Wills and Secession is the second play in Eleanor Wong’s landmark trilogy Invitation to Treat, which features Ellen Toh, an ambitious lawyer and gay woman.

At the end of the first play, Mergers and Accusations, Ellen has fallen in love with colleague, Lesley, and parted ways with husband-slash-best friend, Jon. In Wills and Secession, Ellen and Lesley now live in London, but when the play opens, Ellen is back in Singapore to attend her mother’s funeral. With her religious sister, Grace, she sorts through her late mother’s belongings.

When Grace’s husband, a pastor, and her family are called away on a long-term missionary trip, Ellen moves back to Singapore with Lesley to look after her father. Lesley, however, develops a terminal illness. Grace returns as Lesley nears her demise.

Development

Eleanor Wong credits Ong Keng Sen, artistic director of TheatreWorks and co-director of Mergers and Accusations, for the push to write a sequel for Ellen. The following is an excerpt from an interview with writer Ng Yi-Sheng on 6 September 2019 when Yi-Sheng was conducting research for The Vault: Desert Blooms (2019):

“Wills [and Secession] was yet another Keng Sen intervention. I’m very grateful to Keng Sen for always being so manipulative. And I use the word “manipulative” in the most loving way.

“I was back in Singapore and working quite hard at an international law firm, but if I’m not mistaken, Keng Sen was the one who came to me and said, “Is there more to this story?”

“It was very, very, very hard to write, partly because of all the work I had, partly because it dealt with a topic that was more harmful than just love: family and religion.

“I still remember Keng Sen and his phone calls. We were at an office at Tung Centre, the glass windows facing into the secretarial pool, and somewhere in the middle of the day, 3 or 4 in the afternoon when he’d first woken up, he’d call and say: “El, what are you feeling? What is it about this scene?”

“And at the end, I’d be blubbering. I’d close the door, bring down the blinds. He’d do the El-whispering and make me cry, and three pages would come out. So it was a troubled birth that one.”

First Staging

Wills and Secession was first staged by TheatreWorks from 14 to 21 Sep 1995 at the Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel, under the direction of Ong Keng Sen.

Tan Kheng Hua and Koh Joo Kim reprised their roles as Ellen and Lesley respectively, and Claire Wong joined the cast as Ellen’s sister, Grace.

The set featured an installation of over 3,000 empty whiskey bottles, designed and created by Susie Lingham.

In her 2019 interview with Yi-Sheng, Eleanor recalled that she and the production team were worried that Wills would be shut down if audience members were to complain about the play’s handling of religion. The production received an “R(A)” rating from the authorities, but according to Eleanor, the rating was not for salacious content. Writing in the programme, Eleanor says,

“If you came for sex or violence, you’ll probably be disappointed… Instead, it’s family and faith. The F words that (to me, at least) make this an R(A) play.”

Wills was subsequently restaged in 2001 by TheatreWorks as part of a double bill, in 2003 as part of a triple bill by Wild Rice, and in 2004 as part of a Mandarin double bill by Toy Factory Productions.

Responses

“The work takes the lesbian identity of the two women [Ellen and Lesley] as a given and focuses largely on the issue of mortality, as Ellen comes to terms with Lesley’s terminal illness. Lesley serves as a conduit for repairing Ellen’s damaged relationship with her family, and by the end of the play Ellen has reached a higher level of truth and integrity in her most vexing relationship – the one between herself and her religious sister. Thus the play is more about mortality and the fragile but fundamental bonds between siblings than it is about Ellen’s identity as a lesbian.

[…]

As with Mergers and Accusations, the mature and confident handling of the lesbian identity of the play’s central character was not stressed in the promotional materials connected with the play’s production.

[…]

Because the lesbian identity of the play’s central character is a purely personal matter and the play does not lobby for change or present any fundamental criticism of society, it falls squarely within established censorship guidelines. The way in which the play was framed for public consumption by TheatreWorks mitigated the potential explosiveness of the play’s content, neutralizing any possible perceptions that the play contains with it a radical social statement.”

