both practitioners and arts enthusiasts.

We hold regular events that members of the public are welcome to attend, such as our Living Room talks and Vault presentations. Once a year, we go all out for Late-Night Texting, an after-hours affair of bite-sized, text-based experiences that’s held in conjunction with the Singapore Night Festival. We also have theatre festivals and other groups putting on shows in our Black Box every month or so, such as the currently on-going production of Every Brilliant Thing by Bhumi Collective, which you can read about here.

When these events take place, our house comes to life. But you’d be sorely mistaken if you think that we don’t get up to much on a day-to-day basis – because the real magic is happening behind the scenes.

A safe space to create

For instance, our Boiler Room programme gives aspiring playwrights the chance to go through a long-term incubation process, without the pressure of having to stage the work at the end of it. When a script is ready, we invite industry producers to come for a test read and see if they’d be interested to pick up the work and take it to the next stage of development.

Tan Liting’s “Pretty Butch”, staged at the 2017 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.

“I think sometimes works get pushed into production when they’re not quite ready, and then the producers suffer [financially] because of this,” says notable local playwright Alfian Sa’at. “Centre 42 provides artists with a laboratory space where they can devise their works, rehearse in subsidised or sponsored spaces, and test-run their works-in-progress with audiences. I can’t stress how important this is.”

We’ve taken on ten participants for Boiler Room over the last three years, including Tan Liting, whose play Pretty Butch enjoyed a sold-out run in our Black Box as part of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival this year.

“I think Boiler Room gives you the benefit of being able to fail,” says Liting. “We look at failure as such a bad thing, but really it’s part and parcel of the process. Boiler Room is that cushion that says, ‘Yeah okay, it’s not a good play, it’s not a bad play, but these are the things that you can do.’”

Edith Podesta being interviewed by the Centre 42 team about her Basement Workshop journey for “Dark Room”.

Our mission to provide a safe space for artists to create new works extends to other independent collectives as well. To date, we’ve supported the development of 17 projects through Basement Workshop, and rehearsals are taking place behind our blue walls all the time. But while we wouldn’t recommend passers-by to stick their heads into the rehearsal rooms unannounced, video recordings of their works-in-progress are available on our website and YouTube channel.

“Centre 42’s Basement Workshop is an invaluable initiative for an [independent] artist,” says Edith Podesta, whose play, Dark Room, was developed here between February and April 2016. “It provided an affordable home for the creation of Dark Room – a place where we could rehearse and hold meetings, and [it was] a safe, quiet, intimate space where I could hold the interviews that would eventually become part of the script. The series of video interviews made by Centre 42 during the final development phase​ ​helped me articulate the process behind the final production, and became a great resource for anyone interested in knowing more about the production.”

Tan Shou Chen, who had just completed his two-month residency here with his collaborator, Bangkok-based Jaturachai Srichanpen (aka Chuan), adds: “This process has been a luxury. I mean, this is the way that work should be created. We should be having deep conversations, and have the space to get angry at each other, and the space to make up and just to figure things out.”

Shou Chen and Chuan’s new work, Open Waters, will be making its debut in the form of a dramatised reading as part of the Bangkok Theatre Festival later this year, and the duo are hoping to bring it back to Singapore sometime in 2018.

Off-Centre 42

Open Waters isn’t the only international project that we’re involved with. We also helped to establish the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network (ADN) with Lim How Ngean when the performance-maker, dramaturg and dance researcher approached us with his proposal a couple of years ago. While the dramaturgs’ hand in a performance may not be immediately apparent, they are certainly more than just the “third eye” that observes the artist’s creation process. In fact, they often play a crucial role backstage in shaping the final work, by offering insight and knowledge on how to bring it to its full potential.

A talk at the inaugural ADN Symposium taking place at Centre 42 in 2016.

But since the discipline is still in its infancy in this part of the world, How Ngean came up with the idea of forming a community, so that those who are practising dramaturgy in the Asia-Pacific region can come together to discourse and share their expertise with each other.

“It’s important to start talking about dramaturgy now because this thing called the contemporary performance keeps changing in its complexity, its layering and its media,” he says. “And so one way to tackle or to look at it is through the lens of dramaturgy.”

The first ADN Symposium was held at Centre 42 and the Esplanade Theatre Studio in April 2016, with Centre 42 taking on the role as its main institutional partner. We brought over 20 speakers from 12 countries to Singapore, and it was very well attended by both practitioners and interested members of the public from around the region. The project flew the nest this year and took off to Japan as part of TPAM – Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama. We’re currently in the midst of planning for the upcoming editions in different countries.

So yes, from the main street, Centre 42 doesn’t always look like the most bustling place on the block. And compared to what production companies do, our work doesn’t sound nearly as glitzy or glamorous. But as a theatre development space, we support artists and collectives in their craft, and strive to nurture the next generation of theatre makers. We hope that one day, they will be able to look back and remember the times that they spent exploring new ideas and getting to know other practitioners in that safe, quiet little blue house at 42 Waterloo Street.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 21 April 2017

Read more about Centre 42’s full suite of programmes here, and stay updated with our upcoming events on our Facebook page.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #1.

