Embodying Multiplicity on the Singapore Stage: Plays of Difference

Abstract

This chapter examines how two new theatrical productions, The Perfection of Ten, directed by Sean Tobin, and Tell Me When to Laugh and When to Cry, written, performed and directed by Peter Sau, consciously staged multiplicity as intersecting and overlapping presences, as well as constantly revising the boundaries of singularity to assert porosity and liquidity as useful and ordinary ways of being and becoming. Rajendren argues that the overt synthesis of what is ‘real’ and ‘fictional’, self and other, further complicates the process of viewing theatre to generate alternative frames for apprehending and experiencing contemporary life. In the global city-state of Singapore, these alternative expressions of the individual and community, the story and the history, are particularly potent as contestations of official notions of multicultural society which tend to assume neat delineations of selves and others. Both these productions drew from different voices (playwrights, directors, performers) and sources (histories, narrative, stories), juxtaposing different languages, world views and cultural frames within a single production. Reflecting on the process and politics of performance-making as part of the play, the productions also pushed audiences to reconfigure theatre as a space for reimagining culture rather than merely representing culture as it is allegedly ‘known’.