SINGAPORE: When playwright Faith Ng was in the middle of writing a new play about the lives of Normal Stream students a couple of years ago, she decided to check if there were other plays had had previously dealt with the Singapore education system. To her surprise, she discovered it wasn’t a popular onstage topic.
“It’s something that everybody talks about, but the conversation wasn’t happening (in Singapore theatre). There weren’t a lot of plays you could name at all,” said the 29-year-old associate artist of Checkpoint Theatre.
These next couple of months, however, the local stage will be transformed into veritable classrooms, with three theatre companies heading for their respective fictional schools, as it were.
Ng’s acclaimed Normal, which was first staged in 2015, is getting another airing at the end of March to kick off Checkpoint Theatre’s 15th anniversary season. It immediately follows a restaging of Haresh Sharma’s popular school comedy Those Who Can’t, Teach, as part of The Necessary Stage’s own season celebrating 30 years in the business.
And kicking off the lessons this month is Dream Academy’s Detention Katong, a brand new high school musical of sorts by Dim Sum Dolly Selena Tan. We take a look at these class acts.
(Photo: Dream Academy)
GIRLS SPOTTED AT DETENTION KATONG
It’s been a while since Dream Academy put up an original show that wasn’t about the Dim Sum Dollies, Kumar or Broadway Beng. But last year, company founder Tan found the right material to work with — teenage schoolgirls.
And it was partly thanks to a niece. “She had suddenly become a teenager and I was reminded of what it was like,” recalled Tan.
And that, according to her, was being “much ado about nothing — everything was manic. The angst, the hormonal changes… a pimple was a volcano!”
Detention Katong follows the adventures of a straight A student at Geylang Girls Secondary School, who gets sent to detention and meets some of the school’s resident “bad girls”. And as in many of Tan’s works, hilarity ensues.
With hints of Matilda, Mean Girls and Gilmore Girls, the musical stars young actress Valerie Choo as the straight-laced lead, with singer-songwriter Inch Chua and actress-YouTube star Munah Bagharib as the naughty ones. Providing comedic support are kooky teachers played by the likes of Suhaimi Yusof and Sebastian Tan.
Meet the kooky teachers of Geylang Girls Secondary School. (Photo: Dream Academy)
While doing her research for the musical, Tan visited different schools. “I was talking to kids who were in detention all the time, and I’ve learnt that nowadays detention is nothing. Last time, they would do worse things to us — you’d stand outside class or the principal’s office, you have to squat. Nowadays, parents would just write letters to MOE and teachers would get scolded,” she said.
The pervasive presence of the social media and its effect on teenage and student life today also fascinated her. “Adolescents move in packs, like wolves, but now it’s heightened (because of the Internet). There’s a lot of cyberbullying that’s happening,” she said.
In Detention Katong, she spoofs the citizen-journalism website Stomp with her own Spotted, which influences the behaviour of students. “Imagine if you’re in an all-girls school and you’re ‘spotted’ doing this or that. Their whole lives are on Spotted—what they’re worth, what they’re not. There’s an online and offline presence.”
In keeping to the coming-of-age musical’s youthful vibe, Tan also roped in some notable figures in the local music scene to write songs — The Sam Willows’ Benjamin Kheng, Electrico’s Dave Tan, Sarah Cheng-De Winne, and Of Leos And Virgos’ Roy Tan all chip in with songs. “I really wanted to have fresh sounds on it. I was afraid the music would be disjointed but it’s very current,” she said.
Detention Katong runs from Feb 17 to March 5. More details here.
Haresh Sharma’s Those Who Can’t, Teach was restaged in 2010 for the Singapore Arts Festival. (Photo: The Necessary Stage)
REVISITING THOSE WHO CAN’T, TEACH
These days, it’s hard to imagine The Necessary Stage (TNS) as a newbie company. But back in 1990, that’s exactly what it was. And the now-comedy classic Those Who Can’t, Teach was one of its earliest offerings.
