When The Theatre Practice (TTP) moved into 54 Waterloo Street in 2016, it meant so much more to Kuo Jian Hong than just moving offices. For in that newly renovated blue and white shophouse, the 53-year-old bilingual theatre company finally found a place to call their own.

Prior to the move, TTP had been based at Stamford Arts Centre since 1986. Jian Hong took over as the company’s artistic director from her parents, Kuo Pao Kun and Goh Lay Kuan, when her father passed away in 2002. But to her, their old headquarters always felt very transitional.

“Back then, we renewed our lease every year, so we never knew when we’re going to move. We were there for 30 years, but we never felt like it’s ours because we had no performing space,” she explains. “Whereas here [at 54 Waterloo Street], we’re under the [National Arts Council’s] Arts Housing Scheme, with a longer lease period. We have our own performing space, and a sense of ownership.” The new space is outfitted with a black box theatre, a rehearsal studio, and the Practice Tuckshop.

With that sense of ownership comes the desire to find out exactly what they’re owning. After all, by itself, the shophouse is just a shell. To begin giving the space meaning, the team started looking back at the history of this area.

“You can’t be truly connected to a place unless you start digging and see what has been before you,” says Jian Hong.

The result is Four Horse Road, an ambitious performance that will be staged from 4 to 28 April 2018. It comprises ten stories inspired by events that took place over the last 150 years, and features 46 colourful characters. They include a French nun, a Japanese soldier, a Hokkien man who thinks that he is the resurrected Jesus Christ, a Jewish family, a Malay waiter working for a Chinese restaurant, among others.

“There are many considerations when you’re representing different eras, different perspectives, different languages, and different religions,” says Jian Hong. “All the actors are helping with the research, and we have a WhatsApp group where they all share [new information they find]. It’s a daunting task, but it’s fun because you’re really learning something new every day. The amount of material we have is astronomical, but of course you need to think about the experience for the audience as well.”

Playwright Jonathan Lim was brought in to curate the research into a cohesive experience. Jian Hong invited him to come on board as she knows he has a personal connection to the area: he was a former student of Catholic High School, which used to be located on Queen Street (where SAM @ 8Q is today). He had also created another work, titled People Say Got Ghost, for ACTION Theatre’s double bill, Waterloo Stories, in 2003. ACTION Theatre was located at 42 Waterloo Street, where Centre 42 now stands.

The straightforward way to perform this work would have been in a theatre setting. Instead, Jian Hong has opted to play with a larger canvas, and stage it across three neighbouring heritage houses: the homes of TTP, Chinese Calligraphy Society, and Centre 42.

“We started looking at how we connect to our neighbours, now that we have sparring partners like you guys around,” says Jian Hong.

Up to 180 audience members can attend Four Horse Road each night. They will be split into six groups, and led to the various locations by a guide. Which means that at any given time, six scenes are happening in different spaces – no mean feat to pull off.

“The challenge of this piece is not just the content, but also the logistics,” says Jian Hong as she opens up a mind-bogglingly detailed spreadsheet showing the various spaces and timings, planned out down to the minute.

As Centre 42 is one of the Waterloo Precinct Partners for Four Horse Road, we’ve seen first-hand just how much work has gone into creating this piece. The idea of a multi-property site-specific work was first mentioned to us more than a year ago. And over the last few weeks, we witnessed the TTP team bringing that vision to life in our spaces: constructing a new entry way at the back of the building, recreating a restaurant in the front (complete with tzechar-style tables and a stage), and transforming all the rooms in our blue house into different worlds. The set-making happens by day, rehearsals by night. Four scenes will be taking place here, including an unlikely encounter in a jailhouse in 1870, and a visit to an old folk’s home in 1952.

It’s an exciting project, but Jian Hong is quick to point out that doing an immersive, site-specific piece like this is nothing new.

“It’s been done before. I’m not trying to prove anything, and I’m not really reinventing the wheels here,” she declares. “I just want to try doing something from a different perspective, by anchoring certain subjects in permutations that may not have been done before. And as an institution, TTP has reached a point where there’s enough accumulated history to start putting down roots.”

After three decades here, the company’s love affair with Waterloo Street continues with Four Horse Road. But more than that, the show is a public declaration that TTP is, indeed, home.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 3 April 2018