Interview with Jean Tay.

Jean Jean, the writer of Boom, is being interviewed by Dr Loh Chin Ee, Associate Professor of the English Language and Literature Academic Group of the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. The interview was held on 19 November 2010, at the National Institute of Education, as part of an ongoing Teachers and Writers series of talks, where authors are invited to share insight on their works with the teachers who will teach them. Clips of this interview may be found on our portal, http://enlight-online.com.

-part one-

Loh: Today, we're very privileged to have with us Jean Jean, the writer of, playwright of Boom, on the... Yeap! *applause* She doesn't look it, but Jean is the mother of two, that's her full-time job. She writes in her spare time I guess. I like to think that way. She's freelancing now, though when she was writing Boom, Boom was performed when she was resident with Singapore Repertory Theatre.

This is how we're going to be doing today's session. Jean is going to talk a little bit about herself, and we're going to focus on the writing process, after which we have a short interval with some performance by some students who have been sabo-ed. After that, then Jean will talk about the production process, and then I'd like you guys to ask her questions that you may have about any of these, and then we'll move on talk about teaching from there. Maybe Jean... if your mike is turned on...

Jean: Is it turned on?

Loh: Yes, yup. You want to tell them something about yourself? Just generally?

Jean: Basically I'm a playwright... as she mentioned, I'm a full-time mum, got two little girls, and writing is kind of... um... it's what I wanted to do all along. I actually graduated with a double degree in Economics and Creative Writing, so I worked as an economist for seven years before I finally escaped my bond and *laughter* finished my bond and pursued playwriting full-time. So I've been very lucky, in the sense that I've had opportunities, I've worked back in theatre and I was attached to SRT (Ed: Singapore Repertory Theatre) for a few years as a resident playwright. And so now I'm kind of freelancing and... then.

Loh: Boom is an 'O' level text now... what if... I was asked the question, what was your reaction to it when you were told that it's an 'O' level text?

Jean: Shock. Surprise! I mean, I think... I think MOE (Ed: Ministry of

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Education) actually asked me to submit two of my plays for consideration. I didn't do anything; they just called me up and said, "Oh, you know, we want to take a look at some of your plays." So I submitted this play and another play of mine, Everything But The Brain, and so they ended up choosing Boom, for... reasons best known to them, and I really don't know why. But er... it's been quite fun, and it's cool and... disturbing, in a way, to think of my text as being studied those hapless... *laughter* I feel quite sorry for them!

Loh: Well I think maybe I know why... my class... . Just a little bit of background, the PGDE classes have been studying your book in class, so everybody has been forced to read it, whether they like it or not, so that's the kind of effect when your book becomes an 'O' level text. And my students came up with stuff like this, *holds up a mind map* this, there's a lot in your book that you didn't know...

Jean: I didn't know that! *Laughs*

Loh: ...many issues of conflict, old and new, identity. Did you draw a mind map like that when you started writing?

Jean: Actually no, not thematically, but I think for me, what I find is... I don't know why, but a lot of my plays turn out... tend to be multi-narrative. Like there's more than one. I can't write a simple drawing... play kind of thing, I usually tend to have more than one narrative strands. So this play, as it was, I think I was inspired because I was, like: "Oh, there are two ways to look at this issue of dislocation." And one is from the perspective of... I guess the en bloc sales, physical dislocation. The other one is from the perspective of... the exhumation of graves. So we can't... so because there were these two strands, so I was like, cool, maybe there's enough here to make a play. And... I like to use a chorus as well, so I think because of that, there were at least two or three different layers running through the play, and for that I find, after I write for a while, I always had to lay it out with post-it notes and all that, just to sort out the different strands in my head and see what fits into what, the effect they have on each other.

Loh: How did you even, like... decide what to write? I mean, you were saying that there were different strands, but... let's use Boom as an example. What went into the writing of Boom?

Jean: Basically, this is a... unbelievably or not, this is a sequel of a play I had written more than ten years ago, called Plunge, and that play was about the Asian Economic Crisis, and kind of how lives were destroyed through numbers, through the crash in stock markets, how these numbers kind of affected real lives, kind of a trickle-down effect. And... I went to... basically, after I wrote this play, I left it alone for a while. It's been staged by Action Theatre, but after that I revisited it when I went on a residency to Royal Court Theatre in London, and they worked on the play. But they were like, "Oh, you know, have you thought about developing this play further?" And I thought, not really, because I think, as the play is, it stands where it is, and I'm quite happy with it. But what was happening in Singapore, I think, at that time, was

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something very different. Which was, it was around the time when I was thinking about writing this, it was the stock market boom, the property boom, the en bloc boom.

