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THESHOBON gi dafo hijomee ta ghion bul oghion ebumin yuom hod (gomik ohod). Steven Weston famlo vatum dofo nenno threshobon. Ping gi quontomi idofo mundafta rondso shelooj.

(translated) Interview is a play of language and non-language in corporate life (or non-life). Steven Weston goes for a job interview at S.A.E Pte Ltd. He's literally an outsider seeking acceptance.

After two highly successful runs in Singapore and Cairo last year, The Necessary Sage presents Still Building at The Substation. 

Still Building was voted by BiGO Magazine last year as "Best Offering" among the 13 plays staged for Theatre Carnival on the Hill [April 1992]. It was later selected by the National Arts Council to represent Singapore at the Cairon International Experimental Theatre Festival [September 1992].

In Still Building, two stories are juxtaposed in one play. The first is about two sisters, Kim and Cheng, and their good friend, Alan. Cheng, the younger of the two, cannot cope with the memories their house represents for her, and decides to move out. Alan, who is adopted, receives a letter from a couple in Manila claiming to be his real parents and decides to go there. Kim, who believes in stability and not rocking the boat, finds difficulty coping with Cheng and Alan's decisions. In the second story, three people [played by the same actors] are trapped when the building they are in collapses. Inspired by the Hotel New World collapse, this story shows the trauma of three people stuck in a mass of rubble, waiting to be rescued.

How do we exorcise the pain of loss? The Necessary Stage revisits 2 early works from its repertoire to explore the ways we deal with loss and how we rise above it. 

In untitled women number one, two women talk about their relationships, their past and future. Featuring Edith Podesta and Ethel Yap, the play looks at the notions of pain, death and interdependence, drawing from stories about gender, sexuality and womanhood. 

untitled cow number one is about the journey of a widowed cow through 12 days of mourning. Performed by Sharda Harrison and Bani Haykal, the play is influenced by Hindu and Buddhist texts, images and myths, and incorporates physical movement and soundscape.

Both plays have toured successfully to the Macau International Fringe Festival (2000), the Asian Theatre Festival in Busan (2002) and the National Theatre Festival in New Delhi (2003). 

Don't Know, Don't Care by The Necessary Stage looks at a family trying to deal with terminal illness within the household. Wrapped up in their own lives, the family members 'don't want to know'. They prefer to leave the care-giving to strangers. Soon, they realise they have to know, they learn how to care. They discover the importance of being there for each other. At a time of illness, they can finally share a bond and experience joy. 

A plot of land transforms from a cemetery to a condominium site. In the process, three stories are presented where ancestors are worshipped, ghosts are unearthed and a handphone becomes a murder weapon.

Mickey and Siew try all ways and means to please both mothers-in-law on their first Mother's Day together, but things still go out of control - a quarrel starts and celebration turns into disaster.

Kheng finds that her Father is too busy to share her problems or even her joys. Her good friend Michael will not take her problems seriously and just wants to have fun. Can Kheng get them to listen to her?

A man stabs an MP at a Meet the People Session. But this is not their story.

It is the story of the man’s girlfriend, an Indonesian maid who wants to get married and become a Singapore citizen. It is the story of the MP’s wife, who tries to cope with her husband’s injury and the media spotlight. It is the story of the maid’s employer, who is also struggling with her own tragedy.

These three women may mean nothing to each other, but they need one another to survive.

The maid, the employer and the MP’s wife. Are they all model citizens?

First staged in 2010 to critical acclaim and subsequently restaged in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the following year, Model Citizens is a thought-provoking work helmed by director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma. This new iteration of Model Citizens will see the return of the original cast—Goh Guat Kian, Karen Tan and Siti Khalijah Zainal—11 years since the production’s premiere.

Joan, a nurse who has lived out since she was 17, is moving again. Her life is in a rut and she wants to clean it out by moving away to some place where she can be alone… a new address… a new telephone number… a different neighbourhood. But as she takes out the boxes, she realises it will be different this time. She's not just moving out, she's moving on.

More is a story about a clinic, its people and their obsessions with their titles. Essentially, it examines status symbols.

 A short play about healthy eating.