Sound Plot: True/South

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Sound Plot: True/South

As part of Singapore Art Week 2024, the Singapore Art Museum and Centre 42 commissioned and produced a collection of original audio plays written in response to the geographical area of Tanjong Pagar/Pasir Panjang where the museum currently resides.

Since antiquity, the southern coastline of Singapore has been known as a major maritime gateway. Today, the area houses one of the world’s busiest ports, a phenomenon that has drastically re-shaped the island’s coastline. But so are many of the city’s contemporary problems: income disparities, environmental degradation, and heritage-loss due to relentless urban development. And most obviously, this area connects Singapore to the huge open sea, inviting us to think about how this island is linked to other places. What ports of call—concrete and mythological—are part of this network?

True/South is a collection of 3 audio plays that speaks to this history of the site on which SAM resides, as follows:

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Sea Song by Joel Tan Laurie and Scott settle into their new expatriate lives at Sentosa Cove only to discover that not all is as it seems. Beneath the ostentatious luxuries of modern Singapore lie the sea and the land seething in their grief; and as Laurie’s connection to them grows she discovers that this loss is collective and communal.

Advisory: Contains some coarse language.

Creative Team: Playwright: Joel Tan Director: Cherilyn Woo Actors: Julie Wee, Daniel Jenkins, Ching Shu Yi, Serene Chen, Tysha Khan, Irsyad Dawood, Joel Tan

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Ghazal of the Banana Tree’s Heart by Danial Matin A solitary banana tree remains on the shore, the sole survivor amongst its compatriots, lost to the need for the space they occupied; a lone banana tree that is the last repository of the stories of those shores - of fishermen, turtles and the sea itself. Alone it sings the same refrain - but who listens? Creative Team: Playwright: Danial Matin Director: Grace Kalaiselvi Actors: Suhaili Safari & Shahid Nasheer

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Fragments of a Singaporean Hainanese by Wang Liansheng At the opening of a new exhibition on the Hainanese community in Singapore, memories are excavated through the stories of three Hainanese immigrants of different generations, their connections to an island they left for another, and the sea that connects them.

Creative Team: Playwright: Wang Liansheng Director: Lim Shien Hian Actors: Jalyn Han, Hang Qian Chou, Rino Junior John, Mitchell Fang

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Fragments of a Singaporean Hainanese by Wang Liansheng