Andrew Marko with a box of brilliant things. Photo: Gwen Pew

When the going gets tough, it’s easy to lose sight of what makes life so great. The narrator in Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s play Every Brilliant Thing would know – his mum had tried to commit suicide when he was only six years old. In order to remind her that there’s always something worth living for, he began writing a list of brilliant things that exist in the world over the next 30 years of his life, with a little help from his audience.

The resulting piece was first staged in 2013 in the UK. Since then, it’s headed to America (where it had a stint at a theatre Off-Broadway in New York), Australia, New Zealand, and various cities around Europe. And now, Mohamad Shaifulbahri (aka Shaiful), the joint artistic director of the newly-formed Bhumi Collective, is bringing it to Singapore.

“I first heard about it in Edinburgh when it was running at the Fringe. A number of friends said it’s a show I should really watch, but I couldn’t get tickets to it. I got a copy of the play not long after and thought it’s, um, brilliant!” says Shaiful. “The story of someone young being a caregiver isn’t something we had previously addressed on stage, and most of the work that’s been put up has centred on those with mental health issues as opposed to those caring for them. I felt it’d be nice to have something from that perspective.”

The narrator is played by Andrew Marko, who had just won Best Actor at the recent M1-The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for his performance in Pangdemonium’s Falling. We catch up with him to find out what his rehearsal process is like, why the audience shouldn’t be put off by the play’s interactive element, and what, exactly, makes Every Brilliant Thing so brilliant.

First off, you’ve had a couple of rehearsal sessions for Every Brilliant Thing at the time that we’re doing this interview – how are you feeling about the show right now?
I’m absolutely terrified and excited at the same time! The text is brilliant but also rather difficult because there are so many numbers that I have to memorise. It’s been challenging, but I’m very much looking forward to getting it going.

When did you first encounter Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s play, and what were your immediate thoughts about it?
I first encountered it a few months ago when Shaiful approached me with the idea of staging it. I thought it sounded really, really exciting. It’s one of those plays that manages to spread an important message while being extremely fun.

The play has been staged to rave reviews in both the UK and in America. What do you think makes it so appealing and endearing?
I think it’s the unpredictability of the show. You never know what’s going to happen, really. The level of improvisation just makes things exciting. Comedy aside, the play is also extremely honest and heartfelt. People always appreciate an honest story.

How do you rehearse for a play whose success depends as much on the audience as it does on the performer (who, of course, is also required to improvise)?
Well for a lot of the improv bits, Shaiful steps in to be the audience member and throws the best and the worst at me. We play out every possibility and try to find ways out of sticky situations that might arise.

Following on from that, a New York Times reviewer wrote: “Mr. Donahoe presides over [the show] as a host who is skilled in the art of disarming; he generates the illusion that he is somehow our acquaintance of long standing. He knows us well enough to tease us, it seems, but also likes us enough to keep us from making fools of ourselves.” Many theatregoers here aren’t necessarily huge fans of audience participation. Is it possible to practise putting people at ease?
Absolutely! I think the reason why people are so afraid of audience participation is because there is a very thick wall between the audience and the performer. It’s felt on both sides. But I’ve found that the important thing is to connect and engage with the audience before the play even begins. It breaks that wall very quickly.

Despite the cheery aspect of Every Brilliant Thing, the thing that lurks at the heart of the play is depression. From Yellow Chair Production’s Off-Centre to Pangdemonium’s Falling, you’ve been in quite a few productions that deal with mental health issues over the years. What are some lessons you learnt from researching and having conversations about these issues over the years?
I think the most important thing I’ve learnt is that everyone deserves a voice. Everyone deserves a chance to be treated like a friend. This world would be a lot better off if everyone chose love and kindness over hate and judgement.

Apart from Every Brilliant Thing, what else are you working on these days?
I’m trying to get through my last semester in school without failing everything. I’m also working on Electra with Cake Theatre as we are restaging it in KL in the first week of May. I’m also in the process of writing and recording an album with my band, Van Milos!

And lastly, what are some of the items that would be on your list of brilliant things?

• Plastic chairs that don’t break when you lean back on them
• Empty buses
• Perfectly scrambled eggs
• When you press the button for the elevator and it’s already on your floor so you don’t have to wait so long
• The Odeon Towers carpark after 5pm
• When you drop your phone on the floor but the screen doesn’t crack
• When you order a wrap at subway and the person making it doesn’t spill any of the ingredients when wrapping the wrap
• When free Wifi is actually free!

Interview by Gwen Pew on 10 April 2017

Find out more about Every Brilliant Thing here, and catch the show at Centre 42 from 18 – 23 April 2017.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #1.