While certainly not as common as its film counterpart, documentary theatre often has the same aim of presenting accurate and factual information about an interesting subject matter, shedding light and revealing new perspectives on it. For theatre company Drama Box, they successfully pulled it off in 2019 with verbatim theatre piece Air (Malay for ‘water’), as part of a two-part double bill Tanah•Air, which shone a light on the indigenous Orang Seletar community living in Singapore. This week, they’re getting a chance to update the play and complete ‘unfinished business’ with a brand new standalone staging that opens the Esplanade’s 2024 season of The Studios.

Co-directed by Kok Heng Leun and Adib Kosnan, with a script compiled and curated by Zulfadli Rashid based off interviews with the Orang Seletar, the play showcases a potent, poignant tapestry of stories that showcases how the Orang Seletar have and continue to grapple with issues of land, dispossession and community. Performed by Dalifah Shahril, Rizman Putra, Saiful Amri and Suhaili Safari, this new version of Air saw the team revisiting the Orang Seletar and catching up with them post-pandemic, and adding even more to the already prevalent themes of identity and loss, all told through these authentic voices fighting to hold onto and preserve the heritage of a fast-disappearing community.

“Tanah•Air was originally created in response to the Singapore Bicentennial, where we questioned the idea of what a homeland was. With Air, the aim was to see how a community recovers from dispossession and the violence that they’ve experienced, while also hoping that other people see the parallels with other communities that have been similarly displaced over the last few years,” says Heng Leun. “We felt that there was more we could explore by revisiting it, and some audience members said it could stand on its own as a work, so we took the opportunity the Esplanade offered us to restage it and further expand it.”

“Even for the audiences coming back to watch it again, it’s quite a different experience from before, and we’re unearthing things left unsaid and going deeper into issues that we just scratched the surface of. More than that, we used this as an opportunity to get to know the Orang Seletar even better, really immersing ourselves in their community and spending hours in the waters and on boats with them,” says Zulfadli. “To me, it is our responsibility to give voice to these communities, and amplify certain aspects to help audiences reflect upon what we have left behind or no longer identify with, despite them always having been a part of our history. So much change has happened and affected so many people, and this is a way of reclaiming part of our lost identity and narratives, and taking pride in our heritage and predecessors.”

In the five years since the original staging, Singapore has of course, been through massive change, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, disrupting life as we knew it and changing the way we saw the world. The Orang Seletar were affected too, and today, their lives are completely different from how the Drama Box team experienced it back in 2019. “In 2019, we had the luxury of spending time on one of their floating restaurants, which was owned by the head of the kampung, but when we came back for this production, the restaurant had already been sold to a Chinese businessman who now runs the place, and the Orang Seletar are working for him instead. I remember how he scolded them for using the toilet even, and it made me realise they no longer belonged in this place they once owned,” says Zulfadli. “There was so much compromise to be made for the sake of survival, and even beyond the pandemic, with pollution and ecological change, their mussel farms haven’t been as productive, the restaurant wasn’t doing well, and they had to give away their culture.”

“Over the course of both productions, we went from meeting them to forging relationships with them, and we had so much we wanted to say. Back in 2019, it was very much about the court case they were fighting to win back their land, and while they did win, it felt empty because they were only given an equivalent plot of land and resettled instead of getting back their actual land,” says Adib. “It was quite bleak, and the more we researched, we found out about the various kampungs other struggles as well, whether financial or otherwise. Yet they continue to hold on to that identity, be it in their culture or even the language that they speak, and it is a privilege to tell their story of what happened to them.”

As objective as documentaries may be, creators often have a vested interest and specific angle to which they portray their subject matter, either leaving out certain information or presenting specific points of view that strengthen their case. Drama Box however, sincerely aim to simply presenting the truth as far as possible without embellishing it, and letting the Orang Seletar speak for themselves. “Ideally, creators would always have some kind of emotional attachment to your subject matter – after all, you do spend so much time with them, so you end up bringing your self into the process. But we must keep in mind that we are not here to co-opt their culture or struggle, we are merely representing them as best as we can, so we need that critical distance to look at representation, without oversimplifying or exoticising or romanticising it,” says Heng Leun.

“We do not aim to entertain, but to enlighten. This is not a story that belongs to us. Everything you hear onstage is real and authentic extracts from the interviews conducted, and while we do emphasise certain segments through directorial decisions, there is no specific narrative we’re crafting,” says Zulfadli. “It’s an intense process getting through hours of interviews, and I’m aware that in prioritising certain segments over others, there might be some bias, but I always remind myself to take a step back and remember our purpose, so that we keep it to what we feel is necessary for the audience to know and learn in the 1.5 hours they’re in the theatre.”

“To me, what people should take away from this is to better understand the history of their own self, where they might come from and what it means to be Singaporean. We’re living on an island, but we don’t live like islanders, because we’re an island city. We’ve lost a connection with that sense of being an islander, and perhaps there is something that resonates when they hear these stories of people where they are so intimately connected with the land and sea,” says Adib.

It seems like a grim outlook for the Orang Seletar as a whole, but the Drama Box team are determined to ensure that audiences aren’t completely weighed down by the end of the play. “We’ve added some new interviewees into the mix, like the headman’s daughter, to offer a youthful perspective and gentleness and hope to the otherwise grim and harsh disposition of the Orang Seletar,” says Zulfadli.

“We’re not completely pessimistic about what will be the outcome for the Orang Seletar – this isn’t a struggle unique to them, of losing something whenever progress comes along, and they’re cognisant of the difficulty and simply trying their best to keep whatever they can hold onto. There’s a realism to it where you know that you have to progress alongside the world, and you’ll lose things along the way, and really, we just hope people come away understanding their concerns and who these people are,” says Heng Leun. “Especially now that we’re performing with a traverse stage, we hope that audiences have some distance from the actors and can step back from how overwhelmingly immersive the original was, and see things from various angles and take different perspectives of the script.”

With the theme of this year’s The Studios revolving around Fault Lines, referencing the volatility and unrest in the world, and how we’re constantly navigating points of tension, we end off by asking about what they felt were the fault lines present in society, and how we might go about confronting or handling them. “The fault lines in our society continue to exist between class and socio-economic status, and it’s important for us to start by even acknowledging those gaps exist, in order to even address them,” says Zulfadli. “As we’re now approaching National Day, I think it’s time to stop painting everything with a broad paint brush, and see how diverse our society is, while admitting that cracks in the system do exist, and start work to address them.”

“Often, we are looking out for our own wants and needs, but we might miss the bigger picture and how our own actions end up causing an effect on others around us. Yes, we want to be safe, and our core fundamental human needs trump everything else, but at what expense?” concludes Adib. “We should have more vulnerability to let someone else in, and accommodate their perspectives and needs. Things can be so much better, once we acknowledge the people who end up caught in the fault lines, try to understand them and where they’re coming from, and how we may be partly at fault for perpetuating it, to start the process of solving it.”

AIR plays from 12th to 14th July 2024 at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre. Tickets available here

The Studios 2024 – Fault Lines runs from July to September 2024 at the Esplanade. Tickets and full programme available here

Production Credits:

Playwright Zulfadli Rashid  Co-directors Adib Kosnan & Kok Heng Leun  Dramaturg Charlene Rajendran  Performers Dalifah Shahril, Rizman Putra, Saiful Amri & Suhaili Safari Producer Jo Lim  Set Designer Mohd Fared Jainal   Lighting Designer Emanorwatty Saleh  Sound Designer & Live Performer Tini Aliman  Multimedia Designer Jevon Chandra  Costume Designer Max Tan  Researcher Ilya Katrinnada