The Theatre And The State In Singapore PDF Download

[Truncated abstract] In 1988 the Singapore government convened a committee to evaluate the state of the arts within the nation. The report was released a year later in 1989, setting in motion a series of events aimed to turn Singapore into a 'global city for the arts' and 'renaissance city of Asia' by the turn of the century. The Peopl's Action Party (PAP), Singapore's ruling political party, and its leader Lee Kuan Yew, committed a billion Singapore dollars to this artistic genesis with the creation of new ministerial appointments, government agencies, galleries, libraries, education facilities and state-of-the-art theatres. This thesis argues that the arts in Singapore have been prioritised for two main reasons. Firstly, in a nation with no natural commodity other than its people and its port, the PAP understands well the value of the arts as another economic product that can be used to generate income in a city built on international investment and finance. Secondly, the arts have been used as a means to present the State as a liberal democracy, while similarly providing an outlet to maintain the cultural needs of the prosperous Singaporean and the professional international workforce upon which the city-state so heavily relies. It is at the intersection of Singaporean politics and its performing arts that this thesis examines the introduction of original Singaporean musical theatre as a cultural product for both local and international consumption. The musical, with a history steeped in political satire, has become in a Singaporean context an artistic vehicle that allows for a public discussion of PAP hegemony. However, the Singapore musical also produces valuable evidence, through its narratives, of how government intervention and censorship has created a society and individual unwilling to criticise the State and its leadership. This thesis analyses three original musical theatre productions by Dick Lee Beauty World (1988), Mortal Sins (1995) and Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress (2002). The analysis draws on fieldwork interviews that were conducted with Lee, his artistic collaborators, and several Singaporean academics and practitioners that are involved in, or critique, Singaporean theatre. The theoretical framework draws upon three main theorists, Michel Foucault, James C. Scott and Paul Connerton, to articulate how government surveillance and censorship has created a population that is fearful of breaking the law and unwilling to protest against government domination. Chapter One examines the history of musical theatre and the history of Singapore, before articulating the effect of government control and censorship policy over the population. Chapter Two examines Beauty World as a musical theatre product at the very beginning of the Singaporean Renaissance. This musical, written by Michael Chiang and composed by Lee, draws upon the hidden underbelly of Singaporean society to articulate narrative themes of World War II, physical abuse, aborted relationships and the [re]location of a Singaporean identity. Chapter Three discusses Mortal Sins, the second collaboration between Chiang and Lee...