Asian Theatre Journal

Abstract:

Studies of the spaces of citizenship, spaces of democracy, and political performance in public space have often focused on the importance of key sites that perform the political identities of citizens and politicians as well as the process of democracy itself. This paper argues that in the case of Singapore, contemporary theatre is the most important public space of citizenship and democracy where both concepts are contested and resisted in their performance. This paper proposes and uses a contrapuntal performance analysis of two contemporary plays surrounding the 2011 General Election with the legal and founding documents defining citizenship in Singapore. The findings of this paper show that contemporary Singaporean theatre fills the role of providing a voice to critique and deconstruct the state's top-down conception of citizenship and a space where civic discourse takes place and is performed for audiences.