"All the World's A Stage": A look into SG theatre and why it matters
- ejorigin
- Apr 10, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 19, 2025
Written and designed by: D S Dhanvin (24-E4)
Introduction
Watching Falling produced by Singaporean theatre company Pangdemonium shattered my expectations of Singaporean drama. With an incredible cast and spectacular production quality, I found myself very much surprised by how well the play was conducted. For its entire runtime I was nothing but hooked, and at the end of the play I even contemplated watching another play by Pangdemonium as well.
Up to that point, I had given very little thought to the idea that Singaporean plays could be of any noteworthy quality. This rather pervasive mindset towards local theatre as compared to wide scale performances like those of our European counterparts is one that I personally believed in but now, after doing much extensive research into the size and scale of our theatre scene, I can confidently say that Singaporean productions should be respected and valued as much as (or perhaps even more) productions from the West. With that in mind, let’s look at the history of our theatre scene and observe how it has shifted and adapted to the zeitgeist of its time.
Singaporean theatre - A look into its evolution
Our theatre scene prior to the Japanese occupation was rather small, consisting of traditional arts such as Wayang — a form of Chinese street opera — and Bangsawan — a traditional Malay opera. Theatre as a whole remained mostly static with few original writings and fewer theatre troupes up until the 1950s, after which we saw a rise in anti-colonial sentiments against our then British occupiers. Many politically-charged plays reflected the negative sentiment towards the British; mostly held by the Chinese-educated majority who felt that they were being unfairly treated and that their education was not respected by the British. Post-Independence, these sentiments would shift and ex-patriates of the British empire who were proficient in English began writing what would be the seed for original English dramas. These include dramas such as ‘Mimi Fan’, which is now considered Singapore’s first English language play. It was during this period that the Tamil drama scene had its Golden Age, with numerous troupes and dramas being composed by the Tamil community.
Fast-forward to the 1970s, a more experimental approach towards theatre was adopted, primarily by the Malay community which desired to separate itself from European influences. Trying to carve out a unique identity within their dramas, they often incorporated traditional elements in their contemporary plays. The English drama community, contrastingly, were suffering from smaller audiences as a result of the British completely withdrawing British staff from Singapore, since these staff were the predominant audience of English drama and plays. Crackdowns of leftist groups in the 70s also lead to many Chinese performers (primarily leftists) to be detained, dampening the spirit and scale of such drama operations, while the Tamil drama scene suffered from dwindling audience interest alongside minuscule talent pools causing a few troupes to observe their swan song.
If the 70s seemed to be the dark ages of Singapore theatre, the 80s would be akin to the Renaissance, with public interest in theatre exploding in popularity. Original plays such as ‘Emily Of Emerald Hill’ and ‘The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole’ by playwrights Stella Kon and Kuo Pao Kun soared to dizzying heights. In particular, ‘The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole’ was a tragicomedy lauded for its description of a modernised society in which rules are strictly enforced alongside the theme of being left behind and alone, in a world where some ‘coffins’ just can’t fit in.
Since the 1990s, the arts in Singapore have continued to evolve and grow with more studios opening up. Pangdemonium, for instance, was a theatre troupe started by Adrian Pang, a renowned Singaporean actor, as well as his wife Tracie Pang. Aside from a rather gauche name, Pangdemonium has put on numerous plays, primarily focused on social issues such as Singaporeans’ perception of autism in Falling and marriage in the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Experimental dramas are also growing today with plays such as panikkan by Agam Theatre Labs serving as a platform for aspiring playwrights, helping audiences laugh and cry.
Why care about our theatre scene?
The phrase "All The World’s A Stage" by William Shakespeare is so ubiquitous that to some it may seem like a cliche. The monologue seemingly espouses that life in of itself is a play with everyone being ‘merely players’ in our human life - in under 30 lines, Shakespeare succinctly captures the lives everyone lived in his time. Shakespeare, through Jaques (the emo guy monologuing), captures what I believe to be a revelation, a sense of absolute truth through Jaques’s ennui. We are born, we live and we die, our lives end with ‘second childishness’ before total obliteration. It is through Jaques that we find Shakespeare the pessimist, not the romantic who composed hundreds of ballads but, the man who knew what it was like to be human, to realise how short our lives are, who understood love and loss, who desired solicitude and despised sorrow, prone to both paroxysms of passion and ones of despair. Shakespeare’s audiences didn’t love his dramas for their complexities or their plot lines, they loved his plays for their reminder that we at our very core human. Whether it be our inability to make a decision in Hamlet or our desire to find and be with those we love in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare in a way wanted his audience to revel in human experiences as part of the human condition.
Shakespeare wrote to reflect the society he lived in, the concerns of the people of his time, and in doing so brought relief and comfort to the masses, helping people question their society’s values and along the way be entertained through ludicrous stories and slapstick humour. As a modern audience, we might misconstrue his grand language and archaic views in a negative manner but, Shakespeare was simply using the language of his time to discuss the things he felt were important then, some of which are relevant to us. Essentially, Shakespeare’s drama is the way it is because he wanted to impact his audience, to remind them of what holds us humans together and what we wish to aspire to.
This is, in turn, is why we should support Singaporean theatre — because the stories they tell are Singaporean stories. Our theatre scene reminds us of what we believe in, what we all aspire towards and how we collectively perceive things in a society. Drama itself is a part of the humanities, and while pragmatic Singaporeans may believe that the arts are not vital to our survival, the humanities are what…. well…. keep us human don’t they?
Lee Kuan Yew may have once quipped that ‘Poetry is a luxury we can’t afford’ in regards to the Arts’ place in Singapore in our nation’s formative years, but it would be myopic to believe that the government still perpetuates and supports that mindset today. The arts- especially theatre- provided nearly 0.4% of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product in 2018 alone, comparable to our sports sector. Their contributions to our society don't seem so small after all right?
So I would like to make a proposition. To any reader who doesn’t believe that our theatre scene is ‘good’ or ‘important’, I challenge you. Instead of watching the next Hollywood blockbuster or the newest K-drama flick, try to watch a Singaporean play. Maybe you’ll find it more rewarding than you could have imagined it to be (just like me!). Don’t try to find the most experimental or thematically rich drama, watch something you find interesting or a play a friend recommended to you. Most importantly, try to be immersed in the world created by the playwright, and just enjoy the play.
Who knows, you might actually learn something.
Resources:
Comments