Marking the 30th anniversary of the Singapore premiere of Madame Mao’s Memories, Who’s Talking? Who’s Asking? comprises two original performances devised in response to the play.
Written by Henry Ong in 1989, Madame Mao’s Memories is a monodrama based on accounts on the life of Jiang Qing (1914 – 1991), former Shanghainese actor, major Chinese political figure, and consort to the Chairman of the Communist Party, Mao Zedong. After the death of Mao in 1976, Jiang Qing was imprisoned for her involvement in orchestrating the Cultural Revolution, a violent sociopolitical movement that led to widespread persecutions and killings.
T:>Works staged Madame Mao’s Memories in 1991, directed by Ong Keng Sen, with the role of Jiang Qing performed by Claire Wong. In the following year, T:>Works brought the production to the Edinburgh Festival where it received international critical acclaim.
Thirty years on from Madame Mao’s Memories’s Singapore premiere, nine students from the National University of Singapore’s Theatre Studies TS3103 Theatre Lab have been engaging with the text and context of the play, developing two performances which respond to its themes, issues and dramaturgy.
Join us on 9 April at the 72-13, home of T:>Works, to uncover who’s talking and who’s asking in Madame Mao’s Memories.
ONLINE PREMIERE & ARTIST SHARING
Thursday, 29 April 2021
7.30pm
Zoom and YouTube Premiere
Admission: Free, donations encouraged
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
LIVE PRESENTATION
Friday, 9 April 2021
3pm & 7.30pm
@ 72-13
Admission: Free, donations encouraged
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Who’s talking? Where are we? Who are we? Fragments explores the multiplicities of perspectives and positionalities with regards to Henry Ong’s Madame Mao’s Memories. Through the use of fragmented visuals and flashes of memories that make up our understanding of contexts, we establish our truths and uncover ourselves in Madame Mao’s Memories.
Artists
Cheng Xin Rui
Koh Jia Sheng
Lim Ci Xuan
Ng Zhe Ern
Suki Teh
Nobody Asked! confronts and critiques Henry Ong’s authorial positionality in dramatizing Jiang Qing’s experiences. This response interrogates the authorship and articulates our collective frustration towards the ways in which women’s stories are retold, rewritten and appropriated. Nobody Asked! uncovers the dynamic relationship between staging stories belonging to specific cultural-historical spheres and the subjectivity of memories.
Artists
Benjamin Lye Jin Yang
Ian Pereira
Sasitharan Gaiatri
Sneha Sudha Sanjay
On 29 April, we held the online watch party and artist sharing of Who’s Asking? Who’s Talking?. The creators of Fragments and Nobody Asked! presented an introduction to the creative process of their work. Following that, a question and answer segment was moderated by Dr. Robin Loon, module chair for TS3103. The session was open to the public and attendees got to offer comments and questions which were then answered by the students.
Watch the artist sharing segment below:
Programme Booklet
FRAGMENTS
Cheng Xin Rui
Koh Jia Sheng
Lim Ci Xuan
Ng Zhe Ern
Suki Teh
NOBODY ASKED!
Benjamin Lye Jin Yang
Ian Pereira
Sasitharan Gaiatri
Sneha Sudha Sanjay
DRAMATURG
Dr. Robin Loon
(Module Chair TS3103 Theatre Lab)
PRODUCER
Ma Yanling
(Centre 42)
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Eugene Koh
TECHNICAL CONSULTANT
Henrik Cheng
DOCUMENTATION WORKSHOP FACILITATOR
Daniel Teo
(Centre 42)
DOCUMENTATION
Daniel Teo
Lee Shu Yu
(Centre 42)
Centre 42 and NUS Theatre Studies would like to warmly thank T:>Works for their generosity and help.
