Produced by up-and-coming artist, Sean Cham, First
Storeys was set in a derelict building in 300 Jalan Bukit Ho Swee. The work
was made up of 2 parts fusing a “tour” of 4 visual installations and a
theatrical performance.
Was this linked to having our phones kept before the
performance? Personally, the models from the tour were very well curated and deserved
to be captured. Was that not the point of having done such extensive research
on the site and its histories? Were our phones taken so we wouldn’t record the scalding
“speculations” that the characters had played out?
Edit (13 March 2019): This interview by Cheryl Tan for Popspoken with the casts and crew does help to illuminate some of the piece's intentions. http://popspoken.com/arts/2019/03/first-storeys-questioning-history?fbclid=IwAR15ey1cuWsyXLlY_AkMAjUaSbR56PX3zT_-Sal7TnIYB_GLlTNZ4HFUhJA
The Piece
After registration and surrendering our phones at the Registration
Office, the audience was issued a registration paper each with their names on
it and 2 catalogues. 1 was a brochure on the Do’s and Don’ts while living in a
HDB with Sean Cham’s face superimposed into its cartoon illustrations (in a
style reminiscent to his previous photo series, Yesteryears); another was a catalogue of furniture of the past,
donated by actual residents of Bukit Ho Swee.
The audience was divided into 2 groups. Those who had
already completed their registration early, went first. As part of the second
group, I was led by Resettlement Officer, Mr Du (Darren Guo), to visit a series
of 4 visual installations. The first, of materials and tiles used in Singapore
with a model of the Bukit Ho Swee flats. The second, a map of Singapore with its
land uses represented using models and markings. The third, a model of Singapore’s
kampongs and the compensations the residents of kampongs (which the audience
members were) were documented. The fourth, a 1-room show flat and are promised we
would be receiving 3-, 4- and 5-room flats.
Finally, we arrived at the consultation office where we await
to consult a Resettlement Officer on our given compensation. Ms Liew (Regina
Lim), was eager at this opportunity. She had followed us throughout the tour,
hoping to convince Mr Du to let her speak with his Boss. Seated restlessly among
the audience, she forges a friendship with an equally confused Malay woman, Mdm
Hidayah (Hasyimah Hassan). Their frustrations to piece things together were
eventually confronted with an ultimatum. As single women, they would only be
provided with a flat if they co-habit with each other. Fresh-faced Mr Du and
his superior (Hemang Yadav) try to placate the women who barely understand each
other, closing the office when tensions run high.
The Experience
The site of First Storeys while unconventional felt
apt when utilised by the team. From how the well-chosen space overlooked the
Bukit Ho Swee flats that members of the Kampong were relocated; to how audience
members sat alongside duo Mdm Hidayah and Ms Liew; and to how the 1-room showroom
transformed into the home the duo shared.
Moreover, First Storeys sought to immerse its
audience members into that moment in history. I felt this exceptionally with the
use of language when Ms Liew and Mdm Hidayah conversed in a clumsy mix of
English, Chinese and Behasa Melayu. Unintentionally or not, this language
barrier became more visceral for a pair of non-Chinese audience members who enthusiastically
accepted my translations for them. I felt the artistic devise click as an aged
Ms Liew sought the help of her neighbours (us, audience members, looking into what
was the showroom exhibit which morphed into the ladies’ home) to read yet
another letter of having to relocate by 2020. An audience member who had read
out the letter loudly for all in English was stumped at how to tell it to her
in a language she understood. I had stepped in, as the unfortunate bearer of bad news. Although, now I continuously wonder what would have happened if I had not.
Some audience members had a chance to a one-to-one
interaction with the Resettlement Officers behind closed doors, unknown to the
majority of us. I was also aware that Ms Liew had led some audience members
rogue to a defunct toilet too. Was the first tour group the same as the second
group? Did the audience from other nights cheer on and translate alongside the
performers as they dived into a shouting match with the Resettlement Officers? I
imagine it tough for all audience members to walk away with the same experience
of First
Storeys.
Questions
Needless to say, many questions were going to be raised from
onset of the programme’s marketing collaterals. What is a “speculative
theatrical installation”? But perhaps, we ought to be less pedantic and accept First
Storeys for the work it is. The theme worked off a similar aesthetic from
intermedia visual and performing artist Sean Cham’s photo series, Yesteryears, where he injected several
images of himself dressed in white into photos taken from abandoned urban
spaces in Singapore. This time, however, Cham decides to experiment with
theatre and his emphasis is on the research he gathered from various sources
like the National Archives of Singapore.
And I hear the nuggets of these information either from
official or anecdotal evidence being presented through performance or through
the installations: the models; how there were 3 statutory boards managing land;
and how fruit trees were planted and compensated for.
But what I find most mind boggling is the alluded to “gap in
literature” that Cham mentions in his message. I am guessing this was why he
chose the safe word of “speculative” to frame First Storeys. But what
exactly was being speculated? The conspiracy theory of the Bukit Ho Swee fires
that exist today only in a re-presented “word-of-mouth” legion from long ago?
Or how resettlement negotiations with the housing boards were held (or not held)?
Or was it how single women who didn’t speak English were systemically disadvantaged?
Which parts were speculative and which parts were testimonial? Which parts were
fact and which parts were fiction?
Was this linked to having our phones kept before the
performance? Personally, the models from the tour were very well curated and deserved
to be captured. Was that not the point of having done such extensive research
on the site and its histories? Were our phones taken so we wouldn’t record the scalding
“speculations” that the characters had played out?
Yet, unfortunately, I understand this perceived – and
self-speculating – trepidation given how we had national funding for Sonny Liew’s
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye pulled
for its bold telling of a less recognised Singapore narrative. First
Storeys is commissioned by The Future of Our Past Festival under the
state-sanctioned Bicentennial celebration commemorating 200 years since our nation
state’s colonisation. And First Storeys had pushed the
envelope in its own way such as having its fictional housing board be the
Singapore Housing Improvement Trust (SHIT).
Ultimately, First Storeys was an ambitious piece
in a scene with a growing interest in promenade theatre in naturalistic settings.
Much thought was put into the audience's experience of the piece but I wished First Storeys was surer in
what it wanted to be – a testimonial of what once was, a piece to get the
audience to question the past together, or a confident presentation and interrogation of both.
Edit (13 March 2019): This interview by Cheryl Tan for Popspoken with the casts and crew does help to illuminate some of the piece's intentions. http://popspoken.com/arts/2019/03/first-storeys-questioning-history?fbclid=IwAR15ey1cuWsyXLlY_AkMAjUaSbR56PX3zT_-Sal7TnIYB_GLlTNZ4HFUhJA