Singapore's Discomfort Zone

If you touch it in any other way than " There are four races, and we ' re all dancing around doing the festival thing, " hairs are going to stand on end.
Kwek: WE do try to raise the issue, but it's more like sneaking in a scene here, a character there. That's the nature of how we feel compelled to operate.

If you were to write what you want, be as provocative as you want, write characters that reflect the issues as you see them in front of you, how would society react?
Sa ' at: This is very interesting to me. When I did "Homesick" and I had the character say the name "Lee Kuan Yew" onstage, being provocative was something I battled with. I nearly acquiesced to being a lot more subtle, but I decided that I'm sick of plays that skirt around the issues in an allegorical kind of way. "Once there was a garden and a gardener called Lee …" or whatever. I decided I was just going to have the character shout his name onstage.

Kwek: With the one provisory that it's not defamatory or can't be construed as such.

Sa ' at: So [the character] said something about, you know, how Singapore was just one man's dream and how she feels like she's living out this whole over-determined project, and the audience actually gasped and that was …

Wong: No! They gasped because she said "… and this one man is Lee Kuan Yew. Do you know Lee Kuan Yew?" She said that outright. It was fine until then. Everyone knew who the one man was!

Sa ' at: It was like something was being breached, that collective gasp.