Singapore's Discomfort Zone

Heng: For revolution!

Wong: That sounds like a good thing. We've all been so brainwashed …

So you grew up under that shadow?
Sa ' at: In a way, yes. I was mentored at the Necessary Stage [theater company], and at one point they became quite paranoid. They talked about seven-year cycles. In 1987 there was this Marxist conspiracy, and in 1994 the Necessary Stage members were accused of being Marxists [after taking] and using theater for political ends …

Wong: … by employing a foreign theater methodology.

Sa ' at: That originated with the Brazilian Marxist theater practitioner Augusto Boal. They took just a few workshops with him in New York. Their status as a company was quite imperiled.

Ken Kwek: After a certain period of relative prosperity and political stability, the government decides we're going to push money in the arts. And then these guys go out but somehow the PR exercise collapses … [in] the cycle of clamping down and opening up …