Source: Queer the Stage by William Peterson. In Theater and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore (pp. 150-151). 2001: Wesleyan University Press.

On the 2001 staging by TheatreWorks:

“Indeed Ellen Toh here shares much of the limelight with her sister. One could even argue that WILLS AND SECESSION is really Grace’s play, for the play charts her evolution from a woman deeply uneasy with her older sister’s sexuality and spiritual apostasy to one who is able to accept and love both her sister and her partner for whom they are. More importantly, Grace is a highly nuanced character, not simply some pharisaic assistant pastor’s wife parroting the party line, functioning as a crucial balance to Ellen’s emotive rhetoric which sometimes borders on the casuistic.”

Jurisimprudence by Seow Yien Lein. In Flying Inkpot (24 Mar 2001)

On the 2003 staging by Wild Rice:

“After the bittersweet ending of Mergers, Wills takes on a deeper, more pain-wrought tone. Sibling rivalry and resentment eventually tumble out in a hospital waiting room. But there is reconciliation and acceptance to be had. There is a moving moment near the play’s end, when Grace says family is there to ‘inconvenience and impose’.”

Source: Doublebill is double the treat by Clara Chow. In Straits Times (7 April 2003).

“The play is pensive, broken by sudden releases of tension, operating on an emotive as well as intellectual level that made the rich multi-layered dynamics of the script possible. Fraught with stillness, silence and tiredness, with missed chances and angry disconnections, it dealt with lost desires, lukewarm touches, obligations and a grudging acceptance of life and death. More than being just about the ghosts of the sisters’ childhood (wonderfully conveyed through bursts of song that delighted the audience), more than being about God or the belief in one, this play was about the reality of responsibility, about hurt that lasts, about the cruelty of disease.

“The script was honest, even confrontational, forcing one to feel less like a voyeur and more like a participant. The words spoken were raw and real and I found myself nodding in empathy as the lines were delivered, feeling the pain and crying the tears.”

Source: A Family Affair by Jolene Hwee. In Flying Inkpot (7 Apr 2003), https://tinyurl.com/y84oekxn

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The Vault: Ties That Bind features two original short performances devised in response to Eleanor Wong’s Wills and Secession. The two performance responses are created by the graduating students of the NUS Theatre Studies TS3103 Theatre Lab, engaging with and responding to the text and context of Wills and Secession. Ties That Bind is presented by Centre 42 and NUS Theatre Studies, and supported by Teater Ekamatra. Click here to find out more.

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.

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.

A scene from the recording of Three Children (1988) by TheatreWorks.
(L to R) Claire Wong, Lok Meng Chue, Lim Kay Tong
Click to watch snippets of the recording on TheatreWorks’ YouTube channel.

Synopsis

Three Children is about three grown-up siblings – two sisters and a brother – returning to their childhood home on Kappan Road in Malacca. There is no linear narrative in the play. Instead, the three characters (and a narrator) race through a mindboggling series of children’s songs, games and sketches.

Earlier Incarnations

Leow Puay Tin wrote Three Children in 1985 during a playwriting course, basing the play on her own formative years growing up on Kappan Road. At the time, the Malaysian actor-writer was well-known for having originated the role of Emily Gan in Stella Kon’s Emily of Emerald Hill in 1984. But she had also written four short plays, including Three Children, by this point.

Three Children was first staged on 1 September 1987 in a free lunch-time performance at the Shell Theatrette at Raffles Place. This early incarnation of Three Children was performed by the Malaysian theatre collective Shell KL Drama Group, and directed by Chin San Sooi from Kuala Lumpur-based theatre company Five Arts Centre.

The 1987 production of Three Children was not received well. Business Times theatre critic Jamie Lye reported audience members walking out in the middle of the performance. Writing about the play in verse in mockery of the play’s lyrical text, Lye said: “Full of abstract notions/That did not stir emotions/Just a lot of stylish lingo/And a plot that stayed in limbo”.

