{"id":34404,"date":"2015-04-01T17:19:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T09:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=34404"},"modified":"2021-05-10T17:48:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T09:48:44","slug":"for-better-or-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/for-better-or-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"For Better or Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What\u2019s it like to be married to a Public Enemy<\/em>? Serene Chen tells us about going through thick and thin with her idealistic husband, and reading in between the lines of the play to find her character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your character.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I play Katherine Chee, who is married to Thomas Chee \u2013 the Public Enemy<\/em> of the play. Her husband is the idealist in the relationship \u2013 she\u2019s more pragmatic and realistic about things. In any union, there\u2019s always a balancing force, and Katherine is Thomas\u2019 check and balance. Obviously, when she said, \u2018I do\u2019, it was for better or worse, through thick and thin. That\u2019s why, even if she can ask him, \u2018Are you sure?\u2019, she ultimately supports her husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine is a woman of relatively few words, and yet has such a powerful presence in the play. How did you find the character in the text?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are people who express their thoughts with a great economy of words. We all know someone like that. They don\u2019t say very much, but they may be experiencing oceans of emotion. From the little that they say, it gives you a little peek into what they really think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I personally like text-based work very, very much. I think literature is sorely missing in the Singaporean psyche. So that\u2019s very interesting for me: to discover the world that is not necessarily in the text. One of the things I do is look at the stage directions, because they give you an idea of what the playwright had intended. For instance, why would a line have \u2018slightly embarrassed\u2019 in front of it? Working through that helps me a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Serene, as Katherine Chee, standing behind her husband<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How did you prepare for the role?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We looked at a few different versions of Henrik Ibsen\u2019s An Enemy of the People<\/em>, including the Arthur Miller version from the 1950s. I read some commentaries on it as well, not just on the play, but pieces that explore the idea of what is good for the masses. We really dug into that ideological battle between what people consider as good and what is really good for the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did you find to be particularly relevant about Ibsen\u2019s play?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Its very premise still resonates, since it\u2019s about the water supply in a country being poisoned. For me, the water is a metaphor for life. It\u2019s something that permeates everybody\u2019s senses and space. You literally can\u2019t live without it! You can\u2019t stay detached. You can\u2019t be apathetic and say it\u2019s not your problem. It cuts through class, race and everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, there isn\u2019t even a black-and-white solution to the problem. The factories poison the water, but they are also a source of livelihood. You do need enterprise to continue, especially if you think about it in the context of Singapore. We don\u2019t have land, we don\u2019t have many natural resources. If you shut down the factories, then we might have water but we won\u2019t have anything else. And yet, if you leave it, the water gets poisoned. It\u2019s a catch-22!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Serene at the gala premiere of\u00a0Public Enemy<\/em>, with Ghafir Akbar and Gerald Chew<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about working with Glen Goei, your director.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Glen is not a slipshod director! Even if your character doesn\u2019t have that much stage time or that many lines, he will constantly question you about how you make your journey through the piece, and how you draw your narrative threads together. In one rehearsal, Glen really wanted to understand why my character would behave in a certain way. So he asked me, \u2018Your character won\u2019t give this to him, she would just put it on the table?\u2019. That\u2019s how specific he can get!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has the process been like working with Glen and this cast?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This cast has been great. Everybody has a wealth of experience but, more important than anything, they\u2019re very willing to share. In that way, we can learn to trust one another. When we talk about the script and the psyches of our characters as well, there\u2019s a lot of that openness. We\u2019re invested not just as actors or as our characters, but as citizens of the world \u2013 I think that\u2019s especially apt for this play, which is so timely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s it like to be married to a Public Enemy? Serene Chen tells us about going through thick and thin with her idealistic husband, and reading in between the lines of the play to find her character. Tell us about your character. I play Katherine Chee, who is married to Thomas Chee \u2013 the Public Enemy of the …<\/p>\n

For Better or Worse<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":34405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[339,397,398],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}