The Necessary Stage

Welcome to our third issue of&nbsp;focas,&nbsp;bristling with audacity, intelligence and wit (okay, I will henceforth dispense with the Hello Kitty house style, but I did think it was at least worth a try, given that one of our sections deal with kitsch). This issue, as usual, has three thematic sections:&nbsp;Work/Play, Kitsch and The Singapore Modern;&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bodies &amp; Text, all of which correspond with public forums on the same or related topics...

[...]

... Where historical density is per

focas: No 3

Writer

Admittedly, the attention we received after our launch in January may have as much to do with the lack of platforms for critical debate about art and society in Singapore, as it does with&nbsp;focas&nbsp;being a rather being kick-ass journal. A recurring concern - also voiced in this edition - is that debate among social critics, arts practitioners and activists is far too polite. There is a feeling that Singaporeans in particular are too fearful of offending people - friends, artists, the public or the gov

focas: No 2

spell#7

National Language Class&nbsp;is inspired by Chua Mia Tee’s iconic 1959 painting of a group of Chinese students learning Malay.&nbsp;Interactive and inventive, the performance begins by recreating the scene shown in the painting. Gradually, it turns its focus to the bigger political picture the painting was a part of, and to the gap between the future it envisaged, and the one that took its place. In Malay, Mandarin and English, the audience participates in an event that shifts from the humorous to the menac

National Language Class (2016)

Director

Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay

Relationships are tricky. As tricky, if not more, than directing (and/or performing) a work that is so intimate, especially when an estranged couple is looking for lost intimacy. Lines are drawn, and the time is set. So let us play a game. You start. You keep score. We will push, and we will pull. We will carry on, even when there will never be a winner. So listen carefully, or all will be lost again.&nbsp;Irfan Kasban&nbsp;

Selected works of Paul Rae and Kaylene Tan (2015)

Playwright

What does it mean to be on stage with your grandma? Perform with your sister or dance with your child? In Family Duet, a multi-generational cast presents an off-beat mix of life experiences and perspectives of the world.

Reflecting spell#7's intimate and inventive approach to theatre-making, Family Duet highlights the questions that family living answers but rarely asks: What is it to live together? How did I get these eyes? Are we ever too young to fail, or too old to disappoint? Where are the emergency

Family Duet (2013)

Cast

Combining traditional storytelling with theatrical experiment,&nbsp;Epic Poem of Malaya&nbsp;presents a kaleidoscopic vision of a society in flux. In a constantly shifting stage environment, a multi-generational cast unfolds an expansive, big-hearted story of Singapore seen from the sea.

A boy leaves Singapore for life on the South China Sea. He loves it, but history has other ideas. In a 1956 painting by the artist Chua Mia Tee, a passionate young man is declaiming a vision of the future; and there isn’

Epic Poem of Malaya (2010)

Tree Duet is a meditative performance about our continuing entanglement with trees. Accompanied by pianist Shane Thio, performers Paul Rae and Kaylene Tan combine an intricately interwoven set of stories and reportage with simple actions and gestures to create a delicate theatrical ecology of sounds, words and images.

Eco-performance minus the moralizing, Tree Duet encompasses everything from the history of the Malayan rubber industry to carbon offsetting, the music of Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu to

Tree Duet (2009)

Performer

From dreamtime to realtime: a two-part work exploring our daily journey from the private to the public and back again.&nbsp;

Every working day millions of us get up still half asleep, look in the bathroom mirror and start the daily task of putting on a public face. This is&nbsp;Dream-Work. Then, as we clock off for the day, we slough off our workselves and fleetingly entertain other options. Our destination is&nbsp;Dream-Home.

Dream-Work&nbsp;and&nbsp;Dream-Home&nbsp;are two walking performances that 

Dream-Work/Dream-Home (2009)

Sky Duet&nbsp;is an audio companion designed for and inspired by the Singapore Flyer. Listeners access the work on the Singapore Flyer through headphones and an mp3 player, as they embark on a thirty-minute journey into the sky and back.

