Esplanade’s The Studios season dives deep into issues that divide
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SINGAPORE – Kicking off in July, 2024’s Esplanade’s The Studios season features four shows – Air; One Day We’ll Understand; Rhapsody In Yellow; and This Song Father Used To Sing (Three Days In May) – that explore how the fault lines of global politics are mapped onto everyday life.
Saga of displaced indigenous Orang Seletar deepens in Drama Box’s updated staging of Air
Drama Box's verbatim theatre show Air is based on interviews with the indigenous Orang Seletar.
ST PHOTO: AZMI ATHNI
Five years since Drama Box first told the story of Johor’s displaced Orang Seletar in its verbatim theatre show Air, co-director Kok Heng Leun, 58, finds it “depressing” that the villagers he met are still facing issues of displacement.
He and co-director Adib Kosnan, 38, say challenges persist for the people they spoke to, with a recent court ruling that could force the seafaring community to relocate further inland. The Orang Seletar – who lived in Singapore but left and resettled on the southern coast of Johor – had previously been displaced from the sea to the coast.
The updated version of Air (Malay for “water”) will tackle contemporary issues faced by the community post-pandemic, and is based on new visits to the Orang Seletar villagers living primarily in Kampung Sungai Temon and Kampung Pasir Putih. Playwright Zulfadli Rashid wrote the script, which draws on the interviewees’ own words.
Visual artist Sim Chi Yin’s 13-year search for her deported leftist grandfather’s story takes the stage in One Day We’ll Understand
Visual artist Sim Chi Yin makes a performance debut with One Day We’ll Understand, which follows her search for her deported leftist grandfather.
PHOTO: ESPLANADE – THEATRES BY THE BAY
Singaporean artist Sim Chi Yin’s search for her late grandfather – one of the 30,000 people deported to China during the Malayan Emergency (1948 to 1960) – has powered her art career, leading to the pinnacle of the art world at Venice Biennale.
After the career high of showing her short video Requiem (2017) at Venice earlier in 2024, the first-time performer is finding theatre a “nerve-racking” proposition.
Her hour-long lecture-performance One Day We’ll Understand, which plays at Singtel Waterfront Theatre from Aug 30 to Sept 1, is part of Esplanade’s The Studios season.
Pianos, ping-pong players and diplomats duel and duet in artist Ming Wong’s Rhapsody In Yellow
Two pianos duel and duet each other in Singaporean artist Ming Wong's lecture-performance.
PHOTO: SEBASTIAN REISER
Singaporean artist Ming Wong comes full circle with his upcoming lecture-performance Rhapsody In Yellow at the Esplanade, as he returns to the Singapore stage where he started as a young artist.
The Berlin-based multimedia artist is better known today for his video and installation works – such as his Wayang Spaceship that graced Tanjong Pagar Distripark in 2022 and Empress Lawn in 2024. But the 53-year-old began as a prize-winning student playwright. He went on to write the book for hit musical Chang & Eng, which premiered in 1997 and subsequently toured in Bangkok, Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
“My passion still hasn’t left the framework of what performance is,” Wong tells The Straits Times over Zoom from Stockholm, where he is in his final month as professor of performance at the Royal Institute of Art. He is, for example, concurrently working on “a science-fiction diasporic Chinese opera cinema project” linked to the Wayang Spaceship.
Thai artist Wichaya Artamat debuts in Singapore with family drama This Song Father Used To Sing
This Song Father Used To Sing (Three Days In May) plays as part of Esplanade’s The Studios season themed Fault Lines, the show’s first Asian stop before it travels to Shanghai.
PHOTO: WICHAYA ARTAMAT
The 220-seater Esplanade Theatre Studio is a massive venue for Thai artist Wichaya Artamat, who usually sees an average audience of 30 in Bangkok, in rooms that might not be purpose-built for theatre.
In his Singapore debut, the Bangkok-based theatremaker is bringing one of his best-known works – This Song Father Used To Sing (Three Days In May). Like the Thai film hit with a mouthful of a title – How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) – Wichaya’s play is also a family drama that strives for intimacy and has a “cinematic quality”.
The show will have its Asian premiere in Singapore on Sept 6 and 7 as part of Esplanade’s The Studios season, before it travels to Shanghai. The show has previously played in European festivals and is one of Wichaya’s signatures.
The story follows two siblings through three Mays commemorating their late father in a traditional Chinese ceremony – often talking about nothing in particular, reflecting the everyday dynamics between siblings. The quiet two-hander features Jaturachai Srichanwanpen and Parnrut Kritchanchai, the original actors from its 2015 premiere.
