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The Singapore Trilogy (review)

In one of his many discussions of theatre and liminality, Victor Turner quoted Thomas Hardy’s observation that “if a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst.” One of the most fascinating aspects of theatre in Singapore is the oblique way in which it has tended to engage in social discussion in order to fulfill Hardy’s admonition—sidling up to controversial political and social issues while trying not to upset the powers-that-be in the government, which has traditionally kept a tight rein on theatre through censorship. As a result of these pressures, many Singapore playwrights have become masters of implied discussion, using techniques such as allegory, the “devised play,” and historical parallel to examine hot issues. Robert Yeo (whom I knew slightly during the two years I taught in Singapore) is a fixture of the Singapore arts scene; indeed, he was chair of the Ministry of Culture’s drama advisory group from 1977 to 1990 and was perhaps the first and one of the only playwrights to dare to treat political issues openly in his plays. (These two facts may not be unrelated.) In their concentration on the intersection of the personal and political, Yeo’s plays bring to mind the works of such British dramatists as David Hare, Howard Brenton, and David Edgar, if on a smaller scale. The Singapore Trilogy, a collection of three related plays written from 1969 to 1995, follows a group of characters from their student days in London (Are You There, Singapore?; 1969), to their return to Singapore (One Year Back Home; 1979–1980), and then to the incarceration and release of one of the characters for his political beliefs (Changi; 1997). Are You There, Singapore?, the first in the trilogy, is undoubtedly the clumsiest of the plays in terms of plot construction and character development, but it is also the most appealing. We first meet the central characters as foreign students at the London School of Economics during the late 1960s, and Yeo is effective in portraying both the characters’ homesickness and their excitement and ambivalence about their emerging nation. Hua, recently arrived from Singapore, becomes pregnant by an Italian man and must decide whether or not to have the child and whether or not to tell her parents. Meanwhile her brother, Chye, and her erstwhile suitor, Reg, argue about various aspects of politics in Singapore and decide to enter the political arena themselves on opposing sides. In One Year Back Home, the characters having returned to Singapore, Chye is elected to parliament as a member of the ruling Political Action Party, while Reg runs against him as member of the opposition. Chye ultimately betrays his friendship with Reg and turns him in for expressing “pro-communist and subversive views during the campaign,” saying: “He forced me to do it with his extreme speeches.” In the third play, 372 Book Reviews