From the Project Director
Kok Heng Leun

I dreamt of having an opportunity to work with a group of students for an extended period, to explore these ideas with them. You see, it is easy for young people going through any education system to let their attitudes and perceptions harden too early and to refuse to view things with an open mind. But TIE involves both facilitator and participant in an interactive process and encourages the exchange and extension of ideas.

Artistic Director's Message
Alvin Tan

Promising to do their own administration, with administrative help from the company's Theatre For Youth Administrator, Julius Foo, the teenagers organised themselves and started meeting every Friday. Hence the birth of Theatre For Youth Ensemble (TFYE).

Playwright's Message
Haresh Sharma

When I was in secondary school, the only plays I ever watched were those Teacher's Day ones, where we all have a lot of fun and then feel very embarrassed about the whole thing. And two days later, nobody remembers anything.

Before you grunt in protest thinking this is going to be a 'how lucky young people today are' message, let me continue first.

Young people today are very lucky. No, but seriously. You have more opportunities, more exposure to the Arts, to the world, more fashion sense...

But with these 'mores', inevitably comes stress, pressure, competition. A little bit is ok, but a lot can drive a person over the edge.

The Labour of Off Centre

We would like to share with you the nine months of labour. Below is an account of what playwright Haresh Sharma went through during the nine months starting from Day One, 8 Jan 1993.

Process
Josephine Peter

How many directors have the luxury of having a playwright for a member of the cast; an actor who is inspired enough by improvisations to want to write a play and a cast committed and versatile enough to push improvisations to the limit? The play began with the directors largely responsible for shaping and streamlining the various aspects of the process but had evolved into one where the control of the process was shared with Haresh being pivotal in the writing.

Dialogue... Monologue
Haresh Sharma

A playwright listens... and smiles.

The Play's Process

"Lanterns" grew from an idea. What are your aspirations? What is the strongest feeling you have about your childhood? What are your disillusionments, your hopes, your fears? If you were to choose an object to represent your youth, what could it be? The information was then gathered and the first draft of the script evolved.

About the Play...

Within a loosely sketched scenario each of the workshoppers adopted a character and was responsible first for scripting this character's part and later for creating this part on stage. Our 2 aims were (1) to create multi-dimensional characters, (2) to involve more people in the scripting of plays.

Directors' Messages
Josephine Peter

There's no such thing as a "Singaporean play", but there are Singaporean playwrights and "made-in-Singapore" plays.

Playwright's Message
Alfian Sa'at

I believed at one point of time that my disempowerment: political, social, moral, was some kind of power. That is why when Jeff asked me to do this play, I readily agreed. I wanted not so much to be deliberately controversial, but to give a voice to the marginalised, and to be unapologetic about it. Their songs would not be of reconciliation; petitions and pleas for inclusion into the mainstream, but brassy assertions of individuality.

'But isn't everyone marginalised at some point of time or the other, even the most privileged?'

A good question. In writing for this play, I also wanted to critique the politics of marginality. How long do we want to exploit our minority status, be it ethnic, religious, sexual, whatever? How far can we play victim? And if our oppressors one day decide to step aside for us without an argument, then where will the struggle be? Will we lose ourselves in the vacuum of their absence, losing all that we stood for, or more correctly, stood against?