Happy National Day!

And just to celebrate, I'll post a pastiche of a Singapore national song which I found on TalkingCock.com (lots more song parodies here!)

In Annabel Chong
(to the tune of 'Di Tanjong Katong')

In Annabel Chong
Came many guys to screw
A Singaporean school girl
Who wore white and blue
It's no big surprise
How she got screwed up
It's our education
That first fucked her up

In our education system
We must fight to make the cut
So even when it comes to orgies
We'll work our ass off
To be
The top slut

In Annabel Chong
A gifted kid we know
A Singaporean school girl
Now the biggest ho
We're all just like her
Admit it, we all must
To get screwed and like it
Is what our schools teach us

Cynthia Lee McQuarrie and Cheryl Miles in "Gone Shopping"

Just figured that while I'm still getting hits for this site, I might as well advertise the fact that 251 cast members Cynthia and Cheryl have (extremely funny) supporting roles in Wee Li Lin's "Gone Shopping", which I just saw on Friday. Try and catch it leh! Support local film! (Li Lin says she'd work with either of them in a heartbeat).

(Btw that's Cheryl on the far right of this pic - Cynthia wasn't at the press conference. Amusingly, Cheryl plays a tai-tai and Cynthia plays the Malaysian shopgirl who serves her.)

Roseannabelita

How thrilling! Tonight, at the opening of "Dreaming of Kuan Yin, Meeting Madonna", I met Rosita Ng, author/performer of "Baby You Can Drive My Car", one of the first Annabel Chong plays in Singapore! Rosita used to be mainly involved in music; she's now a lawyer.

Apparently her version of the play was very much centred on the idea of Chong as a generational phenomenon - how people of earlier generations were unable to understand her. She doesn't have a soft copy of the original script, sadly... sigh, that's what happens to so much theatre in Singapore; it vanishes after bumping out, leaving nothing but skeletal reviews and dodgy video.

Ich bin ein doofus.

I encouraged the Flying Inkpot to publish a negative, but well-written review of 251. (Actually, despite the very instructive criticism that I flirt with the issues without answering them in original ways, she's given us three stars out of a possible five, which I believe is due to the fact that we were reasonably entertaining.)

As always, comments can be added. Click here.

Pushin' the agenda

This news is a month late, but it needs to be announced nonetheless!

On 21 April, one week after the close of 251, our director Loretta Chen was at St. James Powerhouse for a Young PAP rally (don't ask me about her personal habits), when she asked our esteemed Minister Mentor about censorship issues with the play.

Her very specific question actually prompted Lee Kuan Yew to remark that he believes homosexuality should be legalised in Singapore. Whaddaya know? This was the remark that elicited a barrage of forum letters, both in support of and against Section 377A. Annabel, you still cause revolutions, albeit indirectly.

(Of course, to be precise, homosexuality is legal in Singapore as a concept; male-male sexual acts are not and female-female sexual acts are often kept off-camera and off-stage. Just want to be precise.)

Below is the transcript of Loretta's exchange with LKY. Click here for a fuller transcript, as well as quotes from Reuters.

Q: Good afternoon, Sir. I've just got a quick question because you were talking just now about integration and globalisation. So I've just got a question. I'm Loretta Chen from Hougang. I'm a theatre director, so my question has to deal with censorship. Sir, recently I actually wrote a proposal to the Esplanade and it's a play based on Annabel Chong 251. I was very happy, it was passed and I staged it. Most of the scenes in there were left completely intact except for one line which goes, "In the beginning was the body..." and those five words were taken out, which I happily obliged. But my question is where is censorship headed for the next two decades and what are the paradigms or what are the OB markers for censorship in the next two decades? Thank you.

MM Lee: I can't answer that because I don't know how the world is going. We are constantly adapting to the world. We do not live in isolation... [dwells on Crazy Horse, the Vatican's stance on contraception, the impossibility of enforcing certain restrictive laws]...

