Timothy Nga
Timothy is interested in the fine spaces that can be found in between the tight weave of Singaporean and global city society.
Since 2014, with the support of The Substation and the National Arts Council, he has worked on and presented theatrical projects that investigate the complex and ever-changing flux of the individual versus the collective. Investigating ways of being in this world, so to speak.
He has two original works to his name. In 2014, he created Taxi: Between You and Me, a verbatim play about taxi drivers under The Substation Directors’ Lab Programme. In 2015, together with Bani Haykal and Yusri “Shaggy” Sapari, he created Between You and Me, a mobile, interactive 1-to-1 performance journey using small spaces within The Substation as corridors for connection, which was staged in the midst of the Night Festival at Armenian Street 2015.
Timothy continues a robust parallel practice as an actor/director and has trained in the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints (SITI Company Summer Intensive 2008 and SITI Company/Soif Compagnie 2013), LeCoq Technique and Ensemble Creation Methods (Movement Theater Studio/Norman Taylor/Richard Crawford/Virginia Scott 2015), Pig Iron Theatre Company/Charlotte Ford/Emmanuelle Delpech 2016, Theatre de Complicite/Lilo Baur 2016) and Forum Theatre (Kok Heng Leun 2011). He is also a founding member of award-winning, now defunct, theater collective, A Group of People.
Where Has The Good Man Gone?
This play is an exploration into manhood and masculinity, beginning with two characters widely accepted as paragons of masculinity, the greatest of the Greek heroes, Heracles, and the Marlboro Man.
Heracles is a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females are among the characteristics commonly attributed to him.
The Marlboro Man is credited with making the most feminine of devices, the filtered cigarette, manly.
How do our gods of strength navigate an ever-shifting consciousness where the post-industrial economy and the rise of free information have transformed biological imperatives into shaky social constructs?
The world turns and society shifts uncomfortably in the sand. Where monsters no longer exist in the physical form, how do heroes of this ilk avoid going from the promise of the Alpha Male to the curse of the Omega Man? Does this prospect scare our dynamic duo? How do they feel about all of this?
“You have to be joking,” says Heracles, with a voice like polished stone. “We don’t talk about our feelings.”
“Correction,” says the Marlboro Man through pursed lips. “We don’t talk.”