Barely four years in existence, resident playwright Haresh Sharma’s comedy about the lives of teachers and students at Marine Parade Secondary School opened what was then a brand-new arts centre called The Substation. “It was a very meaningful and special play and we kind of link it back to our history,” said Sharma.
It was also the first time they had tried out devising and creating a work with input from everyone involved, which has since become a signature trademark of how they do things. “Alvin (Tan, TNS’ artistic director and founder) wanted to do a play about teaching — he went to teach at Raffles Institution after university. I wanted to do a play about change,” he recalled.
All four of the actors involved were also teachers, who gave valuable input. To balance out the views, Sharma remembered spending an afternoon at a school canteen talking to students. All of these were thrown in a blender to create Those Who Can’t, Teach. “I was a very new writer and working in this way, it felt like the right way to work,” he said.
The play subsequently got reworked into what amounted to a brand new play (and a published book) in 2010 at the Singapore Arts Festival. Facebook, SMS, upskirting and other contemporary phenomenon were incorporated, and one of the main points of the original — the school moving to a different neighbourhood — was scrapped. “Schools now move around all the time, they get upgraded, move to a different location for three years then come back. It’s not like the end of the world. But back in 1990 it was not so common—there was still a sense of dislocation,” he said.
Those Who Can’t, Teach was first staged at The Substation’s opening festivities in 1990. (Photo: The Necessary Stage)
It’s this 2010 version that’s hitting the stage again next month. While there will be yet a bit of cosmetic changes (SMS references are out, Whatsapp is in), Sharma pointed out that the play’s core themes dealing with the teaching profession and student life have withstood the test of time.
“Yes, in areas of pop culture and technology, there’s been rapid changes, but in certain areas like the educational system, things like school pressure, the difficulties in dealing with multiple intelligence, and the idea of being exam-oriented versus a more open acceptance of different abilities are all very relevant today,” he said.
Those Who Can’t, Teach runs from March 9 to 19. More details here.
(Photo: Checkpoint Theatre)
HAVING A NORMAL CONVERSATION
During the 2015 run of her play Normal, Faith Ng recalled feeling uncertain about its impact on the audience— until she met a young girl who had watched it twice.
“I remember, during one of the matinee shows, this girl who had stayed after the post-show dialogue. She said that after her school had brought her to watch it, she came back a second time. She told me she was from Normal (stream) and I remember she looked so uncertain. I wanted so much to encourage her, and told her it wasn’t the end,” she said.
“I think, on the cerebral level, she understood that — but the fact that someone like me, who was also from Normal, had said those words, meant something different. It was a very emotional moment for me.”
Ng’s play — which centres on the lives of Normal (Academic) students from Trinity Girls School and played by secondary school students at that — had obviously struck a chord. There were already requests for a restaging halfway through the sold-out run. She also received personal messages from strangers thanking her for bringing to light a topic that has long had a public stigma attached to it.
For the former Normal (Academic) student who had written about something that was close to her heart, it was a “very nourishing” experience. “It was like a conversation was taking place and I wasn’t in an echo chamber writing to myself. It gave me the conviction to keep writing,” she said.
Ng, as well as director Claire Wong, also realised that the conversation was also expanding.
“We realised it’s not exactly for Normal students anymore but for teachers and parents, too. Frankly, Normal kids know what it’s like,” she said. “For some of my friends, watching it was cathartic but also painful. They’d tell me, I wish I had brought my mum or husband to watch it so they would understand.”
Normal playwright Faith Ng. (Photo: Checkpoint Theatre)
Ng admitted that the experience of having been a Normal student is something that continues to affect her. “I always have that imposter syndrome. The experience of feeling always a bit lesser than other people because of what school you came from,” she said.
That said, she has now found herself on the other side of the fence, having been teaching playwriting at the National University of Singapore for the past three years.
“I’ve learned so much but it’s really not easy. Every student has a different learning style, and react to certain things differently because of their personalities. But all students are always yearning for some kind of approval, and teachers do a balancing act no matter what age you teach,” she said.
Normal runs from March 23 to April 16. More details here.
