The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ is billed as a political satire and is back at a theatre near you. (1) Audiences should find themselves laughing at Singapore's very own very unique political incidents, and Singapore's very own very serious bureaucrats with their very stereotyped personalities. It is funny as it is insightful. Much is made of innuendoes and puns, with varying degrees of subtly, and one might imagine, some more atas members of the audience might wince at the more overt examples. For example, David Lee is President of the Association of Students of Self-Expression. ("ASS")
The playwright's percipient exploration of how different characters, varying in their desire for change, interact with the authorities in Singapore and one another, should also strike an emotional chord with the audience.
In Act One, David Lee, an idealistic undergraduate, met with stiff resistance from different types of "authorities", when he tried to persuade them that JBJ should be conferred a Public Service Star. They no doubt thought he referred to JBJ, the opposition politician. Little did we know David was merely referring to a fictional Mr. JB, a member of the Wildlife Protection (WP) group. In Act One, one wonders why is youthful idealism met with so much resistance, and why the slight whiff of the "opposition" makes otherwise "authoritative" figures of change quaver. How frustrating this can be! Then, David Lee dies mysteriously.
In Act Two, Clara Tang, a high-flying civil servant, is tasked to undertake damage control. Why did David Lee die? Was he murdered? Do people think that he was murdered? Clara Tang's job was to resolve the issue. We learn that as an undergraduate, Clara Tang herself was a committed leftist. Her interactions with the police, and her own estranged father (a very senior civil servant), showed the "old Singapore", a place where change was seen as introducing uncertainty or was unhealthy. Or even worse, that the "old Singapore' merely perceives that the 'new Singapore' is but a show. On the other hand, her lover, a journalist (who was an ex-young-PAP member) has now become a freedom of speech advocate. What was Clara Tang to do? How should she feel?
The play's greatest strength is the refusal to see the politics of change as an "its us against them" game. Individuals interact with one another through kinship, family, love, and sex, and we learn that different individuals see the "change" in different ways. Life is multi-textured, and so is the politics of change. Some embrace it; some see it as dangerous; while others ironically, obey this new and uncertain order for "change." Therein lies the great potential of these times, as well as the great trepidation one feels. I think the playwright captured these emotions very well.
Dr KK Seet wrote, "Apart from capturing zeitgeist more than the average playwright in Singapore, the works of Eleanor Wong represents a distillation of the hallmarks of dramatist both antecedent to and contemporaneous with her. She is that versatile auteur who partakes one of the best features of Singapore's young but recognizable dramatic tradition. She excels with her fine ear for registering pitch and voice and wisely confines her characteristics and their liaisons to a milieu with which she is familiar." (2)
Need I say more? Watch the play!
1: http://www.wildrice.com.sg/productions/prod_jbj/JBJ_PR_180707.doc
2: Invitation to Treat, The Eleanor Wong Trilogy, Third Last Page of the Book.
See another Perspective article on the same: http://www.singaporeangle.com/2006/08/musings-on-jbj-play-and-forum.html
The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ opens from 19 September 2007 - 7 October 2007 (Tickets available from Sistic). Teh_Si watched the play last year.
Tickets available at
Http://www.sistic.com.sg/cms/events/index.html?content=1071
Comments (1)
Nice introduction to the play Teh Si,
I thought it might be interesting to reproduce my thoughts from my blog on this play as a comment. Here goes:
"The irony to me is stark as I notice the advertising campaign for this play. Adverts, posters and banners to promote the play can be seen in the National Library foyer as well as on taxis. Pamphlets on the play are available in almost every shopping center that has a Sistic outlet.
Ironically, the public space, which has been used to spread government campaigns explicitly through government-sponsored posters and ideas (through direct exhortations for e.g. to stop spitting) or implicitly through tourists outreaches (Celebrate Singapore- the paradise on Earth - come visit now before our perpetual shopping sales and gorging becomes less perpetual) is now inverted and shared to spread another form of campaign.
This campaign as a play is after all clearly a satire- one would be attempted to situate such an alternative campaign in the public space in Singapore to a maturation of theater and by extension, the juxtaposition of public and private discourses in Singapore.
Clearly, such juxtaposition is seen in the contradictions of a promotion of a theatrical play and the dynamics of a play itself - When a play is performed to a public audience with often a public message, it seems that for the very nature of theater to be deemed as a critical and credible one (not an SAF Theatre and Drama Company play?), the boundaries of what a play constitutes within and itself are almost private spaces for "freedom" and "reflections" to flourish. Private for/to whom is more difficult to answer? Who owns theater in Singapore anyway?
On does it signify a historical continuity of tolerance by the state on the Art in Singapore, at least for the last 10 years?
More provocatively, does this play show a political compromise by the artists towards the state in Singapore? Will the second run of this play be more aligned with state power or would it be more provocative? Will JBJ be individualized, idealized or de-mythologized? Will anyone care about the idea of a JBJ where CPF, GST, HDB prices, "Economy" is looking up?
I enjoyed the play last year. I hope there would be reviews of the play by the blogsphere when it starts its second run."
Posted by Wayne Soon | September 12, 2007 1:35 AM