So basically it was just a lot of... everything was just going up, and... but in a very scary, non-rational way, and I think also in a way that obviously affected a lot of people, especially through these... en bloc sales, and because of that a lot of people were unhappy. There was a lot of... I don't know if you remember, but a lot of media coverage about that, so like that I was just thinking, oh, you know, how it's kind of ironic, but it's true. Even when the stock market and when the property markets rise, you know, spectacularly, it also can lead to tragedies, but maybe of the sort that are not... you know, not as obvious, but they're still tragedies. So I think that's what prompted me to start on this. For this play, as with most of my plays, it was actually inspired specifically by a couple of stories. One of them... some of you might remember, there were some... articles about this old lady who was in this apartment, and she refused to move, even though her apartment was going en bloc, because she was afraid that her husband's spirit couldn't find its way back to her if she moved house. So she got all the files together and she was trying to do her own defense in court, and she was like, holding out, she was the last twenty percent or something like that. That was one story. Another story was, I think in China, there was this image of this particular family, this house that refused, that held out... that refused to be bought over by the developers. So the developers bought everything around it and they kind of just dug around it, so that you have this very striking image of this house that's standing alone, amidst of this debris, and everything. And they just held out; I think eventually they sold, but just that image, those two images were what triggered it off.

And then at the same time, it just happened, my husband, who's a civil servant, was working at the Ministry of National Development, and he was telling me, "Oh, did you know that there is this government policy that after fifteen years...so it's a real government policy! ... after fifteen years, the government has the right to exhume you and to cremate you, and I thought that was quite... I really didn't know that. Because you know, you think when you bury somebody, it's kind of rest in peace forever, or at least for quite a long period, maybe fifty years or something right? People forget about you and stuff like that, but it's like fifteen years is really not... very... long, at all! And I thought it'd be interesting to take, you know, that tact as well, because I think it's not just the living who are being dislocated and moved around for the sake of progress, but also, you know, graves, dead people, you know, who are not allowed to rest in peace.

Loh: Well, just now you mentioned, like, the word "tragedy," twice. So is Boom a comedy? I mean the first bit starts out really funny... or is it a tragedy? How would you... categorize it?

Jean: It's either a dark comic... It's either a dark comedy, or a... or a... comic tragedy *laughter* kind of thing, you know it kind of works in both ways. I didn't set out to write a funny play. I'm surprised it turned out to be comedy, I

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don't know why! But... but just when the characters came to life, the kind of energy that they had... But it was kind of meant to be a tragedy, and my original starting point, which was the... the original first scene, which I guess I can talk more about in the production process, was actually this very serious, sober monologue by the old mother who was... like... on the brink of being pushed out of her home, and it's very serious.... and it's like, you know, "the walls are caving in on her" kind of thing. So, you know obviously that was junked... so...

Loh: When was this junked?

Jean: This was during the workshopping process.

Loh: What was the workshopping process like? Tell us more about it, because that seemed to have contributed quite a bit to your writing Boom.

Jean: I think, for this play particularly, some plays, I kind of just go away and work on it on my own after I have the initial inspiration. But this particular play, because I was resident at SRT at that time, and after they saw a first draft, they were quite keen to develop it further. So what happened was that they got together Tracie Pang, who was the director eventually, came in and along with some of the creative team at SRT, the producers and some of their other associate artistes, and... and we got together, we read the script, kind of round the table, you know, I took a role, Tracy took another role, that kind of thing. So very informal readings, and then we would read through it, and then we would discuss, "Oh, you know, this works, this doesn't work, you know, I think there needs to be more of this, who sure needs this" kind of thing. So... there were several rounds of this, and then after that we brought in actors, at some stage, I think just for about a week or so, just to... just to read through the thing, and then just to brainstorm on how to make it better. Then they went away, I went to work some more, on the play, on my own, and then I think eventually after about... yeah, I think I first started writing this in probably November, October-November, and then it was produced the following September, so it was about ten, eleven months work, which is not to bad, for a play to be produced in that period of time. Usually it takes like... much longer, if ever.

Loh: Well, it's interesting when you're talking, you know, because I get the impression that... you know, when you kind of read works, not just plays, you get the idea of the writer, alone, in his or her room, scribbling, the characters are in his or her head. But it sounded like very much of a group, a very social, organic, kind of process.

Jean: This play particularly, I mean there have been other plays where I've done the sit-in-my-room-alone, miserably writing, wondering whoever is going to produce this play! But, I think for this one, it had the benefit of a workshop process and the support of that. And I think that really benefitted the play, and I think because a lot of things were changed in the process of writing and a lot of things were clarified, so I'm very grateful to SRT for providing that kind of structure, to allow me and the resources... I think that

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really is a luxury. I think that more so for plays than for, obviously, any other forms of fiction, poetry, or prose, but for plays particularly because I think essentially plays are meant to be staged, so you have to hear it aloud, and... and think about how it's being presented to an audience, how an audience would take it, and... you know there are a lot of other aspects to think about. So... so it's great when the collaborative effort kind of starts earlier, and then kind of... at that part of the journey.

Loh: Well... but now that you've kind of done it this way, do you think like, in terms of plays, that would... should be the way that plays are written, or...

