Promenade theatre work reflects Drama Box’s deep engagement with Pulau Ubin

In The Middle Of The Water

Drama Box
Pulau Ubin
June 1, 8.30pm

In The Middle Of The Water, part of Drama Box’s Under Ubin Night Skies festival, is a spare piece of storytelling that derives its material and power from its site-specific nature. 

Written and co-directed by Kok Heng Leun, with solo performer Chng Xin Xuan, it is that rare theatrical production that is firmly rooted in a particular physical and social geography. The only other theatre work so tied to a specific location is The Theatre Practice’s much-loved and restaged Four Horse Road. 

Kok first explored the story of Pulau Ubin and its inhabitants in the beautifully curated audio walking tour-cum-workshop that was part of Drama Box’s Ubin, made for the 2022 Singapore International Festival Of Arts programme. He seems to have learnt from that experience to both edit the performances and expand his scope. 

This work, part of the ambitious week-long festival Under Ubin Night Skies, takes audiences on a stroll through four locations on the island. At each stop, audiences sit on tiny portable stools to listen to Chng narrate fable-like tales. Dressed simply in cream-coloured loose-fitting shirt and pants, armed with only a lamp and later a dry leaf that serves multiple purposes, Chng evokes the charm and mood of storytellers of yore, sharing stories that signal morals and social mores at eventide. 

Kok’s script offers suggestive sketches. A three-legged tiger escaping white hunters on the mainland swims to Ubin for refuge. The granite of Ubin and Singapore bemoans its destruction at the hands of the British and others who dynamite it to build the city across the water. An old durian tree complains of humans who think of its fruit only in terms of the cash it can earn. 

Lurking beneath these childlike tales are messages about colonial exploitation, environmental disasters and human greed. Yet, there are glimmers of hope. Even as the granite laments that the oldest well in Ubin is next to its deepest wound, Pekan Quarry, it also notes that as seawater seeped into the quarry, the herons came, and the fish, and the reeds. Even as man destroys, nature reclaims. 

While Kok’s writing is malleable enough to carry different readings, it is not heavy-handed. The work sits lightly on the land it is inspired by and examines with such a loving and considered eye. 

What is most intriguing about this piece is not just the staging and the performance but how it fits into the Ubin landscape, both literally and metaphorically. 

Drama Box has been developing its own distinctive hybrid of multidisciplinary practice and socially engaged theatre for more than a decade. Employing techniques from forum theatre, its practitioners embed themselves in a community for a long time to learn their stories. 

This festival, organised in collaboration with Pulau Ubin Fo Shan Ting Da Bo Gong Temple, is an embodiment of what this sort of commitment can build. It could work only with the active cooperation of Ubin’s tiny community of residents and the goodwill and trust Drama Box has earned over the years. This kind of deep engagement is a rarity in Singapore arts practice, where work tends to be artist- and/or theme-centric. 

And it is a practice that rewards everyone – from artiste to community to audience – in a virtuous circle of thoughtful engagement. Judging from the packed ferries on June 1, the festival has attracted a range of audience members, from families to dating couples.  

Quirky as this festival might seem, it is also an intriguing exercise that challenges visitors to re-orient their thinking about Ubin and what functions it serves for urbanites. The audience just needs to take a 12-minute boat ride to experience what has taken Drama Box’s team years to distil. 

Book It

What: Under Ubin Night Skies
Where: Pulau Ubin, meet at Changi Point Ferry Terminal, 51 Lorong Bekukong
When: Till June 5, 6pm to 9.30pm
MRT: Tanah Merah
Admission: From $48 (inclusive of two-way bumboat rides)
Info: https://www.yourtessera.com/e/under-ubin-night-skies