Boiler Room 2014 Playwright: Suzanne Choo

Suzanne Choo

Suzanne Choo teaches literature at the National Institute of Education. She completed her PhD in English education at Columbia University in New York. Her book “Reading the world, the globe, and the cosmos: Approaches to teaching literature for the twenty-first century” was published in 2013. Aside from writing academic articles, she has an interest in scriptwriting and has been writing plays and musicals for schools for over ten years. In 2008, she was commissioned to write a play titled “Implosion” which was performed over three nights at the Drama Centre. Another play, “smoke,” was a top-ten play performed at the Esplanade during the inaugural Short & Sweet Festival and won the People’s Choice Award. She hopes to continue writing plays that would de-familiarize the ordinary and provoke philosophical thought on issues related to aesthetics, ethics and social justice in Singapore society.

Open Spaces (working title)

The play is an exploration of the power of the literary imagination and its contribution to the development of civic space in Singapore. It shifts between the present in which metaphor, irony, and word play are no longer understood or valued as a result of society’s preference for the pragmatic, the logical, and the literal. This is juxtaposed with late nineteen century Singapore which saw the birth of the literary periodical as a platform through which locals could engage with social and political issues of their time. Set in the midst of a vibrant cosmopolitan world where contestations of power by colonialists, Chinese locals, Straits Chinese and other groups occurred, engagements with the literary played a vital role in developing dialogic and hospitable public discourse. This historical aspect of Singapore is layered with such philosophical questions as – does truth reside in the literal or does the empirical provide only half-truths that are surfaced as reality is disrupted by the fantastical? Does freedom lie in a world where concrete change occurs or in the realm of metaphor and allegory where dispositions of openness and ambivalence are cultivated? Audiences will embark on a journey to explore literature’s role in the past and its possibilities for Singapore’s future in a play of words, time, and imagination.

Reflections by Suzanne Choo

10 November 2014: The Research Phase

“It has been four years since I last wrote a play. During this time, I was immersed in the world of academic writing and research. Taking part in the Boiler Room has been a leap of faith and I am thankful for the encouragement and provocations by Robin and Casey as well as my fellow Boiler Room playwrights.

It was important that at the start of this research phase, we were asked to read widely instead of jumping right into developing our scripts. Our subsequent discussions of the works of Anton Chekov, Michael Frayn, and Caryl Churchill opened my eyes to the different ways in which to structure a play. As I thought about my proposal, one challenge was how to incorporate rich historical material without the play becoming too textbook like! As I explored other playwrights further, one thing became clearer – I needed to find that compelling story in this expansive space of nineteen century Singapore. Reading other scripts made me more conscious too of different strategies used to tackle historical material and the possibility of surfacing, mixing, and contesting history in imaginative ways.

Following the reading of various scripts, I commenced the research for my play returning several times to the nineteen to early twentieth century Singapore archival section of the National Library. As I poured over periodicals, newspapers and other essays written during Singapore’s colonial period in that dark microfilm room, I was struck by the rich material available. While some of these historical documents have been analyzed in scholarly works, few writers have perhaps considered their potential use for the stage. As I embark on the next phase of the programme, certain questions remain – how does one adapt history for the stage? What determines various aspects of history for inclusion or exclusion? What are the possibilities and limits of the imagination and fiction in depicting historical events or characters? “

23 April 2015: The Writing and Review Phase

“I started writing at the beginning of January but realized that as I wrote, new ideas would keep coming. Looking back, I wish I had started writing earlier and that writing and constructing could happen simultaneously. In a way, the play, its characters and story comes to life not from some predetermined plan but from the moment of writing. It is also here, the playwright needs to let go and let the world of the play emerge. The first draft of the play was reviewed by an independent reviewer and also performed during a test-read. I appreciate the various critical perspectives that I think provided new ways of seeing and understanding the play. Unfortunately, I was not able to make it for the test-read because I was overseas on a work-related trip but wish I could have been there so that there could have been more of a dialogue with the director and actors. That said, it has given much food for thought that I hope will strengthen the play!”

12 April 2016: Wrapping up