Jean: Um... I think that in the beginning it always has to be just the writer and the ideas and the characters bouncing around in the head, just like you said. And... and I think only after a certain stage, the writer's comfortable enough to, "Ok, what is this... what is my play going to be about." Obviously there's a great danger in getting sidetracked by writing, into writing the play that other people might mean to write. And uh... but I think, eventually, because it's such a... theatre is such a collaborative process, experience, basically, so it is extremely useful to have the director and actors come in to... kind of, um, see how it works on its feet.

-end of part one- Transcription by Marcus Chai.

-part two-

Loh: Well I was just wondering, you know, you did Plunge, ten years ago, you did Boom, and there were plays in between... Everything But the Brain... in all of this, how do you feel you have developed as a playwright in terms of your writing... Are there things you would have done better?

Jean: Yeah I think... so, like you were saying, when I first started writing... it was in university, and you know, a lot of it came out from writing exercises, and its very free and very much me and my imagination. And I think when it comes out, it kind of... like I vomit it out, you know, there's so much hate and so much passion and then it all just comes out like that. And, after it's come out, you know, I can't change a word because it's perfect, the text is perfect as it is, you know, like woe betide any director who wants to, like, change a single word because I have it that way, you know, that's the best possible way... And I think along the way I've obviously, past eighteen, twenty years I've learnt a lot of humility, and I think, um, so it's been a lot more... I think it's tapping on different areas, um, of... I think, also when you are young, I think there's a different kind of energy, you know, a different kind of passion. Somehow you write everything that you really want to write about, right, and then you're like, okay, what next? And I think that's where the collaborative aspect comes really handy, you know, and it's just, because you just realize that, “Oh these plays are not meant for just you alone.” You do want to share them with an audience, then actually you have to think about how its going to work onstage.

And, um, it's very hard to do it when you're reading a ten character play on

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your own in your head, it gets confusing, really, after awhile. So, because that's what I would do, you know, I'd revise on my own, and I'd read out the lines, and after about page 50 I get dizzy. So, it's actually really, really helpful to hear, to hear it aloud, and I think I've realized how important the process of revision is? So this one is probably, er, this one is probably like ten or eleven drafts, which is not, not too bad, and I think most of my plans now are... go through about at least minimum ten drafts before they get on stage. And so it's... and then you realize after awhile that the eleventh draft is really much better than the first draft, you know, so... so I think that's what I've learnt lah. You need to revise.

Loh: Well, um, I had a question, and then I forgot. That's the thing to do with age as well, but, um, what I'm going to do now, is, I was thinking you know, I want to talk about the production process... Oh I know what the question is! Sorry. The question is: why write plays? You know, why not poetry? Why not prose that you can regurgitate without having to, “Let's have that kind of social collaboration.”

Jean: Um well, I actually started writing fiction, I think as most people do, you know when you're writing compositions... it's just basically prose, right, so that's how I started writing and um, but, I mean in secondary school and all that I loved theatre anyway, you know, I think it's kind of the magic of theatre, and you know the space, and sharing that space with everyone. Ah... and I think, it wasn't till I went to university that I actually had the confidence to write plays... um, basically I was still writing crappy plays but I had professors who believed in me, and you know, could see beyond the first drafts and the very rough... kind of writing. They would be like, "Ok, you know you should keep doing this,” but I mean to be fair, at that time, you know, when I graduated from JC and all, that there were very few good avenues to learn playwriting in Singapore. So I was very lucky that I managed to do that while I was at the States and doing my undergrad, squeezing in my undergrad in addition to my economics degree, because that was officially what I was supposed to do there... but um, but yeah, I mean I love plays, and I love theatre... personally lah, this is me, and I think as I said it's a very lonely job as a writer. So, you know, I can't imagine if I was just writing fiction alone in my room it'd be so lonely, because it, the work would just stop there, maybe I'll talk to my publisher a bit... *Laughs from the audience* you know, the editor, and you know, give my husband the manuscript to read, you know, that's about it...

Loh: Does he read your plays?

Jean: Yeah, yeah, all of them. And he has inspired quite a number of them. *laughter* Um, I tell him his character is the inspiration for both the Ah Beng and the civil servant *laughter* man of many talents, but um, he is um...

So, so I mean, it's great to have him there, but essentially its such a lonely job, and I love the cooperative element of theatre, to see... I mean to see people with other talents, in completely different areas, like you know, the director and actors come in and add their own talents to, to what you have,

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and to make it even bigger and better than before. And then it comes to production, or if it is a musical, then you have the composer come in and do things with music that I can't even comprehend, you know, choreographers, and then the set designers, the lighting designers, and then together you create this piece of, of magic. So for me, that, I have the most fun lah, you know...

[Intermission: Student teachers enact scenes from Boom]

Loh: Well, what happens when it gets turned into a production? Um, maybe that's something you can kinda share with all of us... What are all the things that need to go into it, other than the initial workshopping that um, you did to work the script for the stage?

