This June, Teater Ekamatra returns with National Memory Project, a quietly devastating, politically astute, and culturally layered play by Jonny Jon Jon. Originally staged in 2012 and again in 2016, this third incarnation marks the play’s first under Ekamatra’s banner, and will be helmed by Mohd Fared Jainal, who directs the two-hander starring Ellison Tan and Fir Rahman.

At the helm is Ekamatra’s long-time artistic director Shaza Ishak, who recalls watching the original 2012 production at The Substation and being struck by how deeply it captured the cultural mood. “It really captured the zeitgeist of that moment where a lot of us were doing works around feeling displaced,” she says. “But back then, it was focused more on physical displacement, the buildings, spaces, memories disappearing before our eyes. Now, it’s not just the physical, and about how actual memories are being lost. Issues that matter are being made to disappear. And with AI now, we face a future where memories might not just fade, but they might be archived, manipulated, or erased by design.”

The play’s political themes are clear but nuanced, reflecting Ekamatra’s careful navigation of Singapore’s cultural landscape. Shaza is candid about the tension the company faces: “We rely on funding from bodies like the National Arts Council, so there’s an unspoken pressure to self-censor. We have to ask: What happens if we push too far? That balance, between speaking truth and surviving, can be tricky.”

Director Mohd Fared Jainal elaborates, “Our work is about authority and systems, but we never preach. Instead, we use suggestion, sometimes subtle, sometimes visual, so audiences can think for themselves. We push boundaries strategically, knowing the limits but refusing to be silenced. I think what the company does is important, bringing in so many exciting writers with a clear point of view and voice. The company started out as one of the first Malay theatre companies, and we’re trying to find that balance between accessibility and giving them space to think.”

This delicate dance shapes the company’s identity. “While we’re an ethnic minority theatre company, we’re not necessarily here just to put Malay culture on stage,” Shaza stresses. “We put global and local issues on stage, told through a specific ethnic minority lens. It’s a political act as much as an artistic one, and sometimes it’s controversial, but people have slowly but surely warmed to the idea, and become more receptive over time to the term and what we put out these days.”

The new staging is a tight two-hander featuring Ellison Tan and Fir Rahman, who weave English, Malay, and Hokkien into their performance, evoking layers of generational and cultural complexity. For Fir, the script was initially puzzling. “I didn’t watch the previous versions, and when I first read it, I struggled with trying to make sense of how the story all came together. But in rehearsal, it clicked: this is about preserving Ahmad’s memories for his loved ones, so they can talk to him, so they won’t forget, and I’ve played similar characters before, whether in Berak or Harap.”

Fir plays three roles, including Ahmad and a Hokkien-speaking version of Judy’s father. “Memorising lines in three languages is tough, especially Hokkien, which I had to learn purely through rote memory. And this is my first two-hander, there’s no break, no one else to lean on but myself and Ellison. It’s intense but rewarding. Also, this is very much a dialogue play. If you miss a line, you’ll break the flow and end up missing everything.”

Ellison agrees: “Performing in Malay is new for me too. Fir and I have never acted onstage with each other before, but our rehearsals are very open, there’s no hierarchy between director and actors, or between us. That openness builds chemistry and lets creativity flow freely.”

She adds, “Even though I watched the 2016 version, I think at that time I was too young to fully grasp it and felt emotionally detached—too young to grasp it fully. Now, I’m closer to my parents’ mortality, and this play hits harder. Some stories just age with you.”

Asking them about what personal memories they would donate to the fictional National Memory Project, the actors take a moment to consider which intimate fragments of their lives they would like preserved for the future. These exchanges deepen their connection to the play’s themes and each other, embodying the very act of remembering and preserving. Fir recalls, “Maybe my wife giving birth to my children, it’s very vivid, because she gave birth to number 1 and 3 outside of a hospital.”

Ellison’s contribution: “For me, it was when my drama club ended up vandalising the entire drama club room after we were told that it would be taken away from us and used for something else instead. Our school supposedly produced really ‘good’ kids and it felt so good just to break out of that stereotype for once and go wild, and finally have some kind of agency.”

And Shaza adds: “Back in school we used to play a game called spirit of the pen, at least, until one of our classmates really got possessed, and we just stopped thereafter.”

The team takes a moment to think about their old schools, how campuses have evolved and changed, or how the surrounding area is no longer the same, evoking a sense of loss and disappearance, much like how in this play, it’s the silences, the disappearances, the creeping sense that we are losing something vital: languages fading, memories eroding, human connections thinning, something that informed the more abstract way

“You step into a ‘nothing space,’” Shaza reflects. “There are two people talking, but the story is about now, a dystopia already here. AI replacing thinking, languages vanishing, people dying but their voices still speak.”

Restaging a play is a significant decision. “There’s guilt,” admits Shaza. “New playwrights wait for their first chance, but we say, hold on, your time will come later. So restaging is a huge commitment, especially with already limited resources, and that’s why we make sure every single work we put out is of quality. We respect every piece of work we put out.”

On the other hand, Ellison sees restaging as an opportunity to ask new questions. “How does this text sit now? This version is updated, and it starts conversations we urgently need. Theatre is about shared space. Audiences come and go; some shows are for everyone; some aren’t. The point is we keep showing up, and keep putting work out there for others to appreciate, as and when they can, where the audiences grow with the company. People will perk their ears up at stunt casting sure, but they’ll only really flock to the theatre when the company gains a track record of producing quality shows, and from word of mouth that a show is a must-watch. A company ultimately has to believe itself and the work it puts out, whether a transcreation or original work.”

National Memory Project is not a crowd-pleasing fairy tale but creates its own magic, through language, emotion, and cultural specificity. In a world where forgetting is easy, National Memory Project insists on presence—on remembering. For Fir and Ellison, they fear the loss of language and memory most of all. “I always find dialects are beautiful to hear, whether dialects in Boyanese or Javanese or Hokkien Teochew. Although I don’t understand them necessarily, but I like listening to them, you know. And it’s a pity that actors of our generation don’t speak these dialects anymore. So, when playing Hokkien, you know, I mean, it’s a struggle for me to memorise and to do it. But I think it’s going to attract audiences to smile when they see, like, a Malay guy speaking Hokkien, and the hope of getting people to watch.”

“I actually practiced some of my Hokkien with my mum, and her own voice ended up featured in the show as a voiceover. It makes me sad thinking about how much she’s ageing, but when she speaks Hokkien, she is so clear, so confident when she speaks, it’s really a part of her memory that’s so deeply rooted and entrenched that she can put it across like that, so I’m glad that this part of her survives and continues to exist within the play,” says Ellison.

As Shaza says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how fleeting memories can be, and how much we’ve already lost, from Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre, to other spaces. We talk about them in our memory, but it’s different when an entire space has become lost to time, you no longer experience that space, and it’s gone, where beyond even the significant moments, you end up losing the little silly things you end up doing. So working on this play, I’ve been reminded a lot about living in the moment, and how important theatre is as a reminder too, where it demands you be there, in the moment, with others. That’s what we want: to bring people in, to stay in that space, for however long it lasts, to mourn the loss, but keep on by making new experiences.”

National Memory Project plays from 25th to 29th June 2025 at the Drama Centre Black Box. Tickets available from BookMyShow