Browse By

Kartini and Juliana are not your typical mother-daughter pair - one loud and overbearing, the other straitlaced and on the threshold of entering politics. Together, they are Gemuk Girls and proud of it. One day, they receive shocking news about Kartini's father who had been arrested and detained in the 1960s. Suddenly the floodgates of the family's emotional past are thrown open. Can a family survive as they struggle to reconcile the past with the present? Will Kartini and Juliana continue to be Gemuk Girls? Gemuk Girls is a bold and often darkly humorous look at family politics and the politics of the day.

What happens when mum is out of action? This play traces the journey of a woman's struggle through maternal depression and her eventual process of recovery.

Lisa was a very happy and cheerful little girl. But her life changed when her parents met with a car accident and were hospitalized. During this period, Aunty May came to care for Lisa.

Soon, things started to change – Aunty May was no longer the caring and doting Aunt that Lisa knew. She would get upset and angry over the smallest things as she was trying her best to support the family financially.

Lisa would get scolded and beaten for making too many mistakes in her homework and Lisa would often go to bed feeling hungry when Aunty May went to work. All these left Lisa feeling depressed. She couldn’t eat or sleep well and her grades were slipping.

Lisa was faced with a dilemma of whether she should tell her friends about her problems but she feared Aunty May’s reaction if she were to find out.

A wizard appeared one night in her room, offering to help her solve her problems with Aunty May and advised her to ‘tell someone’ about her problems.

Lisa heeded his advice and told her teacher, Miss Tay, about her problems. By telling someone, her teacher in this case, Lisa was able to get help for herself and Aunty May, who was having a tough time coping with everything at home on her own. They now live happily together.

Examine contemporary Singapore with The Necessary Stage as the company revisits historical characters, merges fact and fiction, and then have them interact in real and imagined events. Looking at the themes of migration, harmony and identity, Singapore probes deeply into a country's past and the psyche of the people. Featuring a 'politically correct' multi-racial cast, the play is seriously funny and deceitfully truthful.