Jean: Uh, I think like I mentioned, for this play particularly, a lot of, a lot of things changed with the workshop process? It was very critical for the development of the script? So, like I kind of mentioned briefly before, originally the first scene wasn't this kind of... agents, housing agents, the choral scene, it was very sober... you know, mother in spotlight, you know, giving a long monologue about how the walls are crashing in around her, and probably, possibly in dialect, you know, that kind of thing.

So it would be a whole different feel, but eventually after discussing, you know, and workshopping with the directors and all that and we were like, “Okay, this does not work, and it does not hold the tension... does not hold the audience's attention, not at this stage anyway.” I think, you know, you don't know her that well enough to, to enter into that world just yet or to buy sitting down there for five minutes listening to her. So I mean, that's kind of an example lah, the things that are changed, the process. Um, the other thing that happened I think was that the journeys were clarified, because there are so many, um, in a sense there's more than one protagonist, you know, there is Boon's story, and his relationship with his mother. And then after that there was also Jeremiah and what he goes through. So, I think for a while it was confusing in that we were trying to figure out whose story is this. Ok, so is it Jeremiah's story? Or is it Boon's story? Is it mother's story? And I think, eventually after some tweaking and reworking and I guess finding characters' motivations, things like that, I think we eventually decided, “OK, Boon, this is actually Boon's story,” kind of thing, and I think that the rest are supporting, and I think we needed that so that we could follow him through the rest of the play... ah, so those were some of the, I think, the structural things with the text happened during the workshopping process which were incredibly useful, um, and just a lot of tightening lah, basically. I mean I love monologues, and... you know it's great reading them on paper, but when you actually see it on stage and sit through it for, you know, a good two-three minutes, it... you know, there really has to be a reason why it is there. So actually some of the monologues were cut out, and then I snuck some back in for the show version.

But um, those are the kind of decisions that I made regarding the texts. And with the actors I think basically they were just workshopping, getting familiar

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with the roles... Um, I think for the first run we had a fantastic cast, uh, and I think what happened also because the actors we got, you know local actors, we had Sebastian Tan, Fanny Kee, Chua En Lai, you know, Chermaine and Brendon? Um, and Zachary was the corpse(Ed: she is referring to actors from the SRT staging in 2008). And so what was great about that, was because my dialect is not that great myself, so... it was good to hear their voices? And I think this really, of all my plays ,is probably the most Singlish one. Not deliberately so, but I think because maybe I just wanted it to be very authentic to the voices... to the voices that I heard, the voices that I wanted to portray. And so more so than any other play that I had written... you know, I made it a point to say is this how people speak. That's why there's a smattering of Hokkien, Chinese, English, whatever, you know kind of inside there. There were places also where Fanny would come to me and like, “Er, I really don't think that you know a... seventy year-old lady who is not primarily educated in English can give this monologue,” and all that. And so there were places where I had to go back and kind of "degrade" the monologues. It'd be like, the English is too good here, how would, you know, kind of making it more broken, or putting in more dialect and all.

And I mean, of course as it is, it is still not completely authentic, but I think there is no way we could do that, without converting the whole thing to Hokkien or whatever. But, I think for the sake of the audience's general understanding this was kind of the best balance jkwe could find. But that's very important, I think, just kind of getting the language right, and getting, you know, just bringing, kind of, the local flavour into it... and some of the bits, um, the actors actually ad-libbed and I found it worked so well that I... “Ok, lets keep that in there,” and you know because they are experienced comedic actors so it was very good to see them going through it.

Um, it's not the first time, it's not the only time it's been produced. Ironically enough it was produced the following year, which was actually last year 2009 in, uh, in London, and... what happened was that they got together an asian cast, but it was a British asian cast. So... I think about two of them... one of them had a Singaporean kind of... was in Singapore lah *laughter* at some stage in her life. And another one also had some kind of Malaysian roots or something. So they were the only ones who understood how a Singaporean or Malaysian accent would even sound, and the rest were like completely, including the guy playing Boon, completely off. So I was hearing Boon being played with that Hong Konger accent *laughter* and like, the mother was speaking better English than the rest of them. But I mean, to their credit, they were trying to go for a certain type of authenticity and maybe for the audiences in London it worked for them, but for me obviously like *cringes* didn't really work.

But uh, but anyway this was the kind of play where.... I felt it would have been better if they had just adapted it to the local context I think, because why the reason it became so Singlish also, not entirely my fault, was because of the actors involved in the first production, and I think just the natural way in which they spoke. Um, so when it was transplanted to a British context, um, the civil servants were fine, but you know, the others... it just became very

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stilted and very awkward and it didn't quite work in that sense. But, having said, you know, I mean that, um, you know, the audiences...

