Two Singapore Arts Festival plays are blazing a trail with themes of personal and political betrayal. Peter Myers asks their directors how they’re pushing the envelope

Pencil in two noteworthy, boundary-traversing productions this month: multi-generational epic Drift by Drama Box/Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, and Cake Theatrical Productions’ allegorical saga Temple. Both plays deal with betrayal; Drift, which premiered in Shanghai last year, explores the far-reaching consequences of marital deceit, while never-before-seen Temple’s parallel-universe drama-scape hinges on corruption and politically motivated treachery.

Temple promises to be one of the most unpredictable and distinctive local productions of the year. Written and directed by Singapore resident Natalie Hennedige, its world is at war. Seven characters find refuge in a sports hall (once the diplomatic meeting arena of now opposing sides), bolt the doors and block out the lawlessness of the outside world. The hall becomes their sanctuary, their temple; yet once inside its pristine walls, corruption begins to rear its ugly but inevitable head. One day, the inhabitants awake to find the doors of the hall wide open. They have been betrayed, but by whom?

No longer a sanctuary, the stage is transformed into a sporting battlefield, invaded by bright lights, the blast of marching bands and the scream of cheerleaders – a multimedia backdrop to the characters’ warring and scheming. In exploring the different notions associated with the word ‘temple’ (sanctuary, purity, the body as temple, wisdom, the human race as different parts of the same body), Hennedige’s play seeks to probe, in her words, ‘what happens when all these “temples” begin to crumble’.

As the audience awaits the arrival of possible redemption, they will be struck by the play’s physical composition, visual style and sound architecture. For the play to work, its technical elements must be highly choreographed and seamlessly in sync with the performers. Those who have seen previous Cake productions will be familiar with the group’s technical expertise – but the scale of Temple is considerably larger. What attracts Hennedige to such a multi-layered approach to theatre?

‘When I direct a play, I’m creating the work in terms of colours, moods, tones, textures and rhythms,’ she says. ‘For me, directing is like painting a picture or making a sculpture. Often, the meaning on the page will be very different once the actors take it onto the rehearsal floor. I am searching for other vocabularies [beyond the words or text]. I believe that theatre needs to be a “total experience”.’

Although Drift is set in the real world, it is no less esoteric. Drama Box’s artistic director Kok Heng Leun told TOS he was drawn to the play – a tale of three generations held afloat by old promises and memories – because of his fascination with the mobility of modern man, or as he puts it, ‘the sense of drift, of moving on, of walking. And when does one finally stop and rest? We are always walking, running, avoiding, drifting.’

Drift begins with a middle-aged woman contemplating the future after discovering her husband’s clandestine affair with a mysterious woman overseas. We’re soon in 1960s Shanghai, then fur ther back, to World War II. With an edgy soundtrack from Singapore experimental space-rock band, The Observatory, and innovatively used interactive media, the play is far from traditional. Kok agrees, describing his play as ‘not just another nostalgic journey, but a journey that provokes and unsettles’.

Drama Box’s collaboration with the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre marks the first time a local Mandarin theatre company has worked with a major theatre company in China. The groups share a common tongue but faced intercultural challenges, overcoming differences in working method and acting styles. ‘I tried not to homogenise everything,’ says the director, ‘but rather, see how each style helped in the storytelling. This allowed us to understand even more deeply our creative strengths and weaknesses, and our ability to negotiate cultural exchanges.’

And there’s quite a twist. You’ll have to watch Drift to find out what it is; suffice it to say that it provoked Shanghai audiences to erupt in thunderous applause nightly.

Catch Drift at the Drama Centre Theatre from 5-7 Jun, and Temple on 19 & 20 Jun. Stay for post-show dialogues with the directors on the 5th and 19th, respectively.