The Flyer is a dreamcatcher, spinning wheel, Jacob’s ladder, a giant radar tuning in on peoples’ thoughts and conversations about death, clouds, city lights…and all the small wonders that make up a life. The listener hears voices that move in and out of sync with their o

Sky Duet (2008)

Where do your memories live?

Tree/House is a two-part performance about how we remember in a city of forgetting. First a tree, then a house, providing the starting points for an exercise in modern storytelling, which weaves objects, images and anecdotes together in a provocative and poignant remembrance of things present.

Tree Duet explores our continuing entanglement with trees by presenting a theatrical meditation on the things they make us think and do. An eco-performance minus the moralizing, spel

Tree / House (2008)

Ho Tzu Nyen

Not one, but three productions about Shakespeare's King Lear, questioning the production of Lear itself. Singaporean visual artist and film-maker Ho Tzu Nyen turns theatre maker in this intriguing trilogy which has as its starting point&nbsp;three well-known critical texts on&nbsp;Lear by Marvin Rosenberg, Jonathan Goldberg and Wilson Knight. Giving these&nbsp;tracts flesh and blood incarnations through&nbsp;dramatizations of would-be scenarios of an audition, a rehearsal and a&nbsp;post-show discussion, th

The King Lear Project: A Trilogy (2008)

In 1959, artist Chua Mia Tee painted a group of Chinese students learning Malay. Today, the painting is called 'National Language Class'. In their critically acclaimed play inspired by the painting, spell#7 revisit this vision of a future that never happened, and asks: how good is your national language?

Starting out as a language lesson with the audience, National Language Class stages multiple versions of Chua's iconic painting in a bid to get to grips with history, and resolve simmering tensions betwe

National Language Class (2008)

A wry meditation on our continuing entanglement with trees. Interweaving stories from colonial history and the modern Asian city with simple effects and actions, spell#7 creates a delicate theatrical ecology of ideas and images: eco-performance minus moralizing.


Tree Duet (2007)

Remember a time when Singapore was forever Malaya? How about when it was forever Temasek? In this provocative double-bill on the origins and orange of our proud Republic, we reach back into history both ancient and recent and ask: how good is your National Language - and who was it you said founded this place? Part One - National Language Class - takes as its starting point an iconic 1959 painting of Chinese students learning Malay. As a language lesson unfolds, power is used and abused humorously, inventiv

National Language Class (2006)

Each April, spell#7 presents a new performance about life and love to the Power of Two.

This year, performer Paul Rae adds two new snapshots to the album. In XO, Paul shares a cognac with a certain troubled Thai politician, and draws on his travels in Thailand and his encounters with death to suggest an unusual solution to his drinking buddy's problems.

In Enfold, Paul hooks up with Jeremy Hsu, a Chinese-American toddler from a kid's TV show. As he takes instruction from Jeremy in the fine art of fold

Duets 2 (2006)

A series of short, sharp duologues written and performed by Kaylene Tan and Paul Rae.&nbsp;Duets&nbsp;explores life and love to the power of two.&nbsp;

Interspersed with the sounds and stories of some of pop's most enduring duets, 10 vignettes chart the ups and downs of two people making a life together when they are supposed to be making a living. From the mundane to the magical, the frumpy to the funky, stories and told, music is played, and the sly work of love does its thing.


Duets (2005)

Devisor

T:>Works (TheatreWorks)

A woman desires to be a mother. Another desires for a mother. And one who is a mother. Stories of a woman’s hidden desires and memories are told through a series of five intimate episodes. Share in her longing as she crosses between time and space, between dreams and reality. Set against Mother’s Grief,&nbsp;a black-and-white Hong Kong film made in 1961,&nbsp;Ma: Moment&nbsp;is presented in an architectural pavilion of reimagined old shophouses and cinema screens, built on the site of Chinatown’s infamous D

Ma: Moment (2004)