Loh: We do a lot of British and American plays here, too, I guess it is kind of like the same concept, transplanting plays, you know, and then it comes, turns out rather different. But yeah, it was interesting you brought out the London production because I actually read a few reviews, and, uh, the reviews, say by Flying Inkpot, which was a Singapore review on a Singapore play, were very different from the blurb of the London play which actually focused on the relationships as opposed to the fact that these were issues that were, say, relevant to Singapore... I mean, did the audience react differently? Or was the production different because the actors were not Singaporean in that sense.

Jean: I think to me it made a difference. And I think a lot of the jokes that work in Singapore, it's a very local play, work in Singapore... and transplanted it didn't, you know, they just didn't make the connection and all that. But having said that, I mean I only attended a couple of performances... and having said that, I think what came out was that there was a certain universality in the themes, obviously in the relationships, I think the mother-son. And people could relate to that, you know, the mother who wants to hold on to the past and the son who wants to move on. So that's the universality in that, that the audiences, um, empathized with, and I think that's what worked with them.

I think the other thing that worked also was this idea of dislocation. It's not just an issue that is happening in Singapore. I mean the Londoners would appreciate it... and I mean its obviously happening in other parts of Asia as well. So, yeah... so I think maybe that's why those things came out, whereas in the local context you could actually identify exactly what issue it is, you know, it was extremely current... you know, the jokes worked, because it's very localized, it's very specific to Singapore.

Loh: What uh, I mean in terms of what prompted the London play? Um, I mean how did that even get produced?

Jean: Oh, ah... what happened was I sent the play over for a... I think they were having a festival of readings? Just, just so they were getting Asian playwrights, plays to read at the festival? So mine was selected, and then after that I think after that they kind of... it must have had a good response or something. So they, they selected two plays from that series of readings and they mounted full productions of them. So it was quite nice! It actually toured from London to Greenwich to... I don't know... to Bath or you know like, Canterbury, you know, something like that. *Laughter* So it kinda went to a quite a number of places, I don't know how the audiences reacted to it there. But it was cool that it got quite a different airing, and um, it is interesting, every production I've seen of it I've seen has... got a different feel, and then after that, since this year, I think Catholic High did a production of this. So that was fun to see young people take on these roles and kind of wrestle with these issues also.

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Loh: Yeah, I guess it's interesting because of the different contexts and its very do-able.

Jean: Yeah, and I mean I see straightaway that you guys got it, you know how to be housing agents, you know that kind of thing. I think, I think you know, especially if you are Singaporean, you kinda can identify with these characters, because, well maybe the people you meet on the street the housing agents that annoy you, that kind of thing, you know, so yeah...

-end of part two-Transcription by Jeremy Tay.

-Q&A part 1-

Unknown audience member: [...] I read a lot of reviews, and it talked about a story with a tree in a grove...

Jean: I think I knew of that story, but that story didn't specifically inform, you know, the text of this play. But I think trees are such great symbols of... the past, and of history, and I think really, of our roots. So... it made so much sense for me to have that tree there and just something that the mother really clung to, and I think something that eventually, symbolically, is destroyed, part of, just part of her having to move on. So yeah, so it wasn't a specific tree, but I think it was such a great symbol, just the idea of her past.

Loh: Why the fig tree?

Jean: I was trying for a while to figure what kind of tree would be not too big, and not too small, and would kind of fit into a garden, a compound, a small garden. And I think the other thing that was nice about the fig tree was the chinese name of it, which is "wu hua guo", which you know, literally is translated to "no flower fruit," so I just thought that was such a... you know, because... it was just such a nice image, of all the flowers being contained inside that fruit.

Gerald: Hi, I'm Gerald. I'm also student teacher at NIE. I'd just like to ask, the object will be covered by, will be explored by students around fifteen to sixteen. What would be at least, say, one or two things you would like these kids to learn from your play?

Jean: I think for me, when I was writing this, one of the things that really came up was just this..., the tension between the old and the new, and I think the old kind of just... for me lah, I kept thinking about the National Museum...*corrects herself* National Library, and what happened to it, and kind of how it was destroyed to make a tunnel, you know that kind of thing. And... just the last... you know, yes it's just a building, but it is more than just a building, you know, and I think that's really where our history and our... and a lot of Singaporeans' memories are... you know, are focused. It's a focal point for our memories, you know, and our history as a people, and... you can tell that because of the... eloquent letters that people would write in to

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the forum page and all that. A lot of people were very attached to this place, even though it was just a building. So for me it's like, is it just a building, our heritage and our past, and you know, it's just a corpse, you know, it's dead, it's gone, physically speaking it doesn't mean anything. But, it is more than that, you know, because I think even in the physicality of that, there is the... there is the sense of history and sense of memory and once you actually get rid of the physical, there is something lost. There is something lost, you know.

