M1 Fringe Festival: I Am Seaweed playwright Cheryl Ho was inspired by miso soup
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Writer and performer Cheryl Ho (left) with director Tan Hui Er of I Am Seaweed, which will be performed at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
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SINGAPORE – A friend enamoured with making miso soup during the Covid-19 lockdown in Sydney, Australia, was the source of unlikely personal revelation for Singaporean theatremaker Cheryl Ho.
Watching her friend add dry wakame seaweed to the traditional Japanese heart-warmer, the 28-year-old was moved to marvel: “Some things, when put under pressure, really expand. I looked them straight in the eye and said, ‘I am seaweed.’”
This moment of anthropomorphism has evolved to become the title of Ho’s one-woman exploration of the excesses and pressures of hustle culture. This was something she felt acutely after graduation as a theatre freelancer trying to forge her way in a foreign country.
She co-produced I Am Seaweed with lighting and production designer Rachel Lee, a long-time collaborator. They took the performance to a 144-seater venue at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in October 2024. And in January 2025, they will stage it at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts studio theatre.
Ho says of the period in her life when she came up with this surreal but recognisably autobiographical monologue: “I was at a highly anxious point in my life, the self-help, self-improvement era where I wanted to optimise everything and be this invincible, resilient person.”
Far from flippant, the seaweed metaphor has legs. “Seaweed is a super food and material. It can help with climate change because it is biodegradable. It is very self-sufficient. It doesn’t take a lot of resources to farm it. I saw it as the ideal kind of person – resilient, multipurpose, adaptable.”
Directing Ho, who takes on multiple roles, including that of seaweed, is Tan Hui Er, a film director with The Hummingbird Co and a founding member of alternative content channel Not Safe For TV.
Tan, 29, describes the script as abstract and needing some piecing together by the audience “in a very beautiful way”.
When she first read the script of the “many Cheryls”, she felt Ho’s words had been spoken countless times by herself.
She says: “It’s acutely relatable. I think Cheryl really wrote quite a powerful script, and bringing it back to Singapore will make it even more impactful. Some scenes are very Singaporean.”
As a film-maker, Tan enjoys playing with the audience’s gaze through lighting and sound, a design-oriented ethos which Ho says is necessary to support the sole performer’s presence on stage.
With its institutional support and bigger budget, this Singapore iteration will see bolder experimentation along these lines – including, at several points, making audiences feel warm, literally.
Ho and Tan have also altered the ending to one that is more “healing”. This is prompted in part by Ho, now back in Singapore, being “more gentle and more conscious of the kind of life I want to lead”, after falling sick five times in 2024 from overwork.
Writer and performer Cheryl Ho (right) and director Tan Hui Er during rehearsals for I Am Seaweed on Dec 28.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
Being in bad working environments is bad for her soul, Ho says. “My body gets inflamed. But overworking is different from burnout. Burnout has a more existential, deep lack-of-purpose dread.”
In a first for the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, I Am Seaweed will feature live sign-language interpretation during its Jan 17 show. Details are still being worked out since the team does not want to simply plonk an interpreter in the corner of the set.
The interpreter herself is deaf, so she will take cues from someone in the audience who will be live signing to her, forming a sort of relay system.
Ho says an additional body on stage could change the show’s dynamics in unpredictable ways, since the play’s very intentional singular performer reinforces ideas of loneliness and other struggles with the self.
Tan hopes those who watch the show will internalise the message of allowing themselves to take a break and wrestling back some joy, even if the holiday season may be over.
“It’s something that people can apply no matter what age they are.”
Book It/ I Am Seaweed
Where: Nafa Studio Theatre, 151 Bencoolen Street sistic.com.sg str.sg/uYHc
When: Jan 16 and 17, 8pm; Jan 18, 3 and 8pm
Admission: $38 from Sistic (go to
Info:
