REMEMBERING THROUGH THEATRE : MEMORIES AND HISTORIES

Abstract

In recent years, theatre in Singapore has become a site of active remembering. This phenomena is apprehended as related to the larger problem of social memory in Singapore. In the post-independence years, a memory loss is perceived as having resulted primarily from the state's aims to lobotomize certain parts of Singapore's historical links. This is instituted and legitimised so as to construct the notion of Singapore as a nation-state. At the same time, rapid developments in Singapore has also eroded much of its past. This memory loss is a rising concern in the present Singapore. At the national level, many efforts were made to deal with the repercussions of earlier policies. However, the chief focus of this thesis is on theatre practitioners and how they are dealing with this loss in social memory. The excavation of the past has become one of the major concerns among theatre practitioners today. This is reflected in many of the plays staged for the last 15 years. Theatre practitioners are re-interpreting, re-creating and re¬presenting the past through their plays. In this way, what constitutes the past of Singapore has become enlarged. This thesis is concerned with how imaginative remembering by theatre practitioners led to plays that frame the past in different ways - analysed in here as Historical Memories, Allegorical Memories, Folk Memories and Gendered Memories. While these frames signify differences in the ways theatre practitioners re-imagine and re-create the past, I will also draw out the strands of concern that bind them as artists. Importantly, the theoretical discourse on social memory will be a springboard that allows me to grasp the complexity of the inter-relationships between group, individual and social memory. Thus, the role of the individual in reshaping social memory and the conception of imagined community will be utilized to illuminate the phenomena observed. At the same time, this is an attempt to study theatre from a sociological perspective. Thus, I hope that through this thesis, I am able to contribute to these various ongoing discourse.