{"id":208259,"date":"2024-03-26T19:02:58","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T11:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=208259"},"modified":"2024-03-29T13:31:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T05:31:03","slug":"till-death-do-us-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/till-death-do-us-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Till Death Do Us Part"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>What is <em>The Death of Singapore Theatre as Scripted by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore <\/em>about?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Death of Singapore Theatre <\/em>is a one-woman show that\u2019s written as a direct address to Singapore\u2019s censors. If you look at the poster for the show, there\u2019s a little bit of an Easter egg there. Pay attention to the letters that are in different colours, which are, incidentally, the colours of IMDA\u2019s logo\u2026 \ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the show, the text is written a letter addressed to the IMDA, so you could say it\u2019s a bit of a love letter, but an anguished love letter. The play almost takes on the arc of a spurned lover \u2013 it\u2019s written from the point of view of someone in a non-reciprocal relationship, where the other partner is not really responding to or stonewalling you, while they actually hold all the cards in the relationship. There\u2019s a lot of angst that comes with that kind of one-sided dynamic. Maybe the title might give the impression that this is quite an intellectual, even cerebral, work. But I think it\u2019s a deeply emotional one as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The work also traces the history of theatre regulation in Singapore. It goes all the way from the good old colonial days, right up to the present moment, and we see how all the different kinds of influences \u2013 from culture wars to moral panic and all that \u2013 have shaped censorship policy in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe title=\"Playwright Alfian Sa&#039;at on why he wrote The Death of Singapore Theatre as Scripted By the IMDA\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qz2-Gdboc4E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Why did you decide to write this show?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve always been intrigued by the exercise of censorship in Singapore, where scripts need to be vetted by the IMDA before they are given a license to be performed. There\u2019s no way you can stage anything without first applying for an arts entertainment license. And I wonder why that is, because this is not something that happens in many other societies, where you can just go ahead and put up a show without submitting a script beforehand. So I think, as an artist in Singapore, I\u2019ve always felt that I had to question these rather extraordinary circumstances that govern art-making here.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I also have personal reasons for doing this. In my time, my work has received some puzzling ratings, which makes me want to question the way scripts are interpreted and the kinds of ratings that are given to them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s very hard for my plays, other than the pantomimes mostly pitched at kids, to get ratings other than \u2018Advisory 16\u2019 or \u2018Restricted 18\u2019. That\u2019s why you might think \u2013 \u201cWah, this Alfian, what does he write? Pornographic stuff? Violent stuff? Really controversial stuff?\u201d But the only thing is that my plays are, well, political.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me give you an example. <a href=\"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/event\/1273-merdeka\/\"><em>Merdeka<\/em><\/a> (2019) was rated \u2018Advisory 16\u2019, with the consumer advice \u2018Some Mature Content\u2019 as the play includes \u201csome racial stereotyping and references to violence and coarse language\u201d. There was one Malay character who says that he accepted the narrative of how the Sultan and the Temenggong supposedly sold off the island of Singapore, because he had internalised racist self-loathing \u2013 in this case, the notion that Malay people are only concerned about short-term gains, and don\u2019t think about the future. He is critiquing the way he has internalised racism, which makes the play <em>anti<\/em>-racist. So to get a rating that flags racial stereotyping, as if there\u2019s something in the work that is racist, is problematic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s another example, which I think is even more nonsense. In 2022, my play, <a href=\"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/event\/66630-pulau-ujong\/\"><em>Pulau Ujong<\/em><\/a> [which looks at climate change and how our actions affect the natural world], received an \u2018Advisory 16\u2019 classification with the consumer advice, \u2018Some Mature Content\u2019, as it explores \u201cthe impact and cost of development on the environment\u201d. [Alfian takes a long beat in silence] That\u2019s it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ratings like these make you wonder: what are they thinking? And if they&#8217;re not giving many clues to you as to what they\u2019re thinking, then you start to speculate about what they\u2019re thinking. This then leads you to wonder: how did we arrive at this point when people are making quite subjective and arbitrary decisions about how art is perceived and interpreted in Singapore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>Do you feel there is a place for ratings for theatre in Singapore?