The next time Three Children saw the stage was on 7 July 1988 at the Experimental Theatre in Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, performed as part of a double bill with another of Leow’s plays, Two Grandmothers. Chin directed the production, and Leow herself performed as one of the sisters.

The Singapore-Malaysia Collaboration

In 1988, Malaysian theatre doyen Krishen Jit met Ong Keng Sen, who had recently become Artistic Director of Singapore theatre company TheatreWorks, after the former penned a review about the TheatreWorks musical Beauty World. It was this meeting – at Hilton Hotel Coffeehouse, according to From Identity to Mondialisation – which sparked off a formal creative exchange between Krishen’s company Five Arts Centre in Kuala Lumpur and TheatreWorks in Singapore.

For Ong, the collaboration was a turning point for TheatreWorks. About the new direction the local company was embarking on, Straits Times reporter Judith Holmberg wrote: “There are some who describe the change in gear as much-needed, citing that the group has been losing its impetus, sliding away from its original goals and becoming predictable in its presentations.”

As a first project in the cross-Causeway exchange, Ong and Krishen would co-direct a TheatreWorks production of Three Children. Work on the play would begin in September 1988.

Creating “Three Children”

Actors Lok Meng Chue, Claire Wong and Lim Kay Tong were cast as the three sibilings, and Neo Swee Lin would play the narrator. Work on the TheatreWorks production started three months before its November opening. Krishen travelled to Singapore on weekends to work with the cast.

While Leow had re-written her play, the actors were not allowed to look at the script for most of the rehearsal period. Instead, Krishen led the actors through devising sessions, a creative process completely new to them. Wong said, “He started by feeding us lines, then bare outlines of situations and said: ‘Do what you can with it.’ We weren’t sure where were heading. He just kept saying: ‘It’s got to come from within!’ He wanted us to use our whole bodies, to tap whatever resources we had, not just our faces or voices.”

In the 1992 programme of Three Children, co-director Ong echoed: “One thing we were very clear of: the final production of Three Children would spring from the imaginations of the actors themselves. The actors would build the world of these 3 children, viewed through children’s eyes. The directors would act as catalysts, pushing them to explore and confront themselves. The whole process was built on experience, memories; felt by the body rather than rationalised by the mind.”

Looking back on the rehearsal process for Three Children, Lok commented, “Everything was so abstract, we had nothing to hold on to.”

On top of devising, the actors were put through rigorous skills training. A voice teacher, as well as a taichi instructor and a Chinese opera expert were brought in to train the actors. According to Krishen, “Good acting means using the right techniques, and you have to learn the techniques before you can use them.”

Taichi and Chinese opera would make their way into the production as well, evincing Ong’s desire for intercultural theatre in Singapore. Ong said, “The English-language drama scene here has no history. Theatre groups have ignored Asian theatre as if we’re living in a desert, when the fusion between East and West should work particularly here.”

The TheatreWorks production of Three Children premiered on 11 November 1988 at the Drama Centre.

Responses to “Three Children”

The 1988 production of Three Children was critically lauded in spite of being a challenge for both actors and audience.

Adeline Woon of the New Paper commended the cast’s performances, noting the excellent vocals and facial experiences, as well as the influence of taichi on the fluid body movements onstage. In sum, she wrote, “The play is as demanding on the audience as it is on the actors. It needs concentration to follow a play that has no plot but switches from one little story to another. But it is well worth the effort.”

T. Sasitharan, writing for the Straits Times, was effulsive in his praise for the production. He wrote, “Suddenly it transpires that a tale is unfolding. At times it is banal, sometimes bizarre, but it is imperative that you watch […] Soon, too soon, it is over; only resonances linger, an afterglow of dreams.”

