Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

S’pore theatre: Staging a comeback

In April 1994, theatre company Toy Factory unveiled a new play by its founder Goh Boon Teck called Titoudao. The heartfelt tribute to his mother, a Chinese opera artist, proved so popular it sold out its week-long run — prompting Goh to schedule another run in October that year. In between, it also represented Singapore at the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre in Egypt.

In April 1994, theatre company Toy Factory unveiled a new play by its founder Goh Boon Teck called Titoudao. The heartfelt tribute to his mother, a Chinese opera artist, proved so popular it sold out its week-long run — prompting Goh to schedule another run in October that year. In between, it also represented Singapore at the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre in Egypt.

That wasn’t the last Singapore saw of Titoudao. It would return in 2000, 2007 and, next week, the popular play will be staged for the fifth time. “We enjoy bringing it back — it’s really like presenting your best child,” remarked Goh.

Toy Factory’s iconic production won’t be the only case of theatre deja vu in the first half of the year. From April to May, the Esplanade is mounting a mammoth showcase for this year’s edition of The Studios season — 50 English-language plays from Singapore from the ’60s onwards. Stella Kon’s Emily Of Emerald Hill, Kuo Pao Kun’s Descendants Of The Eunuch Admiral, Haresh Sharma’s Off Centre and many more will be staged or be part of a slew of dramatised readings.

WELCOME BACK

There are quite obvious and immediate reasons behind these “comebacks”, of course: Toy Factory is celebrating its 25th anniversary, while The Esplanade’s project is part of the year-long SG50 celebrations. But revisiting theatre’s back catalogue is a welcome thing for other reasons, too.

For one, having a play staged again is a rare opportunity. For every Michael Chiang play that gets revived, many others fall by the wayside. “Unless a production is well-liked beyond expectation and therefore warrants a restaging by popular demand, most plays die a premature death. This is especially true for creations that don’t ‘work’ the first time round and the stigma sticks as a result,” said playwright and director Chong Tze Chien, who is co-curating this year’s Studios series (and whose works will also be read at the series).

He added that with media coverage and reviews leaning towards new works rather than those that have been around the block, “we tend to shy away from restagings as the risks would be too great”.

For those that get a thumbs-up from audiences time and again, bringing them back is a no-brainer. Popularity and familiarity, for instance, make plays such as Army Daze or Titoudao obvious candidates. While Goh demurred from describing the latter as a guaranteed box-office success, he conceded that it would be “easier for us to sell Titoudao than a new work”.

“It also has to do with Singaporeans’ buying patterns — they seem more comfortable purchasing tickets to a production they know,” he added.

A play that already exists may arguably be much easier to mount, too. “Based on the multiple restagings and past experiences, we feel we already have a very solid foundation and better understanding of the work. We can actually use that to discover more things about it,” said Goh.

Director Jeff Chen, who is taking on Kuo’s Descendants Of The Eunuch Admiral for The Studios, pointed out: “From a director’s point of view, it’s easier. Creating something out of nothing is more difficult.”

That said, staging an existing work isn’t necessarily a cut-and-paste undertaking. Playwright Huzir Sulaiman pointed out how, in some cases, the term “restaging” could, in fact, be misleading. “We should speak of restaging only when we are looking at subsequent mountings of the same exact production,” he said. “You don’t say you’re restaging Hamlet, do you?”

Goh, for instance, said he has been very conscious about not repeating himself whenever he brings back Titoudao. Huzir’s monologue, The Weight Of Silk On Skin (which will also be part of The Studios), was first performed in 2011 at the Drama Centre by Ivan Heng and directed by Claire Wong. This time round, it’s Adrian Pang performing in a black box venue, with director Tracie Pang approaching it as a more “intimate” piece.

CANON BUILDING, LICENCE SEEKING

Huzir also pointed out another important function of revisiting plays: “What we are looking at here are new productions of existing works, which are a very important part of developing a canon.”

Simply put, the more you see a production of Emily Of Emerald Hill or Beauty World, the more these are, in many ways, legitimised and validated.

“Restaging a work repeatedly or continuously can canonise a work. With each restaging, there is more currency,” admitted Chen. “In a place where memories are very short, I understand why there’s an urgent need to reclaim history.”