Hypnotically moody and sexy. A relationship between a man and a woman. One scene, one space, one story, and five different outcomes. Growing apart and coming back again. It is not a love story. It is a luminous story about one man’s search for balance. We invite you to enter the Black Box, where a melding of Ayurvedic senses await you. Swathed in George Chua’s hypnotic soundscape and Paul Rae and Kaylene Tan’s sensuous text, delicately textured by Ben Slater’s film,&nbsp;Balance&nbsp;is a treat to rebalance

Balance (2003)

I remember the blood rushing to my head when I felt his tongue in my mouth, licking the insides of my mouth. And our tongues met and did a strange and delicious flicking dance, circling slowly then darting around. He sucked my lips – the upper then the lower, ever so slowly… I thought I was going to melt. I was one puddle of wet desire. Time stood still – we were the only two hungry mouths in the world. Screw Christmas. Fuck politics. Whatever to the rest of the world. This went on for hours. Gimme more.


Pulse (2003)

We... never thought we'd need each other like this. There are various gangsters in this world, and we are&nbsp;amongst them. Not easy, but possible. It’s about being together. Sharing space, energy, priorities. We look out for each other. Like I said before, we hold our own. We move, we move on, and a question arises: how do you move differently? How manoeuvre beyond the radar, deflect attention? We do not misbehave, not in any conventional sense. We are not rabble-rousers, insurgents, revolutionaries. We d

Various Gangsters (2002)

The ambassador has been at large too long. Home once more, his thoughts turn to the places he's lived and the people he's loved. In his twilit memory, everything overlaps. The nun and the cowboy shoot the breeze, the ice queen gets fresh with the sleazebag, the pulp novelist writes stories of lost love fit to burst your heart. It's all one to the old man in the funny shirt, as he conjures fantasies out of forgetting, and festivities out of trauma: a remix, with a mashed up soundtrack to match, and digital i

7x7 (2002)

Two beautiful losers scour the city for the relics of faith. As they bear witness to the heaven held in these everyday things, they deliver up lessons on impotence, the afterlife and other modern headaches. Not only do they share their prophecies and revelations with us, but also their take-outs and tidbits. During one of these lessons something bad happens and all hell is let loose. We can't say anymore about that now...


Beautiful Losers (2002)

Two women stake all love, all tenderness, all blood, sweat and tears on the final fling of the last night before Virtue comes a-knocking. My Last Night in Sin: a micro-musical about risks, riches and rolling good times.&nbsp;


My Last Night in Sin (2001)

Bodies in Flight

fluffboy visited hunny.bunny's website, shygirl7 met 6wasabe9 in a chatroom. Now it's double happiness twice over. But real life is messy. Do you know where he's been? Does she? Across continents where differences of language and culture, shoe-size and disease resistance create turbulence in the flow of information and capital, Double Happiness jacks into the body that braves time-zones and economy class to get fleshy with another.


Double Happiness (2000)

In&nbsp;Bud,&nbsp;two stories combine to make many. On the one hand, there is a tale of six performers in a Garden City, haunted by their life-changing experiences of a mysterious green-fingered cowboy called Bud. On the other, there are fragments of&nbsp;Mad Dog Blues:&nbsp;a madcap caper of a play by Sam Shepard populated by an assortment of lost and drifting casualties of popular culture.&nbsp;

At the heart of both stories if a quest: For a new Bud, and for treasure. And, as with all picaresque journe

Bud (1999)

High altitude, high drama. For the star with the beautiful feet, love is in the air. Come fly with&nbsp;Meena &amp; Me.


Meena and Me (1999)

apocalyso! is about finding yourself at the end of the millenium without a partner for the ball. It is about playing dirty to get one and coming clean as the clock strikes midnight. Inspired by the sounds and footsteps of Latin America and Cowboy Mouth by Sam Shepard, spell#7 throws in a few ingredients of their own: spying, romance, cultural differences, confessions and pre-millenial tension.


apocalypso! (1997)

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Paul Rae

WORKS DOCUMENTED IN THE ARCHIVE

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