Jamie Lye, who reviewed the 1987 performance by the Shell KL Drama Group, still thought Leow’s play was “self-indulgent” and headache-inducing. But, she was impressed by the actors’ performances and the directorial vision of the production: “Theatrework’s production of 3 Children was a dramatic masterpiece – a milestone production for the company.”

TheatreWorks re-mounted Three Children as a touring production in 1992, with Krishen and Ong returning as co-directors. Lok and Wong also returned to perform, with Loong Seng Onn taking on the male lead and Tan Kheng Hua assuming the role of narrator. The 1992 production was staged in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 27 September 2018

References

De Souza, J. (1987, 31 August). Three ‘revisit’ their childhood to see understanding of adulthood. In The Straits Times, p.31. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Holmberg, J. (1988, 27 September). A change in the gear in the Works. In The Straits Times, p.25. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Koh, B. P. (2013). From Identity to Mondialisation: TheatreWorks 25. Singapore: TheatreWorks.

Lye, J. (1987, 3 September). A slice of life that’s not very nice. In Business Times, p.13. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Lye, J. (1988, 21 November). The players, dear, not the play. In Business Times, p.13. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Mulchand, S. (1988, 17 October). Three arts that doth a good actor maketh. In Business Times, p.12. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Prema, L. E. (1988, 4 November). Trust him to push you into the deep end. In The Straits Time, p.1. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Rowland, K. (Ed.) (2015). Staging History: Selected plays from Five Arts Centre Malaysia 1984-2014. Malaysia: Five Arts Centre.

Sasitharan, T. (1988, 14 November). World of dreams, memories, folklore. In The Straits Times, p.3. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

Three Children. (1992). House programme.

Woon, A. (1988, 12 November). Three Children takes a look at life and fate. In New Paper, p.25. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.

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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.

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

.
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.
.

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.

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.

The monologue by Kuo Pao Kun is centred on a man who has been tasked to oversee the funeral of his grandfather. It emerges that the grand coffin is too large to fit into the standard-sized grave that has been dug at the cemetery, so the man ends up fighting an uphill battle against government bureaucracy.

First Stagings

The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole is Kuo Pao Kun’s first English play, as he had been writing his scripts entirely in Chinese before this. He came up with the idea for the play when director Tzi Ma invited him to create a piece for Bumboat – a collection of new homegrown plays – that would be staged at the 1984 Singapore Arts Festival. According to former Straits Times arts correspondent Corrie Tan, Kuo said in a 2000 interview with the paper that:

“It was written in about four or five hours. It just flowed out. I still remember that experience – it was wonderful.”

Source: Classic Singapore plays #4 - The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole by Corrie Tan. In The Straits Times (1 Oct 2014), http://bit.ly/2pqfHVh

In the end, the monologue didn’t make it into Bumboat, but this gave Kuo the chance to write a Chinese version for it as well. In the words of the playwright:

All the images are there in the same head. It is the same person writing it. I referred to the original text in English and then re-wrote it. It’s a translation and yet not a translation.

Source: Coffin comes to life by Caroline Ngui. In The Straits Times (19 July 1985), http://tinyurl.com/lh2cush

The Chinese version made its debut on 23 July 1985 at the Victoria Theatre, staged by the Practice Performing Arts School and starring Choo Woon Hock.

The English version, starring Lim Kay Tong, was staged on 11 November 1985 at Marine Parade Library. Lim recalls panicking when Kuo first asked him to take on the lead role, as he had never done a full-length monologue before, and Kuo seemed to be in no hurry to get started on rehearsals:

“Among other things, they visited a coffin-maker and discussed the nature of funerals. Concerned, Lim secretly started memorising the script on his own.

“In retrospect, he believes Kuo had a very clear vision of how the work would take shape. He says: ‘I think it was probably the correct approach, because it somehow got under your skin – all the talking, the background.'”

Source: Classic Singapore plays #4 - The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole by Corrie Tan. In The Straits Times (1 Oct 2014), http://bit.ly/2pqfHVh

Under Kuo’s direction, Lim and Choo also exchanged notes about each other’s portrayal of a man with an over-sized coffin.