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Ratings are fundamentally about restricting access to certain works, which I think goes to the heart of what freedom of expression is about. There\u2019s this assumption that freedom of expression is about the rights of the artists to express themselves. But free expression is also about the rights of the audience to receive information, as stated in Article 19 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/universal-declaration-of-human-rights\">United Nations Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, when we have a classification system in Singapore, they are trying to restrict what classes of people \u2013 in this case, by age groups \u2013 can watch certain works. I do think there is some merit to doing so for children and younger people when the works involved contain, let\u2019s say, extreme violence or graphic sexual depictions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, when it comes to political content, it\u2019s very simple for me. If you\u2019re not going to put ratings on, say, political election rallies, if you don\u2019t gatekeep those events by implying that children aren\u2019t mature enough to attend them, why are you trying to gatekeep plays?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s also a \u2018chicken and egg\u2019 element to this concept of political maturity because you\u2019re telling a younger person, on one hand, that they\u2019re not politically mature enough to watch something\u2026 but they would also never become politically mature unless they were exposed to that something in the first place! You\u2019ll never mature if you don\u2019t encounter something that allows you to critically question and examine your own political beliefs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s unfortunate to me that there\u2019s this arbitrary marker \u2013 being 16, or 18, years old \u2013 at which point you supposedly have the mental faculties to process political concepts. But I think we are surrounded by politics, and actually having political literacy as young as possible is important. When you start reading newspapers, like when you\u2019re in primary school, it would be good for you to understand certain things like: What is the angle of this article? What is the media bias? What position is the reporter taking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong>The show brings us through quite the history of censorship in Singapore \u2014 can you tell us more about what your research process was like?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-1024x675.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-207656\" srcset=\"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-600x395.jpg 600w, https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-768x506.jpg 768w, https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-1536x1012.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/The-Death-of-Sg-Theatre-2-2048x1349.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>The Death of Singapore Theatre as Scripted by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore<\/em> (2024)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I did quite a bit of research for this show. There were a few academics and scholars who have been very helpful to my work \u2013 people like Terence Chong, Tan Tarn How and Cherian George, who\u2019ve written a lot about cultural policy and censorship by the state in Singapore.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also looked through newspaper archives, and I was actually quite surprised to learn about how Singapore\u2019s early censorship policy mostly dealt with public nuisance, such as street <em>wayang <\/em>\u2013 the aim, back then, was to control public performances to maintain order and minimise public disruption.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then, along the way, you had the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, when the Communist ideology became viewed by the colonial authorities as a threat. So, in addition to controlling for noise, they also wanted to surveil and control the content of any art being made \u2013 to ensure that you won\u2019t be able to stage pro-Communist, pro-leftist agitprop theatre, for example, if that\u2019s what you wanted to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was really interesting to see how a law that first arose because people wanted to get some sleep, evolved over time into this tool in the arsenal of the colonial authorities, when they&nbsp; were losing sleep over the Communist threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>As a veteran theatre-maker in Singapore, what are some of your more memorable encounters with the IMDA when it comes to censorship of your shows?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I experienced a baptism by fire when it comes to censorship, because, at the tender age of 22, I co-wrote a play called <em>sex.violence.blood.gore<\/em> with Chong Tze Chien, which was produced by The Necessary Stage and directed by Jeff Chen. We got our license <em>really<\/em> late \u2013 one or two days before the show was set to open \u2013 and we were told to remove three scenes from the show. And so we were suddenly faced with this dilemma: should we go ahead with the show, or should we just cancel the whole run?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, we made the decision to go ahead with the show. What we did was have certain \u2018placeholders\u2019 to signal to the audience that the three scenes in question had been tampered with. For example, the actors would still do the scene, but they were moving at high speed and you couldn\u2019t hear what they were saying. We would also play the song <em>I Am What I Am<\/em> by Gloria Gaynor so that every time this song came on, the audience would be cued to realise that, \u2018Okay, this part is censored.