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Plays: Volume One
Edited by Lucas Ho and featuring an introduction by Dr Philip Holden, Faith Ng: Plays, Volume One gathers together eight plays from one of Singapore’s most celebrated playwrights.
Honest and compelling, the plays of Faith Ng unerringly capture slices of Singapore life in all of its emotional complexity. Her plays constantly wrestle with the politics and poetics of the languages and relationships in Singapore: from WO(MEN), where the ties, secrets and silences within women from different generations are observed, to FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, where the years of hurts, misunderstandings, but also love between a couple are laid bare, and to NORMAL, where the casual coarseness of teenagers show off their street-smartness and disguises their hopes and despair.
Deeply affecting and sensitively crafted, these plays firmly establish Faith Ng as a vital Singapore playwright.
Honest and compelling, the plays of Faith Ng unerringly capture slices of Singapore life in all of its emotional complexity. Her plays constantly wrestle with the politics and poetics of the languages and relationships in Singapore: from WO(MEN), where the ties, secrets and silences within women from different generations are observed, to FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, where the years of hurts, misunderstandings, but also love between a couple are laid bare, and to NORMAL, where the casual coarseness of teenagers show off their street-smartness and disguises their hopes and despair.
Deeply affecting and sensitively crafted, these plays firmly establish Faith Ng as a vital Singapore playwright.
360 pages, Paperback
Published December 1, 2016
2 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Faith Ng
5 books5 followersA Singapore Creative Writing Residency writer-in-resident in 2014, Faith's plays include wo(men) (2010), For Better or For Worse (2013) and Normal (2015).
Currently an Associate Artist at Checkpoint Theatre, Faith has been nominated twice for Best Original Script at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards for wo(men) and For Better or For Worse. She teaches playwriting at her alma mater, the National University of Singapore, and also holds a Master of Arts with Distinction in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the University of East Anglia, under the National Arts Council Postgraduate Scholarship.
Currently an Associate Artist at Checkpoint Theatre, Faith has been nominated twice for Best Original Script at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards for wo(men) and For Better or For Worse. She teaches playwriting at her alma mater, the National University of Singapore, and also holds a Master of Arts with Distinction in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) from the University of East Anglia, under the National Arts Council Postgraduate Scholarship.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 4, 2020
Wished I had caught most of the plays especially Wo(men), Normal, Ah Ma, Waste and You Are My Needle, I Am Your Thread.
Is Faith Ng a working playwright still? Will look out for her plays; enjoy the human element in them. Miss these simple plays without much fanfare.
Is Faith Ng a working playwright still? Will look out for her plays; enjoy the human element in them. Miss these simple plays without much fanfare.
August 25, 2022
(Full disclosure: Am playwright's JC schoolmate)
February 4, 2022
faith ng's plays are incredible. her dialogue is so natural, and her characterisation is really really good - her plays feel particularly authentic to singapore, too. enjoyed reading them tremendously and wish i could just watch a single one (if not all lol).
favourites:
- normal - a look into the NA stream in singapore, really empathetic yet dramatic portrayal of the lives of students and teachers, within a framework of this larger national narrative (and particularly incisive into our edu system - personally, an important look into smth diff frm the narrow experience of school ive had)
- wo(men) - the lives of three generations of women in an exchange done in real time; the dialogue really tested my (nonexistent) hokkien skills but also build great tension and symbolism in the scene
also really liked skin, rose, and ah ma (tho i pretty much enjoyed everything so)
introduction was also really interesting, especially as someone who has (very sadly, but very much hope to change) little exposure to theatre in singapore (or theatre in general, really). some points it raised:
- political role of theatre in singapore as often a state v theatre dichotomy - but ng's plays political in a different way (not even particularly challenging but rather expressing the way that the individual identity is crafted/internalised within certain state narratives as well as cultural/social norms - e.g. the meritocracy idea, but also "asian values". one thing i noticed was her particularly emphatetic way of portraying familial ties and tensions) "not simply biographical and cultural testimony, but a staged encounter with an audience that explores the intersection of elements of self and the various cultural communities in which that self is formed."
- adjacent idea of effect as a form of "narrative therapy" wherein the different narratives are laid out and braided with one another
- use of techniques such as everyday objects (symbols) and soundscapes to convey ideas
"[...] realisation that our lives and identities are made up of scraps of stories told by others. What follows from Ng's plays is a quiet politics and poetics or remaking the self in the context of Singapore, a politics of empathy."
brb manifesting literary power transmitted through a shared name
favourites:
- normal - a look into the NA stream in singapore, really empathetic yet dramatic portrayal of the lives of students and teachers, within a framework of this larger national narrative (and particularly incisive into our edu system - personally, an important look into smth diff frm the narrow experience of school ive had)
- wo(men) - the lives of three generations of women in an exchange done in real time; the dialogue really tested my (nonexistent) hokkien skills but also build great tension and symbolism in the scene
also really liked skin, rose, and ah ma (tho i pretty much enjoyed everything so)
introduction was also really interesting, especially as someone who has (very sadly, but very much hope to change) little exposure to theatre in singapore (or theatre in general, really). some points it raised:
- political role of theatre in singapore as often a state v theatre dichotomy - but ng's plays political in a different way (not even particularly challenging but rather expressing the way that the individual identity is crafted/internalised within certain state narratives as well as cultural/social norms - e.g. the meritocracy idea, but also "asian values". one thing i noticed was her particularly emphatetic way of portraying familial ties and tensions) "not simply biographical and cultural testimony, but a staged encounter with an audience that explores the intersection of elements of self and the various cultural communities in which that self is formed."
- adjacent idea of effect as a form of "narrative therapy" wherein the different narratives are laid out and braided with one another
- use of techniques such as everyday objects (symbols) and soundscapes to convey ideas
"[...] realisation that our lives and identities are made up of scraps of stories told by others. What follows from Ng's plays is a quiet politics and poetics or remaking the self in the context of Singapore, a politics of empathy."
brb manifesting literary power transmitted through a shared name
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews