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A collection of three plays by the experimental (and controversial) Singapore playwright and poet, Elangovan. The plays — Mamadrama, Dogs and Buang Suay — explore untouched Singapore realities, stimulating creative thinking and provoking shock and controversy. With support from the National Arts Council Publishing Grant.

In every society, the privileged groups’ control over and exploitation of the disadvantaged groups is the key source to social problems. These problems endlessly shape the material and spiritual landscapes of the outsiders. The outsiders’ education and environment generates beliefs and values that are diametrically opposed to the empowered status quo and if unchecked will fester and spread like virulent disease to destroy everything set by the powers that be. […] SMEGMA interrogates the ‘moral, cultural, religious, political, economical legitimacy world’ from many different perspectives of the underdogs and their masters. When the comfort-zone is shattered ugliness rears its head like cheesy SMEGMA.

Source: Smegma by Elangovan (2006)

BOSE ( + Transportation) exposes the impregnable mystery of the death of the forgotten hero Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, and explores the numerous conspiracy theories. Bose, the most fascinating personality from history in Asia, led the Indian National Army from Singapore in its armed struggle against the British imperial forces of India for independence. TRANSPORTATION captures the displacement and suffering, cultural denigration and crisis of identity that ensues from all forms of estrangement in the colonial period in the penal settlements. It reconstructs the experiences of native criminals and political prisoners transported overseas to the penal settlements established by the British, from the late eighteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, in Southeast Asia (Singapore and Malaya), the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Islands. The plays were staged by Agni Kootthu (Theatre of Fire) with support from National Arts Council, Arts Fund and Lee Foundation. I. BOSE is published with the support of National Arts Council’s Publication and Translation Grant scheme.