Edith Podesta and The Studios’ Dark Room is an immersive and intimate retelling of life in Changi Prison Complex

Singapore — The strength of this second iteration of Edith Podesta’s Dark Room lies not in its ability to inform audiences about what happens behind the high walls of Changi Prison, but its power to immerse us in that experience. Dark Room harnesses material from hours of interviews conducted by playwright Podesta with former inmates of the Singapore prison system to deliver a systematic breakdown of the “life cycle” of a prison inmate: From the moment he or she is charged by the police and desperately seeking bail in the middle of the night to the moment of his or her release and eventual return to “normal” society through the words of the inmates themselves.

The play’s immersive experience is created in large part through ingenious use of set and sound. Chris Chua Teck Leong’s set design consisting movable prison cells shifted around by stage hands dressed as prison officers is disconcertingly spot-on — down to the size and layout of a one-person cell and its use of the precise shade of blue that colours every door in Changi Prison. Darren Ng’s sound design, too, is always present in the form of distant echoes of banging concrete and heavy metal doors, to the low hum of Amazing Grace playing in the background as some of the prisoners are finally released. More than any other aspect of the production, sound played an integral part in enlivening this play and in making the experience seem as real (and unreal) for the audience as it must have for the inmates when they first entered the prison system.

It is not clear precisely how many inmates’ accounts featured in the play. Podesta shifts and merges their stories — placing them in the mouths of nine inmates selected to represent the full spectrum (eight men and one woman; four minority races and five Chinese; eight Singaporeans and one foreigner). Each character takes turns to tell the audience stories of everyday life inside: From minute details pertaining to the contents of the plastic box that inmates are issued with on the day they first arrive; to heartbreaking accounts of the crying that creeps in during nights in the cells; and the pain and joy of receiving letters from the outside.

There is no shying from the (arguably) more brutal aspects of Singapore’s prison system. The play lingers significantly on one inmate’s description of the process of caning. But there are moments of unexpected beauty, too. One of the most moving moments of the production occurred in one scene as the prisoners told how, after lights-out, they might hear the call “Radio, radio!” ring out from neighbouring cells. As the lights in the theatre are turned off, each inmate (lit only by lights hidden inside his or her individual plastic box) began to drum and sing a haunting Malay tune that will linger in the mind for a long time to come.

Ultimately, Podesta’s play is a celebration of the incredible resilience demonstrated by men and women who sustained themselves in a bleak environment with more humour and basic humanity than anyone could have reasonably expected. It is there: In their fond reminisces of prison food (tea mixed with mee goreng) and of taking the prison bus from the State Court to Changi (called “Home Sweet Home!”) to the advice and protection that old-timers extend to the young and new inmates (“Keep the toilet clean, keep the floor clean, and yes, it is normal and acceptable to cry”). For those whose only conception of the prison experience is what they have seen on American television shows, Dark Room provides an important counter-narrative of what a “real” prison experience is like. It also makes a powerful argument against society’s prejudice towards ex-cons. For what becomes clear is that these people really are no worse than the rest of us: In some ways, really, they are among some of our best. Karin Lai