A harrowing, brutally honest look at what happens when we judge what we see without looking closer, and the people who fall through the cracks as a result. For a long time now, disability in Singapore has been framed through the language of charity and celebration: to champion the differently abled, applaud their resilience, celebrate the obstacles they have overcome, and hold them up as … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Theatre Review: MONSTRESS by ART:DIS
What does it mean to truly see another person? Not simply to look at them, but to recognise their struggles, question our assumptions and notice the quiet ways people can slip through the cracks. These are the questions surrounding MONSTRESS, a new work by visually impaired theatre-maker Claire Teo and ART:DIS that examines disability, caregiving and the everyday systems that shape who is heard, believed … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Claire Teo and Oon Shu An on seeing, being, and performing ‘MONSTRESS’
Nightmarish fever dream of a devised theatre work problematises and interrogates the complications of disability and accessibility today. From its title alone, Multiple Bad Things possesses a distinctly ominous quality. What are these bad things? A series of terrible events waiting to happen, or the accumulation of smaller cruelties that eventually become something much more sinister? The production’s visual material might initially suggest something whimsical … Continue reading ★★★☆☆ Theatre Review: Multiple Bad Things by Back to Back Theatre
In a placeless warehouse at the end of the world, three employees are given a possibly pointless task. As they struggle to work together, the boundaries between cooperation and conflict begin to fray. What starts with politeness gradually descends into sly victimisation and bad behaviour, while language shifts from playful and absurd to threatening and deadly serious. In MULTIPLE BAD THINGS, award-winning Australian company Back … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An interview with Ingrid Voorendt, Associate Director, Back to Back Theatre on ‘Multiple Bad Things’
A tender, bewildering piece of participatory theatre where audiences learn to get things right (and wrong) together, revealing us at our most human selves. Performance attended 7 Aug 8pm60 minutes, no intermission In theatre, one would naturally assume that actors are required. There might be a director somewhere in the wings, technicians behind the scenes, a script determining what happens next, and an audience whose … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Handle with Care by Ontroerend Goed (Esplanade’s The Studios 2026)
A deceptively simple premise of a husband and wife’s relationship torn apart by imprisonment turns into something much more devastating in the face of political activism. Performance watched on 1 August, 8pmDuration: 60 minutes In Iran, where dissent can turn an ordinary life into one shaped by surveillance, imprisonment and separation, freedom is never simply an abstract ideal. In Iranian theatremaker’s Amir Reza Koohestani’s Blind … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Blind Runner by Mehr Theatre Group and Amir Reza Koohestani
When Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed first conceived Handle with Care, they knew almost nothing about the performance itself. There were no actors, no technicians, no script, and not even a clear idea of what would eventually be inside the box that sits at the centre of the stage. What they did know was that they wanted to make something they had never made before. … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Samir Veen on participation and co-operation in Ontroerend Goed’s ‘Handle with Care’
Mesmerising docutheatre production delves into the myth of Malayan national hero Hang Tuah while asking who gets to shape history, and why we continue to believe the stories we inherit. Duration: 90min Mythological figures have long served as vessels for morality, identity and national aspiration. Their stories are repeated until they begin to feel inseparable from the societies that tell them, their contradictions smoothed over … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Fragments of Tuah by Mark Teh and Five Arts Centre
Surveillance cameras watch every interaction. A husband visits his imprisoned wife once a week, their conversations becoming increasingly strained under the weight of constant observation. Elsewhere, he agrees to guide a young blind marathon runner through the streets of Paris, discovering that trust, like freedom, is something built one careful step at a time. In Blind Runner, acclaimed Iranian playwright and director Amir Reza Koohestani … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Iranian theatremaker Amir Reza Koohestani on surveillance, solidarity and the power of ‘Blind Runner’
Hang Tuah has occupied a singular place in the Malaysian imagination for centuries. The legendary warrior appears in school textbooks, literature, films and political speeches, often held up as the embodiment of loyalty, courage and duty. It is precisely because he is so deeply embedded in the national consciousness that theatre-maker Mark Teh never imagined he would make a work about him. “He’s a mythic … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Mark Teh on retelling legends of national heroes in Five Arts Centre’s ‘Fragments of Tuah’
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