The Orange Playground Lab #2

Created by Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Orange Playground (TOP) is The Necessary Stage’s newest initiative in creative research and development. We seek to collaborate with artists in an exploratory environment where risks can be freely taken within and with the creative process. TOP will provide opportunities for free, ad-hoc collaborative “jamming” and play with emerging and established talents..

“I would give my life to be in your life…To be you.”

Kumon and Ema suffer from wanderlust. Struck by the quiet dissatisfaction which haunts the modern Singaporean despite their seemingly perfect lives, they escape on a destination holiday. However, Kumon and Ema discover that their resentments, regrets and insecurities are capable of haunting them beyond geographical boundaries.

Reviving the heroines from The Necessary Stage’s award-winning plays such as Rosnah (1995, 1996, 1997, 2006), Off Centre (1993, 1994, 2007) and Three Years in the Life and Death of Land (1993), Siti Khalijah Zainal and Alin Mosbit reimagine the heroines’ scripted realities in a fictional world where these women cross paths with Kumon and Ema. Supported by multimedia artist Yusri “Shaggy” Sapari and devised through a series of improvisational ‘circuit training’ directed by Alvin Tan, the complexities of Kumon and Ema surfaces in short vignettes which are side-splitting, yet at times heart-wrenching, raw and bittersweet.