[Kuo Pao Kun and Lim Kay Tong] experimented, tried new things, worked on the technical nitty-gritty such as body and voice.

Wenxue was brought in, and both actors watched and learned from each other. All found the two interpretations different but equally valid.

Source: Coffin’s English debut by John de Souza. In The Straits Times (15 November 1985), http://tinyurl.com/kwgpvle

Responses

With Mandarin and English debuts of The Coffin within months of each other, naturally there were comparisons between the two actors and their renditions.

Says Pao Kun: “Wenxue plays his role with bigger dimensions, which comes from his Chinese theatre experience. Kay Tong is not so exaggerated and, in a way, draws you into the piece.

Source: Coffin’s English debut by John de Souza. In The Straits Times (15 November 1985), http://tinyurl.com/kwgpvle

Someone noted that there was more laughter in the lighter, more enjoyable Mandarin version, that this English one was “serious”.

Source: Coffin is what you make of it by John de Souza. In The Straits Times (20 November 1985), http://tinyurl.com/n484wea

The play, in both languages, was universally acclaimed. Many identified with the humour-laden story of man-versus-establishment.

It’s only about 35 minutes long, is full of apparent lightness and innate humour, and takes veiled digs at society and establishment alike… It’s power lies in the simple, unpretentious form given by its creator and director, Kuo Pao Kun, of the Practice Performing Arts School.

[…]

Very few pieces of local writing I know have that potential. Or that power.

Source: Coffin is what you make of it by John de Souza. In The Straits Times (20 November 1985), http://tinyurl.com/n484wea

In the decades following the premiere(s) of The Coffin, many marvelled at how the seemingly simple narrative was laden with multiple themes, rich meanings, and incisive social commentary, all just waiting to be unpacked. The Coffin also cemented its position in Singapore theatre as one of its defining works for Kuo’s success in portraying everyday Singaporean speech.

Coffin is particularly interesting for its deconstruction of the fabric of social values and bureaucratic system… The apparent triumph of simple humanity and sympathy in the face of overwhelming odds dictated by state policies at the play’s conclusion, is in fact a triumph of social mythology; the narrator’s successful one-man stand against the powers-that-be in sociality has effectively ensured his own re-absorption into the social mythology that he has helped to perpetuate.

Source: Of Coffins and Parking Tickets by Jeanette Ng. In Interlogue (2000, Vol. 3, p.43-44). Published by Ethos Books.

Kuo, by turning such a reality into comedy, achieves artistic distillation but his achievements do not end here. He goes further and exposes the absurdity of that reality. The audience can therefore feel the impact amidst the laughter.

The depth of this play far exceeds the incident depicted. Rich themes abound in this monologue – relationships between the younger and older generation, between the individual and the family, between the dead and those alive as well as between the individual and society.

Source: Dilemma of the modern man by Gao Xingjian. In Images at the Margins (2000, p.72-72). Published by Times Books International.

The journey of the narrator from indifference to respect towards his roots is punctuated with gently satirical humour caused in part by convincing ‘Singlish’ (Singapore English), and with absorbing dramatic tension. Anyone who has confronted the unmovable force of bureaucracy can easily identify with the personal trauma of the narrator. What raises the play from a witty parable to a serious modern drama is the continuous presence of ‘inner feelings’ that imperceptibly insinuate upon the psyche of the narrator and his audience.

Source: Kuo Pao Kun – the Man of the future in Singapore theatre by Krishen Jit. In The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole and other plays (1990, p.21). Published by Times Books International.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 4 May 2017

The Vault: Dialects and Dialectics revisits two monologues by the late local theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun: No Parking On Odd Days and The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole. Nine Years Theatre’s artistic director Nelson Chia explores the cultural sentiments and grassroots sensibilities of these plays by staging them in Cantonese and Teochew respectively. Presented on 5 May 2017, 8pm,  and 6 May 2017, 3pm & 8pm, at Centre 42 Black Box. Admission is give-what-you-can. Find out more about the event here.