And I think, for young people, like for me, the opposite of that was really, all these young people who go into like, these showrooms, you know... the new condo showrooms are the... just exemplify this aspiration for the new, for the perfect, you know, it's got to be brand new, and sparkling clean, and air-conditioned and everything. And there's this sense of, "Ok this is what I want, this is what I want to aspire to, and what I want to leave behind is all the old stuff, the residue, the past, the history, you know, I don't need that." And I think, so for me I think it's actually great that students are studying this, because I think it does talk about, you know, what do we need to preserve, you know, what are things we need to hold on to, even if they might not look very valuable to you, or they really look discardable, you know. Yes, this building is old, and rotting and it should be torn down, but what do you lose in the process? So if you can, at least, even have that sense of, "Ok, we're losing something precious." There's something precious about our history and our past that we have to retain, you know, even as we inevitably progress.

So I think for young people, usually don't spend much time thinking about the past. But the past has such wonderful stories, such wonderful images, and a lot of them are physicalized, you know, buildings, trees, so...

See Huey: I'm just wondering, since we're on the tree, and... I was thinking of the other image of the bird, the mynah... I was very intrigued by the bird, I was just wondering about the mother, as she deals with the grief, as she finally finds out. It is very ambiguous for me. So, just to hear from you, what was the rationale of the tree and the mynah to explain the mother's way of dealing with the fact that her husband has finally died?

Jean: I mean, I think essentially she had to move on, so the tree had to be cut down, so there's no two ways about that. I had this version of the story where she sits in the house, and the bulldozers come... *laughter* you know, dies by the crushing stuff. I'd almost forgotten about her right? Cherry Orchard, kind of thing.But er...no.

I mean, in the end... in the end, I realized, well, you know, this is Singapore, and I think there's a certain pragmatism, there's a tragedy in that pragmatism also, you know. There's a tragedy in moving on. So, she moves on, but she has... I think it's a more realistic scenario that she actually moves on, but she has lost... and she knows she has to move on; but she has lost so much. And I think, so the whole idea of her dragging this... this dead tree along with her even though it's completely useless, and full of termites or whatever,

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dragging it to her new home. It's just this... this idea, she's trying to hold on but it's... it's kind of no use, because... You know, so it's... kind of a double whammy because it feels like... feels like, Ok, it's progress. She's got a new house now, a new bedroom and everything. But, actually, in actual fact, she's lost so much and she has had to live with that.

I mean, and the other thing about that... there was the suggestion that I cut the monologue about the mother's going on about the mynah and all that, but... mynah's and all that. And I was like, "NO!" Because for me this was the heart of the play. I think that that very last monologue by the mother, because I think it expresses all... all the frustration and all the pain and... and everything that she has bottled up... and her only way of release... like, there is some release, and yet, this is all that she can do.

Marcus: I've a question. I'm Marcus from NIE. Actually... because your play is actually... the pace is very... the pacing is very quick. The scenes are very... usually the scenes are very... looking at the text, there's only one or two scenes which exceed four or five pages. So I was wondering, how was your set design, because your scenes kept changing, so how was the set done, was it like, having all the scenes on the stage itself...how was your set design?

Jean: For the SRT production, they had basically... basically they set up the house here *gestures stage left* and then on the other side of the stage *gestures stage right* was the civil servants' world, so they were fairly self-contained, they didn't really... But I think one tricky thing about... and it was a very realistic setting, it was not minimalistic at all, there was lots of stuff, to suggest the residue and all that. But the tricky thing was that, what happened, like you said, was that... for the set, for scene transitions, there was a lot of blackouts, and you know, and then a couple of seconds of waiting and all that, so I think that did not help the pacing of the play. Because there were just so many... like you said, it was so swift. And I think what I had envisaged was really much smoother... I don't really think about scene transitions when I'm writing a play.

But I think... I think the particular style that was, in part, was blackout, lights on, next scene, immediately, you know, and everybody is changed and all that. And especially when you have characters playing multiple roles. You have to be changed into the next costume and stuff like that. So it was quite... yeah. So I think that the tricky thing about the production, which otherwise I'd loved, was that it was broken up by many scene transitions. That's actually a good point. The one in the UK was much more fluid, I think much more minimalist, much more suggested. Things like the corpse would be dead and lying down in one scene, and in the next scene he would, like, stand up again and move on. So it was very... it was much swifter, so the pacing in that sense was faster, but I mean there were other things about that that didn't work. So I think there's got to be a balance with that, and I think it's really the director's call, the stage, how they want to manage the scene transitions.

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Amanda: This is question that's linked to what Marcus asked. Was there a reason why the scenes... you wanted the scenes to be very short? It's just kind of interesting.

Jean: I have realized that I write very short scenes. *Laughter* I don't know, I find that the scene go on for, for me personally lah, maybe it's a cop-out, but for me I feel the scene goes on too much, it's like, "Oh, this is draggy, you know, this is... whatever." It's a personal whatever, but in terms of this, because there are so many strands, and there are so many stories happening, it... it kind of made sense for me to intercut from one,jump from one to another, kind of thing. So it wasn't really deliberate-deliberate, but it was... it's just kind of my style, so just... I think just the fact that there are so many stories going on, it's not just Boon and mother throughout... there's shifting from one storyline to another and see how it affected it...

Ritchell: I was just thinking about the last scene, and actually liked it a lot, but I was also thinking that it's quite ambivalent. I can't decide if it's supposed to be hopeful or not. Because there's this sense that... because the scene before that right, the mom says, " Wa ai deng chu liao," then at this point he says, "I know I'm home." So there's this sense of closure. But then, when Jeremiah starts smiling, I can't decide what to make of it. So, was it supposed to be hopeful?

Jean: For Jeremiah is it?

Ritchell: Yeah, because when the ash falls down...

Jean: No, for Boon. Boon starts smiling. I think, essentially like I said, this is kind of a tragedy, but I mean, for the mother it's definitely tragic. For Jeremiah, he finds some kind of closure in his friendship with the corpse... it's weird saying that. For Boon it's definitely closure, because that stuff... that ash falling down, I think he finally comes to terms with what has happened with his father and... so I think it's different, it is ambivalent, and I think for the different characters, they actually come to different resolutions for themselves. Some are happier than others?

Nadiah: I had two questions, my name is Nadiah, from NIE. So the first one is, I sort of notice that there's a sort of trend among local writers... they have an economist... they have an economic training, then they have like writing backgrounds. *Laughter* So I was wondering, has there been any impact, influence, you know, sort of like "two jobs in that sense influenced each other" in any way.

And the second question is about authorial intention, which I guess, won't get any where, but I was just wondering, because like, in the whole play, the corpse is the one which is serious all the time, and like, all the other characters make some jokes. So, as a reader, I feel like the meaning lies with the corpse, like you know, the meaning of the play lah, the corpse, because he's so different from the rest of the characters. So I was wondering, what were you thinking when you were writing the corpse to be

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such a grave *laughter* ...

Jean: First one first, Economics and Art. I mean basically, because I went to school on a scholarship, on an Economics scholarship, so I think that's just the realities of life... it didn't make sense for me to go off and study creative writing at that stage. So... I didn't enjoying being an economist very much, but, I mean, I must say that one of plays, Plunge, which I actually... which is one of the plays I'm proudest of personally, was actually inspired by... that time, because I was covering the Asian Economic Crisis, and dealing with all those numbers, and like it was my way of processing that... that whole experience, and the tragedies of that experience, and so it came out and all my frustrations came out in that play. So, yes it gave me one play lah, it was seven years of slave labour. *Laughter*

But er, otherwise, no lah, it was just to, you know, earn a living and make my parents happy. So... then the other question about the corpse, that's true. For me, the corpse was always... it was always tricky to write a corpse because I was just trying to figure out what... exactly how colloquial can we be, how earthy can we be, and how realistic or how surrealistic is he going to be, how much can he talk, he's a corpse! So... it's always... trying to find that balance and... yeah, not letting him say too much because if he says too much then... you know lah, as you can imagine writing a decomposed... the voice of a decomposed corpse is just a bit tricky to get into.

So I kind of had him as this voice, kind of thing, but... I think one directorial decision in the SRT production was to make him actually funny lah, you know, so that's actually what they did, they actually made him funnier, they made him more quirky and all that. Yeah so, the productions I've seen, they've actually layered him with humour. So... its just in the way that he responds to him (Jeremiah) and... so it's mild humour, it's obviously not the physical humour, so... yeah.

-end of Q&A part 1-Transcription by Marcus Chai

-Q&A part 2-

Dennis: Hi, my name is Dennis. Er, I was just thinking about Kuo Pao Kun's The Coffin is too Big for the Hole, and plays like that, that Singaporeans tend to write… I was also thinking about the stories in Tell Tales. And the amount of death that occurs in Tell Tales as well. I wonder if there's this morbid fascination with death that playwrights have, or… *laughter*

… or whether this is a trend, that we have to face our mortality in order to understand the way we are transiting through life, so to speak. I'm not sure.

Jean: Yeah, yes I believe playwrights have a morbid fascination with death, as do most writers. It's, you know what I mean, it's a very rich subject to explore. Ah… but I mean, I think, in this sense, um, yeah, just thinking about our mortality which most people don't usually think about, you know, and just raise those things to the surface. And I think for me in this play, anyway, just

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specifically the corpse, and death and mortality, I was just thinking about how the dead are not valued, you know, and after you are dead and gone, that's it. You know, your bones can be exhumed and cremated, with or without your, I mean without your permission *laughter* with or without your family's permission. You know? They can do whatever they want to you and you are just nothing… you know? You are nothing but a pile of decomposed material. I think for me it was mainly thinking about that. What is the value, you know, how do you value a person's memory at the end, you see, and with it everything is lost. And even the physical… you know, your memory is lost, and even your, your physical remains are removed after that. And then what's left, you see? So… so I think for me, in this play particularly, because it's about, you know, retaining the past, and and our history, you know, that was the important thing for me.

