The year is 2003, at the peak of the SARS crisis.
The Koh family, scattered across the globe, is forced to reunite when the family patriarch falls ill. They have not spoken to each other for years, and are compelled to confront various unresolved issues – sibling rivalries, desertions and betrayals.
Suddenly, Pa is diagnosed as a suspected SARS case, and a home quarantine order is slapped on the household. For the next ten days, there is no avoiding one anther! Rooms are occupied, lines are drawn, and World War III threatens to erupt!
What does it mean to belong to a family? Or to a country? How do the bonds that hold them together also hold them back? After a family that quits together, stays together…
Homesick is a dark comedy about migration and exile, identity and rootlessness, virus and memory, home and blood. So grab your passports and come with us.
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.
