Collaboration Across The Causeway – Another Country by W!LD RICE

PUBLISHED June 17th, 2015 04:00 pm | UPDATED March 27th, 2016 03:01 pm

In Another Country, W!LD RICE explores the history and heritage of Singapore and Malaysia in a funny, poignant, and insightful look at life on both sides of the Causeway.

Part of W!LD RICE’s year-long imagiNATION season, where each production takes inspiration from the five stars of the Singapore flag, this production examines the ‘Peace’ – or lack thereof – shared by two countries that were torn asunder in 1965.

50 years ago, Singapore and Malaysia divorced after a brief marriage of two years. But, the doomed ‘lovers’ can’t stay away from each other, squabbling over water, airspace, and food often. The respective citizens toil in each other’s cities, relax on each other’s islands, and get fined on each other’s roads. They laugh at each other’s laws but envy each other’s liberties. Separated by history, both Singaporeans and Malaysians are united in their dreams for a better home.

Directed by Singapore’s Ivan Heng and Malaysia’s Jo Kukathas, Another Country takes us on a trip through our shared memories and divergent dreams with the most provocative, humorous, and unlikely texts curated by Singaporean playwright Alfian Sa’at and Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin.

Will we find more similarities, or more things to squabble over? Will we recognize our homes in each other’s stories? To whom do these stories belong? And, most important of all… where does Hainanese chicken rice really come from?

‘The 50th year of Singapore’s independence also marks the separation of Singapore from our nearest and dearest neighbour,’ says Ivan Heng, Artistic Director of W!LD RICE. ‘Sometimes, that separation feels illusive, even fictional, when we travel to each other’s countries and realize how much culture, history and food we still share. In a year all about embracing our nationhood and sovereignty, we thought it was also important to celebrate what we have in common with Malaysia.’

Ivan Heng and Jo Kukathas

A truly collaborative, cross-cultural project, Another Country challenges Heng and his Singaporean cast to understand, embrace, and perform texts by some of Malaysia’s finest writers. At the same time, Malaysian director Jo Kukathas and her cast will dig into an eclectic array of Singapore literature, unearthing what remains beneath the politics and posturing that have often complicated relations between the two nations. The audience can expect a kaleidoscope of memories, stories and emotions.

‘Often, we think of a country or a nation as a political entity, made not by people but by politics and policies. To look at a country through literature, not politics – to see a nation through poets, not politicians – is to open up new landscapes,’ Kukathas explains.

The texts from both countries have been curated by Alfian Sa’at, W!LD RICE’s Resident Playwright and renowned Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin, who selected the Malaysian texts used in Second Link (an earlier incarnation of this bilateral project (which was a hit with audiences and critics in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, and Singapore).

The goal of Another Country is to really look beyond the media and the politicians to find the common ground that exists between the people of both countries.

‘Once you look at the literature, a more nuanced portrait emerges,’ notes Alfian. ‘The relationship between the two countries can no longer be described by the rather technical term ‘bilateral’; it is also mutual, reciprocal, co-dependent, love-hate, can’t-live-with/can’t-live- without. I think more than ever we need to tell these stories, which speak of ties that are not just historical but also very much of the present: personal, cultural, visceral, umbilical. I think of Another Country as a project in which audiences will see themselves reflected not only in the texts of their ‘homegrown’ writers, but also in those of ‘the other country’.’

Another Country’s multi-racial, multi-talented cast will feature ten of the finest acting talents on both sides of the Causeway, including Singapore’s Lim Yu-Beng and Siti Khalijah Zainal and Malaysia’s Ghafir Akbar and Sharifah Amani.

Another Country runs 25 June to 11 July 2015 at the Drama Centre Theatre, Level 3, National Library, 100 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064. For more information and tickets, please visit W!ld Rice’s website and SISTIC.