Singapore Night Festival returns once again this year to take over Bras Basah! Expertly manipulating light and drawing crowds with a host of international and local acts, the ninth edition of the iconic festival is set to be even bigger and better than the last! This year’s theme is Inventions and Innovation, and it shows in the well curated programme.:Samara This year is even bigger than … Continue reading Preview: Singapore Night Festival 2016
Rosnah is one of those classic Necessary Stage plays that hasn’t been onstage in a while. This year’s edition, presented as part of the Esplanade’s annual Pesta Raya Malay Festival of Arts, is being performed for the first time in Malay since first being staged at Tampines Regional Library in 1995. Siti K is certainly the most prolific and well known Malay theatre actress right now, … Continue reading Review: Rosnah by The Necessary Stage [5/8/16]
Opera has always been a bit of a divisive art form for me. Too often, I see it as something less accessible, and reserved for the most elite of audiences. New Opera Singapore has proved me wrong with this production of Orpheus In The Underworld, and I’m glad I got the chance to catch it. New Opera Singapore celebrated its 5th anniversary with another stellar … Continue reading Review: Orpheus In The Underworld by New Opera Singapore [29/7/16]
The Necessary Stage has always been a mainstay of Singapore’s theatre scene, covering all kinds of topics from political pieces to collaborations with overseas theatre companies, making for some very interesting pieces. But what they also do regularly is community type theatre, often written with a very specific message in mind that addresses pertinent issues in society, such as When The Bough Breaks and post-natal depression. This … Continue reading Review: International Friendship Day by The Necessary Stage [27/7/16]
After Cooling Off Day in 2010 it only seemed natural that Alfian Sa’at follow up with another political play the next election year, this time in the form of GRC, first performed in December last year. GRC takes place in a Singapore turned upside down, where Malays are now the majority, and Chinese are a minority race, discriminated against for being suspected of their Chinese communist ties, and stereotyped … Continue reading Review: GRC by Teater Ekamatra
Unsaid is a social enterprise/arts collective who have been actively highlighting awareness of women’s issues this year, and breaks onto the theatre scene with their debut production. Every Singaporean Daughter‘s title riffs on the popular web series Every Singaporean Son, aiming to showcase the shared experience of the Singaporean female in this production. Playwright Marie Ee used stories and e-mails submitted to Unsaid to weave a … Continue reading Review: Every Singaporean Daughter by Unsaid
Red Pill Productions’ Let’s Get Back Together (or rather unsubtly, LGBT) was first staged in 2014, and W!ld Rice has revived it for the 2016 Singapore Theatre Festival with an all new cast, consisting Ezzat Alkaff, Ann Lek, Ruzaini Mazani, Eleanor Tan, Jo Tan and Zachary Ibrahim. LGBT is a play much in the same vein as Alfian Sa’at’s Cooling Off Day, in that it uses interviews … Continue reading Review: Let’s Get Back Together by Red Pill Productions (10/7/16)
Boo Junfeng’s name has been making the rounds in Singapore, most recently for directing that advert featuring a long distance relationship made possible through Singtel. It’s no surprise; after all, he’s one of the nation’s best, following his sensitive coming of age film debut Sandcastle in 2010. In his latest film, which premiered at the Cannes Festival this year, we follow Aiman (Firdaus Rahman), a young Malay man … Continue reading Review: Apprentice dir. Boo Junfeng
Last night, the German duo Markus&Markus left an indelible Margot-shaped impression in local discourse on the right-to-die with their riveting documentary theatre Ibsen: Ghosts. This certainly isn’t the first time Singaporean audiences have been confronted with moral questions about dying (think: the use of medical marijuana in Haresh Sharma’s Good People (2007)), and this moving piece with its dearly departed protagonist Margot suggests that one … Continue reading REVIEW: Ibsen:Ghosts
After a sell out run of Innamorati One in 2014, Toy Factory is back to ignite the Drama Centre stage this September with its sequel Innamorati Two (唯二): A Spirited Mandarin Musical. Innamorati Two is not a direct sequel to Innamorati One, rather, a spiritual successor, both penned by Jiang Daini. Innamorati Two follows an ensemble cast of 7 people searching for an answer to their physical and emotional losses in life, and … Continue reading PREVIEW: Innamorati Two
