I’ve been performing for as long as I can remember. It always came naturally to me. I was never a shy child and I guess you could say I had exhibitionist tendencies!! I was very much my parents’ performing monkey – by the age of two, I could recite the pledge and sing the national anthem on demand.
I gathered up the courage to go full-time as an actor when my mother passed away after a long fight with breast cancer in 1999. Prior to that, I was always terrified of doing theatre full-time. During my six years at architecture school, I was performing in shows, but always on the side. I even practised as an architect for a year. All that changed when my mother died. It made me realise that you can spend your whole life working and looking forward to your retirement – and then you die. So I decided to just go for it.
My first outing as a professional actor was a three-part comedy by Michael Chiang. I played Miss Junction 8 in a skit called Beauty Box. That was the first time I really experienced the effect an actor can have in saying a line. If your timing is right, everyone laughs, and you’re receiving this amazing energy from a room of 400 people. That’s a real high!
Making a living in the arts can be tough. Some months, it can be really lean in terms of income. You have to be very disciplined and save your money when it does come in, which isn’t always easy. That’s one reason I became a TV whore for a few years. I did many, many Chinese dramas as a full-time actor for the now-defunct MediaWorks. The scripts were terrible; I don’t think I could bring myself to say those lines today. But working in TV definitely had its perks – it paid for the car I’m still driving now!
Performing live, on stage, is immediate. As an actor, I get to go on a complete journey in every single show. I get to tell the story I’ve been tasked to tell. In film, everything is shot out of sequence. It’s a director’s medium, whereas theatre is an actor’s medium. You can act your heart out on screen and still get cut out of the final product. But, in the theatre, you’re right there, interacting with your fellow actors and the audience. It’s instant gratification, too – you say a line, and you can receive laughter, tension or anger in return.
One of my most memorable on-stage mishaps involved a missing prop in the 2000 production of Titoudao, in which I played Hokkien opera star Oon Ah Chiam. Just imagine how jiak kentang people like me and Beatrice Chia had to memorise our lines – we had to do it phonetically!
One night, Beatrice’s character was supposed to produce a betrothal letter from her sleeve – but it wasn’t there! None of the lines in that scene would have made sense without the letter. I started panicking because I couldn’t imagine Beatrice improvising in Hokkien! After some hesitation, Beatrice said, “Wah wu sim, ai kahwin (I have heart, I want to marry).” The only problem is that ‘kahwin’ is a Malay word!! I was practically having a heart attack on stage!
When we finally got to the dressing room, I was half-laughing, half-yelling at her: “Why you speak Malay during Hokkien opera scene?!” Her response? “I was trying to make it rhyme!!” We laughed until we cried. In that moment, I pledged my eternal friendship to Beatrice Chia!
Image © Dream Academy Productions
It’s our job to make it look easy but being a Dim Sum Dolly is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I really have to multi-task. Not only do I have to remember my lines, I have to sing harmony and dance. I’m not a natural dancer, so I have to work very hard – much harder than my fellow Dollies – when it comes to choreography. There have been a couple of times when I’ve forgotten my blocking and exited on the wrong side of the stage. I can still remember the horror on the dressers’ faces, because I’m wasting precious seconds in a quick change!
The show that changed my life is Animal Farm by W!LD RICE. I played Squealer in the original 2002 production. The way Ivan Heng directed the piece made it so universal and so much bigger than what was on the page. My friends were shocked that we managed to get it staged. But Animal Farm is an O-level textbook! Somehow, just saying the lines in a Singaporean accent made everyone freak out. Animal Farm helped me understand how important theatre can be, and also opened my eyes to the political landscape in Singapore.
Becoming a director myself was like being pushed off a cliff by one of my dearest friends. Thanks, Ivan! I was really terrified throughout Hansel & Gretel – my first show as a director and it’s a huge musical featuring two casts of kids! I’m a control freak, so it took me a while to learn how to let go. But I’ve since gained more experience with The Emperor’s New Clothes, and I’ve found that it’s actually very rewarding and fun if I surround myself with a good creative team. I’m really looking forward to directing Boeing Boeing next. As an actor, I’ve rarely had more fun on a stage than in this show. I can’t wait to work on this fantastic comedy with a brand-new cast of actors!