..Which is better? - to let it run freely or say, "No", have it surreptitiously flouted at the margins - you've got to weigh the two odds. But, I mean you take this business of homosexuality. It raises tempers all over the world, and even in America. If in fact it is true, and I have asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual because that's the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes, you can't help it. So why should we criminalise it? But there's such a strong inhibition in all societies. Christianity, Islam, even the Hindu, Chinese societies and we are now confronted with a persisting aberration. But is it an aberration? It's a genetic variation. So what do we do? I think we pragmatically adjust, carry our people... don't upset them and suddenly upset their sense of propriety and right and wrong, but at the same time let's not go around like this moral police do in Malaysia, barging into people's rooms and say "khalwat". That's not our business. So, you have to take a practical, pragmatic approach to what I see is an inevitable force of time and circumstance.

Where they are nowish

I'm in NYC now, but I figure I oughta take this op to tell everyone what we're doing after the run!

LORETTA CHEN and I are both involved in Short and Sweet Singapore, a festival of 10-minute plays. Loretta's directing Ian Grody's "The Critics" and Andrew Lua's directing me "Frostbite". They're both going up in the last week of April:

Week 2
25 April to 29 April 2007, 8pm
Studio Theatre, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts
$25
Tickets here.

CYNTHIA LEE MACQUARRIE will be next acting in the chorus of Singapore Repertory Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream:

04 May to 27 May 2007 , 7.30pm
Fort Canning Park
Standard - S$43
Advance Ticket - S$33
VIP Package - S$78
Tickets here.

UPDATE: They didn't cast her in the end... and really, it wasn't that great a show to begin with.

CHERYL MILES will be singing regularly at Oosh, an alfresco bar in Tanglin Village.

AMY CHENG will be acting in Georgette, an upcoming musical I've written under Musical Theatre Limited - and it's another biographical play, this time on the Singapore painter Georgette Chen.

09 June and 10 June 2007, 3pm and 7:30pm
Esplanade Recital Studio
$25
Tickets here.

UPDATE: meh, she dropped out.

LEE WENG KEE and PAUL LUCAS don't have anything concrete lined up, but Paul should be directing more student shows with LaSalle shortly.

STANLEY NG will be stage managing for Little Red Shop's Between Woman and Man: The Erasure of Verena Tay.

20 April and 21 April 2007, 8pm
The Substation
$20 ($30 for both shows, which are actually different)
Tickets here.

Blessed are the procrastinators

A lot of people out there - including the principal of the convent school where my godmother teaches - are asking whether there'll be a rerun of 251 soon. I see no reason why not, since there's a clear demand and Toy Factory has the rights to run my play for two more years.

Since we're no longer doing it under the aegis of the Esplanade, however, some further portions may be cut (which would be terribly inconsistent, but that's cultural regulation for you).

However, one positive side effect of not booking early may be that we'll be able to use Ho Tzu Nyen (pictured above) and Fran Borgia's real-super-dua-liap multimedia, which was going to be projected onto the white stage if only we hadn't rented the wrong projector (ooooei!).

I've been badgering Tzu Nyen for a photo - he's this amazing conceptual-video-painting-installation-performance-lecture artist and I loved taking tour groups to see his "Bohemian Rhapsody Project" in the Singapore Biennale. However, he's been pretty reticent. He told me to use Google Images to get his portrait, so here we are. (He's the on the far right at the Front Awards, grimacing at his dog).

One other reason I wanted to meet up with Tzu Nyen was because I'd heard that one of his early art projects involved an installation based on two Singapore heroes: Mr Kiasu and Annabel Chong. Once I find out about that properly, I'll add it to the supplementary text section.

However, as of now, I'm fleeing the country, to promote my poetry book at my old university of Columbia in New York City. Yeah, I'll miss the cast party tomorrow night at Loof, but I'll be there in spirit, and I'm sure someone will be taking scandalous photographs in my stead.

Thanks to everyone who's come to the show, and everyone who's been following this cockamamie blog of mine so far 'cos it's the next best thing to getting a ticket. Like General Macarthur, we will damn well try to return.

O Fortuna

Also known as a reason to condemn us for witchcraft as well as smut. :)


At the retreat we held two months ago before rehearsals began, we ended up reading each other's fortunes on Tarot cards. As Loretta had already read my fortune following the second draft, I got Cheryl Miles to do a reading based on the question, "How will 251 go?"

Here is what she said:

1. 7 of Pentacles. Patience. There's a lot of love, a lot of effort from many different people going into this play.