Revisiting certain works may also help cement a company’s identity, as is the case with Toy Factory and its beloved Titoudao. Rather than regarding this as a liability — after all, the company has done a whole lot more than that play — Goh described the indelible association as an “honour”. “To have a landmark production is one’s fortune,” he said.

But while keeping a play in regular circulation may be beneficial to Singapore’s theatre and literature landscape — as well as to certain theatre groups — financial benefits for the people penning these works is another thing altogether.

“Probably only a handful of playwrights in the world make a full-time living licensing their plays full-time. If you’re a David Mamet or someone whose plays are constantly in production, you can cumulatively derive a good income. But I don’t think there are people in Singapore who can do that,” said Huzir, who described issues surrounding artists’ rights — including intellectual property rights and royalties — as “extremely underdeveloped” in Singapore.

Playwright Haresh Sharma thinks looking into this is the next step. “To a certain extent, these are new issues in Singapore. We don’t have the tradition of the literary agent, for instance, or specific statistics in place,” he said, adding that there was no equivalent in the theatre scene of an organisation like the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS), which was created to promote and protect copyright interests of the folks in the music scene.

That said, Sharma added that he and The Necessary Stage, which co-own the rights to his works as he’s the resident playwright, are always more than willing to support any group that wants to stage his works. “It’s not an easy thing to put up a play, so people tend to be very careful because it can be a ‘make or break’ moment.”

OLD VS NEW

Another question that pops up is whether revisiting old plays may possibly hamper or be at the expense of nurturing or developing new works. But for Sharma, it’s more complex than an “either-or” situation. He pointed out that the choice of what to stage isn’t only a case of existing versus fresh-out-of-the-oven plays, it’s also about local versus foreign works, and new foreign versus classic foreign productions.

Take Pangdemonium Productions: While the Pangs may be doing The Weight Of Silk On Skin for The Studios, it’s not part of the company’s official season. They haven’t staged any play written by a Singaporean — if only because they haven’t found a suitable one. “So far, the pieces that are out there don’t fit,” said Tracie Pang. “I think Adrian and I have a certain style that we’re attracted to and I think a lot of the classic local plays are not in the style we would gravitate to. I think we are actually keener to look at new work in terms of local writing.”

Their strategy is to start from scratch. The company is currently developing a piece with a local playwright and it has joined the handful of playwriting programmes around with its own workshop for youths.

Interestingly enough, even when theatre companies are offered the chance to stage an old work, most opt for something else, said The Esplanade’s Rydwan Anwar, one of the co-producers of The Studios. “Sometimes, we see works that premiered outside Esplanade, which we think would benefit from another run and a venue with fuller technical capabilities. (However) most companies ... want to create new works rather than restage their older ones.”

For instance, in 2009, they invited Jean Ng to restage her monologue … And Buddha Said Mop The Floor. She declined, saying she wanted to work with Chong Tze Chien, who came up with the play POOP instead.

Chen, too, said he would rather develop new work. While staging existing plays is necessary to develop the local scene “from a macro-historical point of view”, he said choosing what to put up would boil down to the resources at hand. “The same amount of money used to ‘canonise’ and restage an (existing) work can be used to create a new piece. You’re talking about tangible resources here and I think we have to always ask ourselves (these questions).”

For Chen, this is connected with a bigger and urgent issue: There isn’t enough new quality work coming out, which perhaps can happen only if there’s a flourishing output. “There are some who are trying, but I haven’t seen the kind of talent that we used to have. And if this goes on, the question is: Do we carry on only with a repertory of plays from the ’80s, ’90s and early Noughties?” he asked.

Fact is, though, there’s always space for revival. Sharma recalled: “Ten or 15 years ago, the only people who were staging my plays were TNS and very rarely did we get anyone else who would want to do them. (Now) we get requests from polytechnics, overseas universities and other theatre companies.”

There’s even another frontier to consider: A couple of Sharma’s plays, October and Fundamentally Happy have been turned into a telemovie and a feature movie, respectively, and are scheduled to be released very soon. “That’s also a positive thing for me — that’s another form that a play can take.”

 

Titoudao is from March 5 to 14, 8pm, at Drama Centre Theatre. With 3pm weekend matinees. Tickets from S$49 to S$69 at SISTIC.

The Esplanade’s The Studios: Fifty series runs from April 2 to May 10, various times, at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. For more information, visit http://www.thestudios.com.sg.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.