Chong Tze Chien: Four Plays

"These four plays in Chong Tze Chien's latest collection were, in terms of their reception as stage productions, greeted with high praise, making Chong one of the most critically lauded and garlanded thespians of his generation. To Whom It May Concern was spawned of a residential fellowship at La Ma Ma in the Umbrian hill town of Spoleto in Italy. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea garnered multiple nominations at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards 2005 before earning Chong the Best Director accolade, debunking the myth that directors should stay away from their own writing. Poop! was a strong contender for Best Original Script in the 2010 Life! Theatre Awards, and was subsequently revived for a second sell-out run, while Charged strode away with the Best Original Script at the Life! Theatre Awards the following year, when Chong trounced his former playwriting mentor, Haresh Sharma, a fellow nominee in the same category...

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"... Adopting a syncretic "both-and" rather than a binary "either-or" approach, Chong and the thaumaturgic appeal of his recent plays are closer to the essence of postmodernism in their underlying query of the contributions of Diderot and the great Enlightenment project with its grand narratives, rationalism and teleology. Belonging squarely with the passionate paradigm and focused on the petit recit of the humble individual, Chong reacts to this culture of reason with deftly subtle plays that question the obvious, lay bare our assumptions and demand our total receptivity to their idiosyncratic and whimsical power."

– Dr K K Seet

(Source: Four Plays Introduction by Dr K K Seet)