PIE by Chong Tze Chien

A group of 9 participants met up this afternoon to talk about Pan-Island Expressway. Joining us was our special guest, playwright Chong Tze Chien.





Next up for Open Roads on Sat 13 Nov, 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1, is Mergers and Accusations by Eleanor Wong. First staged in 1993, the award-winning play (1996 National Book Development Council of Singapore Award - Drama) about Ellen Toh a married lawyer who falls in love with a woman, eventually spawned the sequels Wills and Secession (1995) and Jointly and Severably (2003). The play is available in the TheatreWorks collection Dirty Laundry, Mergers & Undercover: Plays from Theatreworks` Writers' Lab and Wong's collection of her trilogy, Invitation to Treat. Both collections are available at the national library.

"To label her trilogy as lesbian plays is to be reductive. These plays succeed primarily because they are textured, weaving ruminations on personal identity, love and friendship, family and kinship, religious faith, the inextricable connection between the personal and political, the dialectics of centre and margin." - Dr K. K. Seet on Invitation to Treat

Reviews of the play can be found here:
1. The Flying Inkpot: http://www.inkpot.com/theatre/03reviews/03revinvitreamergaccuwillsece.html
2. The Flying Inkpot: http://www.inkpot.com/theatre/01reviews/01revmergaccuwillsece1.html

To register for the session, email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com. The fee is $5 which you can pay on the day itself.

(Advisory: Please note that due to the adult themes of the play, the session is open only to those 18 and above.)

PIE by Chong Tze Chien

The next meeting for the Open Roads reading club will be on Saturday 30 Oct 2010, 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1 and we will be looking at Chong Tze-Chien's P.I.E. (Pan-Island Expressway), the political satire which took the first prize at the Singapore Dramatist Awards in 1998.

The playwright himself (who has gone on to write/direct such acclaimed works as Poop, Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Furthest North, Deepest South for The Finger Players) will be joining us to close the session with an informal Q&A.

We also have a copy of a 1999 TheatreWorks production of the play which we will be screening clips from to deepen our discussion.

"Every symbol of national pride so familiar to us is subverted by clever wordplay and skilful plot maneuvers" - The Flying Inkpot

"Chong enjoys playing with the device of multiple perspectives, often repeating a scene from the points of view of different characters – and subtly changing it each time ... This jumping back and forth in time is interesting, and Chong is skilled enough never to let this get in the way of the story." - Quarterly Literary Review Singapore

Reviews of the play can be found here:
1. The Flying Inkpot: http://www.inkpot.com/theatre/01reviews/01revpanislaexpr.html
2. PopMatters: http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/p/pie-to-spoilt.shtml

To register for the session, email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com. The fee is $5 which you can pay on the day itself.

The play can be found in "PIE to Spoilt" by Chong Tze Chien which is available from the various branches of the public library as well as major bookstores.

***

The Substation and The Flying Inkpot Theatre and Dance bring you a fortnightly series of reading club sessions from July to November 2010 where instead of novels, the group will come together to discuss scripts by local playwrights. This will be a safe, friendly space for anyone to come and share their views about a particular work, whether they are a regular theatre-goer or new to the theatre scene. Participants have included retirees, professionals, students, teachers, arts practitioners and army boys!

Sessions will be facilitated by Matthew Lyon and Kenneth Kwok, Editors of The Flying Inkpot, an online arts journal which has been active since 1996.