Kuo Pao Kun’s 1984 monologue examines the rigidity – and sometimes absurdity – of bureaucracy through a series of confrontations that a man has with the authorities over parking tickets.

First Stagings

The English version of No Parking On Odd Days was first staged on 2 June 1986 at the Shell Theatrette in Singapore, starring Lim Kay Tong and directed by Kuo Pao Kun.

On 13 May 1987, the Mandarin version starring Sum Chong Keong was performed at the Victoria Theatre. It was directed by Tay Bin Wee. That same year, the English production also made its debut in Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Responses

The play, as well as Lim’s and Sum’s performances of it, was lauded by both audiences and critics, who immediately identified with the struggles of the play’s protagonist.

It was a situation so compellingly presented on stage that one could not help feeling that writer and director Kuo Pao Kun had written it from personal experience. Mr Kuo, however, was not saying.

[…]

Kay Tong worked the audience beautifully, building up a bubble of anticipation which explodes in a hilarious shock of recognition that rocks the theatre.

[…]

“I like the underlying message of the play – that we accept too much,” said a civil servant.

A businesswoman said she was surprised and pleased that the Ministry of Community Development had included this play in the festival’s programme.

A teacher added: “It means we’re maturing…”

And the loud and sustained applause yesterday was as much a bouquet for the ministry’s good judgment as for the efforts of the writer/director and actor.

Source: Fine way to have a dig at bureaucracy by Irene Hoe. In The Straits Times (4 June 1986), http://tinyurl.com/kls2fqf

His father is disappointed that his son, an inquisitive and upright boy, has become servile and seemingly indifferent towards injustice.

This drew laughter from the audience, who even applauded. But how could they? Would they laugh at such as pathetic situation in real life?

The comperes called this comedy of situation ku zhong zuo le (amuse oneself when in distress). People laugh at others in situations that they have been caught in themselves. It amuses them to know that they are not alone in their plight.

The audience was also taken in by the skill with which [Sum Chong Keong] put the message across. His many tongue-in-cheek jokes threw them off.

Amid the laughter, the seriousness of the situation is not lost. Although I laughed then, I also felt lost and depressed.

Source: Laughing at others - and ourselves by Maggie Tan. In The Straits Times (19 May 1987), http://tinyurl.com/ms8m7fp

No Parking quickly became a landmark work in the Singapore dramatic canon. Academics praised Kuo’s skilful presentation of the Singaporean condition.

As a critique of societal power and ideological apparatuses, it mockingly dismantles the apparatus of state and societal power until the idealistic kernel of “Truth with a capital T” (No Parking, 63) is itself symbolically and literally lost behind the gridlock of legalese and bureaucrats. Then the monologue distorts and undercuts its own dubious truth, finally turning onto the narrator’s “Truth” at the same time it destroys the principles of Law.”

Of Coffins and Parking Tickets by Jeanette Ng. In Interlogue (2000, Vol. 3), p.45. Published by Ethos Books.

Another highlight of the play was its veracity in reproducing the speech patterns and vocabulary of the average Singaporean.

In [T. Sasitharan’s] opinion, too, “here, at last, was a Singaporean writer who knew how to use the word, ‘lah’.”

“Before, it was just an appendage. A writer would sprinkle ‘lahs’ all over the place to make his work Singaporean.”

Source: HK to hear about our parking woes by Caroline Ngui. In The Straits Times (8 January 1987), http://tinyurl.com/mp83g6f

But Kuo’s real achievement in the play is his profound entrance into Singapore English. It is not quite Singlish, the local patois that was gaining in currency and in controversy in mid-1980s Singapore’s English theatre. It is also not quite BBC English either. But it is just as grammatical and lucid. What Kuo has done is to create a fictive Singapore English that feels like the local version but he has reconstructed it in such a way that is eminently usable for drama. Remarkably, Kuo, hitherto a playwright in Mandarin, has created one of the most dynamic and useful forms of dramatic English for the English language theatre of Singapore.

