A comedy pokes fun at the military. A drama depicts a local stripper from the 1950s. A satire portrays an ethnic Malay Muslim general who becomes a dictator.
The biennial Singapore Theatre Festival showcased how artists here are taking advantage of relaxed government censorship to explore once-taboo subjects — even, to some degree, the charged issues of race, religion and politics.
“There’s a huge difference in what’s allowed now compared to five years ago,” said Gaurav Kripalani, who has helped stage Rent, Death of a Salesman and Avenue Q as artistic director of the Singapore Repertory Theatre.
There are limits. The government banned a 2006 play for “portraying Muslims in a negative light,” along with documentaries about opposition figures and even a couple of Janet Jackson CDs for racy lyrics.
Still, the notoriously straight-laced city-state is finally letting its hair down, a few strands at a time.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) recently said the government would lift a ban on films with political themes, while maintaining one on political ads and what he called “partisan stuff.” The ban was lifted in part because of widespread Internet use, which has undermined government censorship efforts.
“I don’t think an outright ban is still sensible because this is how people communicate on the Web in daily life,” Lee said. “So we’ve got to allow political videos, with some safeguards.”
Another reason for loosening up is economic: Faced with a shortage of skilled workers and an aging population, the government is trying to attract qualified foreigners to live here. It also wants to keep locals from migrating abroad.
So Singapore, which still suffers from a reputation as a quirky place that canes vandals and bans gum, is trying to become more hip. Making the city of 4.6 million people an “arts and theater hub” is part of that drive. Singapore also will host the first nighttime Formula One race next month and unveil a casino resort next year.
The government has poured money into theater, music and dance during the last decade. The number of theatergoers has almost doubled since 2000, while registered theater companies grew to 73 last year from 18 in 1997, the government’s National Arts Council said.
Artists applaud the government for establishing the Media Development Authority (MDA) in 2003, which put in place a ratings system that can prohibit Singaporeans below the age of 16, 18 or 21 from attending certain performances.
“Now there’s a buffer between the police and the artists,” said Alvin Tan, who has directed plays about capital punishment, pedophilia and marijuana use. “Before the MDA came about, it was more high-handed. We would just get a letter that would say, ‘Take this line out, take this paragraph out.’ Now we can negotiate.”
The authority requires playwrights to submit scripts for approval and bans plays that threaten “stability and harmony.”
“Race and religion remain powerful and emotional subjects, especially in our multiracial society,” said Amy Chua, MDA’s director of media content. “Such issues should continue to be dealt with and presented sensitively.”
To avoid the censor’s wrath, playwrights often use satire or metaphor to discuss sensitive topics such as the People’s Action Party, which has ruled since independence in 1965.
Some Singaporeans doubt the greater freedom given theater will spill over into other media.
“Theater only challenges the mindsets of a limited, middle-class audience,” said Stefanie Chan, a 20-year-old university student. “Censorship is stricter in mass media.”
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
RSS