10 July: Emily of Emerald Hill (Stella Kon)
24 July: Off-Centre (Haresh Sharma) *special guest Haresh Sharma*
21 Aug: Everything But The Brain (Jean Tay) *special guest Jean Tay*
4 Sep: Those Who Can't, Teach 2010 (Haresh Sharma) *special guest Alvin Tan*
18 Sep: The Coffin is too Big for the Hole and No Parking on Odd Days (Kuo Pao Kun)
2 Oct: Three Fat Virgins Unassembled (Ovidia Yu) - available in the collection Fat Virgins, Fast Cars and Asian Values *special guest Ovidia Yu*
16 Oct: Homesick (Alfian Sa'at) - available in the collection Alfian Sa'at: Collected Plays One
30 Oct: P.I.E. (Chong Tze Chien) - available in the collection P.I.E. to Spoilt *special guest Chong Tze Chien*
13 Nov: Mergers and Accusations (Eleanor Wong) - available in the collections Playful Phoenix and Invitation to Treat
27 Nov: Nothing (Natalie Hennedige) - copies will be made available to participants *special guest Natalie Hennedige*

Three Fat Virgins Unassembled by Ovidia Yu

We had eight participants for this afternoon's session of Open Roads and joining us as our special guest was Ovidia Yu, the playwright of Three Fat Virgins Unassembled.




The next meeting for Open Roads will be on Saturday 16 Oct 2010, 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1 and we will be looking at multiple award-winning writer Alfian Sa'at's Homesick. Thanks to W!ld Rice, we have a copy of a performance of the play which we will be showing excerpts from as part of our discussion.

"Rises to the occasion admirably ... endearing and engaging in its earnest intelligence and soaring ambitions." —The Straits Times

The play which explores the meaning of home through the story of a Singapore family quarantined during the SARS crisis, was first staged in 2006 and subsequently received a nomination for Best Original Script at the Life! Theatre Awards.

Reviews of the play can be found here:
1. Theatrex Asia: http://www.theatrex.asia/?p=30
2. The Flying Inkpot: http://www.inkpotreviews.com/2006reviews/0802,home,at.xml
3. The Flying Inkpot: http://www.inkpotreviews.com/2006reviews/0805,home,ny.xml

To register for the session, email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com. The fee is $5 which you can pay on the day itself.

The play can be found in Collected Plays One by Alfian Sa'at which is available from the various branches of the public library as well as major bookstores.

Three Fat Virgins Unassembled by Ovidia Yu

"Inside every fat virgin is a thin schoolgirl. There is no sadness like the inner sadness of fat virgins and skinny schoolgirls. There is no sadness like the sadness of a dreamy schoolgirl trapped inside the body of a fat virgin."

Session 6 of Open Roads will be held on Saturday 2 Oct 2010, 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1 and we will be looking this time at Three Fat Virgins Unassembled by award-winning playwright Ovidia Yu.

The play, an insightful but playful commentary on what it means to be a woman in contemporary Singapore society, is available from public libraries and major bookstores in the collection "Fat Virgins, Fast Cars and Asian Values".

The full text is also available online for free public access at:
http://econtent.elibraryhub.com/SHC/Singapore%20Pages/NORA/Literature/Drama/Ovidia%20Yu%20-%20Three%20Fat%20Virgins%20Unassembled.pdf

The playwright has generously agreed to join us for the session and we have also managed to get a recording of a 1992 production of the play from TheatreWorks that participants will be able to take a look at as part of our discussion.

To register, email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com. The fee is $5 which you can pay on the day itself.

The Coffin is too Big for the Hole and No Parking on Odd Days by Kuo Pao Kun

Next on our reading schedule are The Coffin is too Big for the Hole and No Parking on Odd Days which we will be discussing on Sat 18 Sep. Thanks to TheatreWorks, we will also be screening clips from a 1990 production of Coffin.

As always, the fee is $5 and the session will run 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1. Please email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com if you would like to attend.

Both monologues are classic works of Singapore literature and were penned by the late Kuo Pao Kun, co-founder of the The Substation and a leading figure in the local theatre scene till his passing in 2002.

Regarded as a mentor and inspiration by many practitioners today, Kuo received the Cultural Medallion in 1989 and the ASEAN Cultural Award in 1993. His plays have been translated in various languages and performed around the world.

These two short plays were his first English-language plays after years in the Mandarin theatre scene. Both are also among his first few works after release from detention by the government under the Internal Security Act (1976 - 1980).