No Parking on Odd Days by Krishen Jit. In Images at the Margins (2000, p.96). Published by Times Books International.

No Parking on Odd Days is available in the following published collections:

• The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole and Other Plays. (1990). Published by Times Books International.
• Images at the Margins. (2000). Published by Times Books International.
• [Chinese version] The Complete Works of Kuo Pao Kun (Volume TWO) – Plays in Chinese (2): The 1980s. (2005). Published by Global Publishing.
• The Complete Works of Kuo Pao Kun (Volume FOUR) – Plays in English. (2012). Published by Global Publishing.

By Gwen Pew
Published on 2 May 2017

The Vault: Dialects and Dialectics revisits two monologues by the late local theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun: No Parking On Odd Days and The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole. Nine Years Theatre’s artistic director Nelson Chia explores the cultural sentiments and grassroots sensibilities of these plays by staging them in Cantonese and Teochew respectively. Presented on 5 May 2017, 8pm,  and 6 May 2017, 3pm & 8pm, at Centre 42 Black Box. Admission is give-what-you-can. Find out more about the event here.

Playing Mothers is an exploration of the concept of motherhood. The play follows seven characters, both female and male, and all mothers in their own way. In a Straits Times article dated 10 Jan 1996, playwright Ovidia Yu said “anyone can mother a child regardless of gender.” Yu took four months to pen the 90-minute play, a commission by the Action Theatre Foundation of New Singapore Plays.

First Staging

Playing Mothers was staged by Action Theatre from 11 to 19 January 1996 at the Drama Centre (Fort Canning). The play was directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham and performed by Irene Lim, Deborah Png, Lee Phing Phing, Christine Chan, Benjamin Ng, Emma Yong and Robert C. MacDougall.

Responses

Straits Times reviewer Susan Tsang was not at all impressed by the production.

Ovidia Yu’s Playing Mothers, which deals with such an emotion-packed subject, is so listless.

[…]

Yu’s ear for dialogue generally is not as sharp as her eye for wit, and her plays often have trouble sustaining a sense of realism. This is usually compensated by her wit, but in Playing Mothers, the sense of character is almost non-existent.

The characters are sketchy at best, and lurch from being caricatures to delivering lectures about family.

Impressive set, but play about motherhood lacks real insight by Susan Tsang. In The Straits Times (15 Jan 1996).

Yu, however, was not fazed by the bad review.

Despite a disparaging review in this newspaper of her recent play, Playing Mothers, she says: “I started receiving mail from people who said they saw and enjoyed the show.

“Some of them were people I knew from reputation but never spoke to before. Much better response than a favourable review has ever got me!”

Two get recognition for dedication to stage work by Koh Boon Pin. In The Straits Times (28 Mar 1996).

The play even received praise over three years after its staging.

That production was Playing Mothers, by Ovidia Yu, which was put on by Action Theatre in early 1996.

It was a memorable experience. And who can forget the attractive and accomplished Christine Chan in her role as Lynn, one of the daughters? She was quite captivating.

So, imagine my surprise when I found that the play had received only tepid praise in a Life! review and had, in fact, come in for considerable flak.

Gosh, standards are high here, I thought. Because I would have given it a rave review.

Standing up to comedy by Ow Mei Mei. In The Straits Times (8 Sep 1999).

Additional Resources

• Playing Mothers can be found in the collection Ovidia Yu: Eight Plays published by Epigram Books. A browsing copy is available in the Book Den.
• The full text can also be found online at the National Online Repository of the Arts.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 12 April 2017

The Vault: Becoming Mother is the third and final presentation in a series dedicated to exploring dance and Singapore play-text. Grounded in their dance practices of bharata natyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien. Find out more here.