\u2019&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other thing we did was print out the censored scenes and distribute copies to the audience. After all, there was nothing in the licensing conditions that said we couldn\u2019t publish, print and disseminate these scenes \u2013 we just couldn\u2019t perform them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What was interesting for me about this experience was that, not only did I learn about how censorship operates in Singapore, from licenses that come in at the last minute on opening day, to all the conditions you have to fulfil before you can even perform, I also learned about strategies of resistance. It was so important for me to know that you don\u2019t just bow down and roll over. There are ways to fight back. What we did was make the censorship visible. Because most of the time, when censorship happens, it\u2019s very invisible. In a film, for instance, there\u2019s suddenly a jump-cut, which makes the audience wonder if something is amiss but they can\u2019t really pinpoint it. I always believe that censored films should add blank screens with the words \u2018Scene cut by IMDA\u2019 for as long as a censored scene lasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong>So\u2026 how did you get this play past the censors?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>We submitted the script, as required, which has to be done at least two months before the actual production.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be honest, my initial idea for this show was that I would send IMDA a script, and they would come back to me with a set of questions. I would respond to those questions, and this email correspondence would become part of this script. So, in a way, they would be my co-writers for this show.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, maybe they sensed that this is what I was going to do. So they did not bite. Usually, if you don\u2019t give them enough stage directions, they would ask questions like \u201cWhat is the duration of this kiss?\u201d Like that makes a difference to anything! But, this time, we didn\u2019t hear from them for a while. And then we finally received an email and it was just one question: \u201cWhat is the purpose of this play?\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was so interesting because there was only one question asked, and so it suddenly became such a loaded question. So I got together with the team, which at that point was The Substation, to strategise how to answer this question. We were wondering things like \u2013 Why this question? Is it a trap? Would our answer implicate us or jeopardise the production in any way?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what we decided to do was throw the synopsis back at them, which answers the question: the purpose of the play is to examine the history of theatre regulation in Singapore. We never did receive a response from them, but I heard that the script was sent to an internal arts consultative committee for them to decide whether or not to pass it, and it was eventually passed with Advisory 16.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do think the play\u2019s title does put them in a bit of a bind. With the word \u2018IMDA\u2019 in there, it would not look like a very objective decision If they decided not to give it a license \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t look good in the press. But passing the play wouldn\u2019t look good on them either. So I think it was a bit of a \u2018damned if you do, damned if you don&#8217;t\u2019 situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong><strong>What do you hope audiences will take away from this show? \/ Why should other people watch this show?<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>So I hope audiences who come to watch the show will go away thinking more about how we make theatre in Singapore, because it&#8217;s not just a creative process, it&#8217;s a whole political and bureaucratic process that&#8217;s involved, you know?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re a theatre lover, I think it&#8217;s important to understand the struggle that goes into making work in Singapore. I hope audiences go away with a better understanding of how difficult it is to actually stage a work in Singapore, and hopefully they will support us in advocating for change, because, as people who watch theatre and who support it, I do believe that they are very, very important stakeholders in the conversation. It is my hope that it is not just artists who advocate for change in the future, but members of the public as well \u2013 who believe that their own freedom of expression, their ability to receive artworks in their original, authentic, unmolested form, is being impinged upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe title=\"Alfian Sa\u2019at on IMDA ratings in theatre | The Death of Singapore Theatre as Scripted By the IMDA\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YCviroCpPZM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interview By: Shawne Wang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alfian Sa\u2019at chats with us about what inspired him to write THE DEATH OF SINGAPORE THEATRE AS SCRIPTED BY THE INFOCOMM MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE \u2013 from his earliest experiences of censorship, to what he hopes audiences will take away from watching his latest play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":208270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"%%post_title%% %%sep%% Alfian Sa&#039;at %%sep%% 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