Second Link is a provocative, insightful and humorous performance celebrating the work of Singaporean and Malaysian writers, tackling topics as diverse as Raffles, Sang Kancil, censorship, Singlish, race, nationality, sexuality and chicken rice.
Directed by Ivan Heng, and featuring a stunningly accomplished company of 10 actors from the two countries, Second Link will surprise, delight and reveal the obsessions and concerns of the cities’ denizens and artists. This explosive physical theatre showcase of more than 50 celebrated and banned texts was a hit with audiences and critics in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Singapore, and is the rousing finale of the Singapore Theatre Festival.
Presented by W!LD RICE in collaboration with Five Arts Centre and The Actors’ Studio, Kuala Lumpur
Singapore Theatre Festival ’06
It’s bold, new, exciting, entertaining, funny and moving, and it’s about YOU!
W!LD RICE proudly presents the first Singapore Theatre Festival – a biennial showcase of new Singapore plays and theatre-making.
For 3 exhilarating weeks, the nation’s most exciting theatre companies and artists come together to present a season of new plays, by our local playwrights – established and new. With 8 new productions and 5 World Premieres staged in the August when Singapore celebrates it’s independence and Nationhood, these plays will have you talking and thinking about theatre, Singapore and the world.
The plays featured span a wide range of exciting and dare we say, relevant ideas. The curtain raiser for the festival is Alfian Sa’at’s new black family comedy HOMESICK which asks: what does it mean to belong to a family and country. You will have reason to laugh on National Day, when Eleanor Wong’s THE CAMPAIGN TO CONFER THE PUBLIC SERVICE STAR ON JBJ lifts the lid on the limits of political expression in our post election New Singapore. Paul Rae’s NATIONAL LANGUAGE CLASS, will have you thinking about the variety and the politics of the languages we speak and newcomer Wong Chen Seong’s sizzling SALSA SALSA SALSA! will have you thinking about the bonds between friends, and living and dying in Singapore.
For the rousing festival finale, the widely acclaimed SECOND LINK, featuring the work of more than 50 writers will be presented for its final performances before touring to Kuala Lumpur on Merdeka Day weekend. This exuberant physical theatre performance, featuring 10 wonderful performers from 2 countries, will bring laughter and fresh points of view even as they perform our stories and idiosyncracies and invite you to make up your own tale of our 2 cities!
Aside from the plays featured in the festival, you can really get into the festival spirit by checking out the various exciting festival activities!
One of the highlights is a series of free public talks – The Art and Life Sessions, featuring panelists Braema Mathi, Dawn Kua, Dick Lee, Sylvia Lim, Tan Tarn How, Eleanor Wong and Alfian Sa’at. So join in, express your views and have a listen to some of Singapore’s most interesting thinkers, activists, movers and shakers! Other events include Forum Theatre workshops and a performance, and Feedback Fridays, where audiences are invited to stay back after Friday shows to chat about the play they have just watched with the playwright, director and other audience members.
The SINGAPORE THEATRE FESTIVAL ’06 will set you thinking and give you new ideas and refreshing insights about what it means to be living, loving and aspiring in our modern City State. You will hear your stories and see yourself – LIVE – on stage. Be a witness and a participant in this momentous and unforgettable theatrical event.
