W!LD RICE presents Alfian Saâat – In The Spotlight, a festival dedicated to showcasing the brilliant, witty, heartfelt work of one of Singaporeâs finest playwrights.
The aim of W!LD RICEâs In The Spotlight series is to provide audiences with a representative survey of a local playwrightâs body of work. More importantly, W!LD RICE hopes to examine how these works relate to one another and to todayâs audiences.
W!LD RICE presents three works by our award-winning Resident Playwright, Alfian Saâat. A highlight of the festival is the premiere of Cook a Pot of Curry, a brand new play that takes a hard look at the hot-button issue of immigration and the effect of changing demographics on Singapore culture.
W!LD RICE will also be staging two exciting revivals of Alfianâs previous works â Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1, a touchstone in Singapore’s LGBT movement; and The Optic Trilogy, a meditation on love and loss that has made its way to Scandinavia and back.
Recognising that theatre does not begin and end with the rise and fall of the curtain, a series of exciting activities have been planned in and around the Festival. These include a new version of Alfianâs smash-hit play Cooling-Off Day, performed free-of-charge, and workshops that will explore the styles, themes and inspirations running through Alfianâs works.
Join us in the theatre – to laugh, cry, and think about our country, our heritage, our relationships and ourselves, through the prism of Alfian’s sharp, insightful writing.
About the Show
Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1 is a campy, fabulous extravaganza charting the journey of a goddess, Agnes, after she descends to earth. Armed with fantastic powers, she is on a heroic mission: âto save gay men from themselvesâ.
And thus Agnes lands in Singapore, where a mysterious guide called âBoyâ offers to show her around. They travel through time, meeting with horny, sweaty rickshaw coolies, love-doomed resistance fighters during the Japanese Occupation, and the lonely drifters of a virtual landscape known in the â90s as the âInternet Relay Chatâ.
Blending the divine with the profane, by turns harrowing and hilarious, Dreamplay is a fabulous tour through Singaporeâs history, throwing light and fairy dust at the little-known beginnings of an alternative community on the island. Written unapologetically at the tentative turn of the millennium, it has rightly earned its place as one of the pioneering works in Singaporean queer theatre.
Rating: R18 (Homosexual Theme)
Production History:
Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1 is the first installment of Alfian Saâatâs Asian Boys Trilogy. Written when the playwright was 23 years old, it premiered at the Necessary Stage Black Box and ran for three weeks.
Subsequently, excerpts of the play were read as part of the Singapore Season in London in 2005, with drag queen standup extraordinaire Kumar playing the lead role of Agnes.
Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1 was nominated for Best Script at the Life! Theatre Awards in 2001. The cast won Best Ensemble at the same awards.
In directing this revival, Ivan Heng completes his interpretation of the Asian Boys Trilogy, after having helmed both Landmarks: Asian Boys Vol. 2 (2004) and also Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol. 3 (2007). Jo Kukathas stars in the lead role of Agnes, joined by actors from earlier productions of Asian Boys Vol. 1 (Peter Sau), Vol. 2 (Tan Shou Chen) and Vol. 3 (Koey Foo), along with Rodney Oliveiro and Caleb Goh.