Russell: I'm Russell, I'm in NIE now. It's been a few years since the play was first staged, and there's been different reviews and everything… looking back, in hindsight right, is there anything you feel you would have done differently, or spent more time, um, yeah, in dealing with, maybe a second relationship, themes, something like that?

Jean: Um, for this particular play?

Russell: For this particular play.

Jean: Um, I'm not sure… I mean I think it depends on production to production… some productions I see and I get… well this is not working for me, and all that. Um, I think it could be tighter? I would probably streamline it? Streamline it some more? Just to make it more effective… er… as a whole experience. Um, and just cut out some of the weaker scenes… um, and er… I think it is just rather the fleshing out. I think everything is kind of there already? That I want to say? So I think rather it is just more tidying it through, so it's stronger. Um, what I might do, if it were ever going to be staged overseas again would be to, clean up the language really. You know, just, just because, I don't think it should be tied… I mean in a sense it is quite universal, these themes, even though it is so specific because of language? So I think it can be translated to other countries, it's just that, that then that case, my choice would be to… to make the language more neutral, you know, but I think for a Singaporean production, um, definitely, um, this particular format works. I think, but I think it also depends on how, on what the different actors bring to it. There might be a different actor who brings something else to it, and didn't speak in a particular way, and then that's fine. Yeah. And another aspect I might explore might be with using more dialect, or using more than just Singlish, that would make it even more authentic. Translate it into Chinese or something, you know? Yeah.

Loh: I think it was done in both English and Mandarin, so that's an interesting idea. And I think I… if you had to translate it to Chinese, it wouldn't be you, I guess.

Jean: yeah… no *laughter*

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Loh: Um, it would come out quite differently you think?

Jean: Yeah, yeah. But I think this might be a play that actually would work well translated, because in terms of the… especially the mother's speech I think that would work so much better, you know, it would be a lot more natural, although you would miss that kind of mixture of languages and dialects that you kind of get here, which is Singapore, you know…

Loh: How about a multi-lingual play, a little bit like "Mama is Looking for the Cat" kind of idea where characters are actually speaking…

Jean: yeah, so that was what I was really tempted to do with, you know, especially for the mother's speech is to, to translate it into dialect… I think… next time lah.

Loh: Anymore questions?

Claudia: Hi I'm Claudia from Nanyang Secondary School. I'm just curious, we talked about how the different productions, you know, offer different meanings, but teaching it as an 'O' Level text, our students primarily, is not solely depend on the text, any thoughts about that, any concerns? Because the students are going to look at the language and analyze it ever so closely. So I don't think you expected that, after all it's a script meant to be, you know, made into a play. I mean, I did ask you…

Jean: Yeah, there was a lot of Singlish in it, and when I, when I was being published, and my publisher was like, you know uh, you need to footnote all the Hokkien and all that kind of thing… and how do you translate "wah lau" *laughter*

Loh: You didn't, right?

Jean: I did "Hokkien expression", something like that. So I like just said you all go ahead, I can't… you know these things that are just part of our… so yeah, I'm a bit nervous about that. And having said that, I'm hoping that because the dialog is so naturalistic and so local, that it is something that students can identify with? And I mean, if you think about other play texts, you know, they are actually very specific in terms of their language and dialect to, to… you know. That particular period and time, or whatever Irish accent, or…

Student: … How did you, how did you when you were writing your play. And does your input affect the set director, the set designers, yeah, would that work with us…

Jean: Yeah, a good question. I think for this one not really, I mean I had maybe like one occasion I think, maybe the tree, that kind of thing… and I think maybe it was how the characters… mainly it was more the voices of the characters? Rather than how many … per se, um I think, but for this one I

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was quite kinda of like let the directors, um the director do her job, and the set designer do what they needed to do, um so it was, I think for this play I kinda pretty much let go quite easily. But having said that I mean like for the first production what Tracy did was brilliant, and and I really enjoyed you know seeing what she brought out of the actors and the set design and all that and… I don't know if any of you saw that actual, that first production. But, uh, they had this this mound on stage that kind of overlapped to the the audience… and it just looked like a mound, but when it was lit up from under, you realize that corpse was underneath it. So that was a kind of visual surprise that the audience would like *gasp* there's someone inside there, and it looks a bit gross… *laughter* so I think, I think it worked, I think for her directorially it was a choice, "I don't want the corpse to move. I want him to be there onstage throughout"… and, you know, that was her decision, but having… and then subsequently I'd seen, uh you know, the British production, the corpse was also playing a civil servant also playing… you know was one of the members of the chorus, and which was actually to be fair was actually the original way in which I wrote it. But I think it was not as powerful? As having that dead rotting body in the middle of the audience, ah, kind of… being gross and stuff like that, and it kind of lost some of that weight, because of, because he was, the next moment he would stand up and he would throw another scene. So you kinda didn't get the illusion… that much. Yeah.

- end Q&A part 2-Transcription by Jeremy Tay

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