The Sisters Islands and Pulau Senang: two satellite islands off the coast of Singapore, small but rich in story. This volume brings together two remarkable plays by Jean Tay, Sisters and Senang, which explore these two islands through turbulent events in the 1960s. Sisters: The Untold Stories of the Sisters Islands blends a real-life murder with creation myth. The play alternates between two stories: one of Mina and Lina, the two sisters upon which the myth of the Sisters Islands is supposedly based; and the other of the shocking case in 1965 of Jenny Cheok, killed by her boyfriend Sunny Ang, which also involved her half-sister Irene. Senang covers the prison riots on Pulau Senang in 1963. The island was used for a bold experiment, led by Superintendent Daniel Dutton, an Irishman who believed he could reform the inmates through labour, and abolished the use of arms to police them. This is one man’s attempt to create a utopian penal colony, which tragically led to his violent end. “Jean Tay is one of the most gifted playwrights I have come across in years.” —Gaurav Kripalani, Artistic Director, Singapore Repertory Theatre
Dragonflies is the story of a family fighting for survival in a hostile world, looking for somewhere to call home, and something that might look like hope. The year is 2021 and climate change is wreaking havoc across the globe. Donald Trump has been re-elected US President for a second term. Brexit is in full effect and causing chaos all over Europe. In the wake of escalating wars in the Middle East, famine in West Africa, and relentless terrorist attacks by radical extremists, the UK—and many nations around the world—has enforced a ban on all immigration. With the coastline around him and life as he knows it crumbling to dust, Leslie Chen is forced to abandon his home in England and move his family back to his birthplace, Singapore. Confronting a country that is a world apart from the one he knew as a child, he is now made to question the meaning of home. As the crises and conflicts escalate, one thing is certain, come hell or high water, and possibly both, he must protect his family. While dragonflies migrate halfway across the world, we, the human race, struggle to embrace our nomadic heritage, our need to move to greener pastures in order to survive. And as global warming, the resurgence of far-right politics and worldwide paranoia make us burn bridges and build walls between communities, families and individuals, we have to ask ourselves: Where do we go from here? Reader Reviews: “Compassionate, hopeful and exquisitely acted.” –Best of 2017, The Straits Times “Watching Dragonflies is like reading an issue of The Economist from cover to cover: it is chock-full of urgent issues from immigration to xenophobia to climate change. Excellent script, evocative staging, brilliantly played!” –The Business Times “A dynamic and fresh look on current affairs that aims to enrich, surprise and stimulate its audience. But overall, the message of Dragonflies is simple: build bridges, not walls.” –Pride Kindness “The play’s success lies in how realistic and possible it all is, and the genuine threats feel like they have the potential to seep into our own reality, with very real stakes for characters we’ve come to know and relate to, and evoking intense sympathy as we watch a family completely come apart, helpless in the face of circumstance.” –Bakchormeeboy “A gripping tale of displacement that is, at once, epic and intimate.” –Naeem Kapadia, Crystalwords “A play that ambitiously tackles multiple issues—from climate change to human migration, from racism and xenophobia to openness and generosity, from ambivalence to empathy, from impassioned implementation of laws and policies (when “I’m sorry” really doesn’t mean “I’m sorry”) to the touching gentle connection of human relationships across lines that traditionally do not cross—and somehow successfully stitches it all together into deep, stirring storytelling.” –Sticky Rice “Street's writing is effectual in capturing the pain brewed by grief, as well as the resignation in a person from a marginalised community.” –Buro247
Patriotism: do you have it? How does one express it? Is it worth it? The Singapore Trilogy—consisting of Are You There, Singapore?, One Year Back Home and Changi—has raised questions since the seventies about nationhood that we are still asking today. Influential in steering early English-language theatre in Singapore away from its colonial roots, Robert Yeo conceived of characters that are believably local in speech, thought and behaviour, and provided a dramatic platform for the dialogue of politically sensitive issues. Yeo’s trilogy continues to link to an exciting time of sociopolitical flux in Singapore’s history, and engages by provoking us to explore the meaning of being Singaporean. This edition of these three landmark playscripts is accompanied by a new introduction from the playwright, as well as a reappraisal by Nah Dominic and Adeeb Fazah, who restaged the entire trilogy in one single condensed adaptation in March 2021.
Based on research among the women of the Bidayuh people in Sarawak, all of them first generation migrant wage workers, this book explores the changes in women's lifestyles from traditional rural lifestyles to modern urban ones.
Designed to supplement the classroom LOTE program. Resources allow for the introduction and consolidation of relevant topic vocabulary and grammatical structure in the early stages of LOTE learning.
Place names tell us much about a country — its history, its landscape, its people, its aspirations, its self-image, The study of place names called toponymics unlocks the stories that are in every street name and landmark. In Singapore, the existence of various races, cultures and languages, as well as its history of colonization, immigration and nationalism has given rise to a complex history of place names. But how did these places get their names? This revised and expanded 4th edition of the book incorporates additional information, from archival research as well as interviews that have come to light since the last edition. Also included are many new entries that have presented themselves as Singapore’s built environment undergoes redevelopment. Expanded by over 100 pages.
The first ever comprehensive collection of plays in English from Southeast Asia. Features work by eight playwrights from seven countries in Southeast Asia, a region which is experiencing profound change: Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia. Southeast Asian Plays explores the rich variety of dramatic work that is only beginning to be translated into English. Theatre scripts are merely blueprints for productions, especially in this region. As elsewhere, second productions and revivals are rare, so publication is key to allowing play texts to find a wider international readership. Topics include the global financial crisis, sex workers, traditional v modern values, the role of faith in society, corruption in high places and journalistic ethics. The plays have been selected for performance. Plays: The Plunge by Jean Tay (Singapore) about the efects of a financial crisis An Evening At the Opera by Floy Quintos (Philippines) about a dictator and his wife Night of the Minotaur by Tew Bunnag (Thailand) about a man misused as a monster Tarap Man by Ann Lee (Malaysia) about a man wrongly imprisoned under the justice system Dark Race by Dang Chuong (Vietnam) about corruption in high places Frangipani by Chhon Sina (Cambodia) about the sex trade in Cambodia Piknic by Joned Suryatmoko (Indonesia) about the need to get rich quick in Bali Nadirah by Alfian Saat (Singapore) about the conflict between faith and morality "The editors have done an excellent job of opening up our chances of reading and learning about plays from all over Southeast Asia. ...editorial choices are significant for opening up spaces to voices which are otherwise heard less often. All in all the plays are interesting for the ways in which they grapple with key concerns in their respective societies." --The Asiatic
This volume is the product of an international workshop on Women and Mediation, organized in Leiden in 1988 by the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV) and the Werkgroep Indonesische Vrouwenstudies (WIVS), a Dutch interdisciplinary study group on Indonesian women. The book contains a selection of fourteen contributions—sociological, anthropological, and historical—ranging geographically ‘from Sabang to Merauke’ from the Toba Batak (North Sumatra) to the Dani (Irian Jaya). Loosely centred around the concept of mediation, many of the articles include new data derived from archival research and fieldwork. One cluster of articles concentrates on theoretical questions concerning the concept of mediation. Another cluster deals with brokerage in the economic and social fields. A third cluster focuses on mediation in the cultural domain, which many extend to mediation between different ‘cultures’(elite-agrarian, Western-Indonesian) or between the human and the suprahuman world, between macrocosm and microcosm. Mediation by women has been overlooked not only in the social sciences in general but also in the field of women studies in particular. The present volume explores the theme of mediation by women in general, and in Indonesia in particular.