Copies of the texts are, as always, available from public libraries and major bookstores.

You may want to think about the following questions when reading the plays:

1. One of the key themes of both plays is the conflict between the individual and the bureaucracy of the state. What other tensions do you think are being explored?

2. Are there incidents in your own personal life that mirror the circumstances described in the plays? To what extent do you feel that the plays are specific to Singapore? How do you think the plays would translate overseas?

3. What are the similarities and differences between the two plays? Why do you think Coffin has been staged much more often than Parking?

4. To what extent do you think the two texts work specifically as pieces of theatre? If you were a director, how would you choose to present the plays onstage?

Reviews of productions of the plays can be found here:

1. W!ld Rice (Singapore, 2000 and 2001)
http://inkpot.com/theatre/00reviews/00revkuopaokundoubbill.htm
http://www.wildrice.com.sg/images/doc/news/2001/20010207INKPOT.pdf

2. Teater Mandiri and The Theatre Practice (Indonesia and Singapore, 2001)
http://www.inkpot.com/theatre/01reviews/01revcoffistoobighole.html

3. Alec Tok (USA, 2001)
http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxxi/2001.02.02/ae/p19coffin.html

4. Drama Box (Singapore, 2010)
http://www.inkpotreviews.com/2010reviews/0223,coff,kk.xml

Those Who Can't, Teach (2010) by Haresh Sharma

We had ten participants for this afternoon's session of Open Roads and joining us as our special guest was Alvin Tan, Artistic Director of the The Necessary Stage and the director of the 1991 and 2010 stagings of Those Who Can't, Teach.






The next meeting for Open Roads will be on Saturday 18 Sep 2010, 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1 and we will be looking at two canonical texts of Singapore literature, the monologues The Coffin is too Big for the Hole and No Parking on Odd Days, both by the late Kuo Pao Kun.

To register, email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com. The fee is $5 which you can pay on the day itself.

Copies of the plays are available from the public library as well as major bookstores.

Those Who Can't, Teach (2010) by Haresh Sharma

On Saturday 4 Sep, we will be looking at Those Who Can't, Teach (2010) by Haresh Sharma for what will be our fourth Open Roads reading club session. We are happy to announce that our special guest for the afternoon is Alvin Tan, Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage.

The fee is $5 and the session will run 2pm - 4pm, Substation Classroom 1. Email us at admin@inkpotreviews.com to register.

Copies of the text (which you should of course have read before the session) are available from public libraries and major bookstores.

Those Who Can't Teach, was first staged by The Necessary Stage in 1990 but the recent Singapore Arts Festival production in May 2010 was a completely new version re-written by the playwright specially for the occasion. It tells the story of Mrs Phua Su Lin and her colleagues and students at the fictitious Marine Parade Secondary School.

Reviews:

1. Singapore Arts Festival Blog
http://singartsfestival.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/those-who-cant-teach-by-the-necessary-stage/

2. Today Online: For Art's Sake!
http://blogs.todayonline.com/forartssake/2010/05/20/singapore-arts-fest-teachers-pest/

3. Just Watch Lah
http://www.justwatchlah.com/2010/05/those-who-cant-teach-by-necessary-stage_20.html

Here are some things you might want to think about before the session:

1. There are many characters featured in the play. Whose story did you find yourself most attracted to? Were there characters that you struggled with? Did you feel that the play handled the large cast of characters well?

2. "Those Who Can't, Teach is a play about the passion of one's calling ... do we know what the price of dedication is today?" - director Alvin Tan. To what extent do you agree that this is the main focus of the play?

3. Do you feel that the play is an accurate representation of the challenges faced by teachers and students today? Is that important to the success of the play?

4. What do you think the purpose of education is? What about the purpose of a school? Is it different? What do you think the role of a teacher is? Do your views change depending on whether you are a student, teacher or parent?

5. What do you think is the significance of the title of the play?

6. What are your memories of school? Would you ever consider being a teacher?