Teo Soh Lung & Wong Souk Yee recount challenges during Square Moon theatre production

There was a change of speakers as activist Seelan Palay was not available due to an illness, and in his place were editors of the book, Ridiculous: Untold Tales of Singapore, Teo Soh Lung and Low Yit Leng. Also present is Wong Souk Yee whose story about a theatre play, ‘Square Moon’ is featured in the book.

The session moderated by Singapore Democratic Party’s youth wing head Min Cheong-Subramaniam was held at full-house Orange & Teal in Rochester Mall on Sunday, 13 Nov.

Teo recounted the ‘Square Moon Saga’ as the chapter is known in the book, which took place in 2012. Among the issues that they faced were the $8,000 grant from Tote Board and the phantom audience at the University Cultural Centre Theatre.

They also had to deal with the Media Development Authority (MDA), as they wanted to take a look at their draft script before the play. The play was organised by Function 8 of which all the speakers were part of.

“This was unusual, very unusual because no application had yet been submitted to the MDA for a license. It was reported that the MDA had ‘heard’ about the play and wanted to know more about it. Who had they heard it from?” quoted an excerpt from the book in the chapter by Chng Suan Tze.

“We decided to go on with the play and managed to overcome any issues as we went along. We got the license from MDA, and the classification was an R-18. MDA did not censor any part and my play is harmless, but they made it difficult for us, especially funding. Initially we were supposed to get $20,000 from Necessary Stage, which they get from the National Arts Council. We were also cut off from getting a venue,” said Wong.

Teo explained about the phantom audience during the play. There were a total of 95 tickets purchased, but none of them turned up for the play. It left the front part of the theatre empty, but after finding out that these people would not be turning up, the play director Peter Sau suggested getting the audience from the other seats forward.

“I went to see the ticketing agent and told him that I wanted all the names of the people who bought the tickets. I went through it and played a bit of Sherlock Holmes. These tickets were bought in blocks, some in four or ten. It cost them nearly $5,000,” explained Teo.

“I checked the numbers and called them. Either nobody answered or some crazy person said ‘simi? no such person, who?’. That is the kind of tactic they used to disturb us. But we did not lose as we collected the money.”

Seelan contributed a chapter in the book titled, ‘32 years: The interrogation of a mirror.’ It entails his solo work of performance art which took two years to plan and execute, to commemorate the 32 years former elected Member of Parliament, Chia Thye Poh, spent in detention without trial.

He was arrested and charged for conducting a procession without a permit under the Public Order Act and was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment in lieu of a S$2500 fine.

Other contributors to the book include Kirsten Han (An illegal vigil), Tan Tee Seng (Jailed 16 days over Skype call event), Roy Ngerng (Sued by a Prime Minister), and Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss (Hot pursuit of cooling-off day).