2. The World. Growth and potential, honesty, influencing ideas through the play, creating a new world.

3. Ace of Pentacles, influencing the heart. Contentment of soil.

4. 10 of Pentacles, influencing the head. Wealth of ideas.

5. 10 of Cups, describing the recent past. A very enlightened project of great harmony.

6. The Magician, describing the near future. Male genius principle. ;)

7. The High Priestess, describing myself. I am the one who looks inward.

8. 6 of Cups, influencing events. Nostalgia.

9, 9 of Swords, hopes and fears. Radical change.

10. The Fool, outcome. The young one, revelling into the beauty of life, stepping into the unknown.

A mixed review.

Here's our review from Today newspaper on Monday, 9 April 2007, Plus, p24-25.

I'm not too bothered about his star rating - the performance he saw definitely wasn't one of our best - and he raises the same issue Richard does regarding our superficial efforts to discuss performance art history in Singapore. But it's odd that he feels we should have left out the legendary women segments, which Life! reviewer Hong Xinyi felt were the strongest thematic force in the play. Should I hire a dramaturg to decide?

A bad review :)

Check out our first online review (in a Singapore arts journal, anyhow), on Theatrex by editor Richard Chua.

Basically, his main charge against us is that we tried to do too much on stage - which is quite true; there were many themes I wanted to at least touch on and I wasn't able to do them all justice. But I'm surprised at his view that we should have reduced the play to a plain, simple biographical story - no references to Singapore art, politics and censorship. Rich, there are people in the MDA who want to kiss you right now.

Feel free to go to his site and comment on how apt and well-crafted his essay is. :)

Meat the (s)crew Part Too

Here're the photos of our as-yet-unphotographed crew from Harry's depicted our fatigued but still fuckable crew (Robin Loon just scolded me for using the word "fuckable" too many times in this blog, and I'm eager for his accusation not to be made in vain).

Actually hor, we were supposed to have our shots in the programme, but since Fran's photophobic (yeah I know that's used incorrectly), we decided to leave out our faces in unison. So instead, meet us in our least dignified poses:



Though they aren't credited in your little red booklet, Cynthia Sim and Rydwan Anwar have been vital forces in getting the play staged. She's the Finance and Admin Executive at Toy, and he's a Programming Officer at Esplanade, attached to our play. Poor him.



Another camera-shy personality, Fiona Lim is our terribly capable wardrobe mistress. (We sewed the diamantes on the dildo straps together!). Turns out Fiones used to be an actress, so she believes she needs make-up before she looks presentable. But that would be to gild the lily.



More young and pretty people. Here're Tham Phui Yen, the multimedia operator (who twiddles the tech so the numbers pop on and off the monitors at the right times) and Desmond Foo Wei Lun, the sound operator. They're both in Poly.



From left to right, June Wong, sole member of the stage crew (yep, she's the one rushing back and forth with the penknives and tofu and bloodied chains and other sex toy props), Nureen Raidah, Assistant Stage Manager (who also doubles as make-up artiste), and Stanley Ng, Stage Manager. Stanley's particularly invested in this project, because Loretta is his teacher at LaSalle. Apple polisher. Bootlicker. Pai ma pi. (Why does every insult sound like a sexual innuendo on this blog?)



You've seen Desmond Chen, choreographer, before in my previous post about our very cute and snoggable crew (time for adjective variation, donchathink?). But beside him is Eleine Ng, one of the cast - our only chorus member, whom we dragged into this production in its final stages when it became apparent that we needed more bodies on the floor.

I still have no pictures of sound designer Don Richmond and multimedia designer Ho Tzu Nyen. But I'll get them eventually, doncha worry.

Incidentally, my folks came tonight, with much apprehension. My father was nonplussed, but my mother loved it - better than my previous works. I think it was the boobies that made the difference. Thanks to everyone for making my parents proud (at least my mum lah!).

World's Biggest Gangbang director arrested in Thailand!

Yep, it's true. John T. Bone (né John Bowen), the fat old British skeezebag who conceived and directed The World's Biggest Gangbang, and then cheated our lady Annabel out of her promised US$10,000.

He was arrested in his beach house in Pattaya on Friday, 6 April (that's right, the day after our first performance) for producing porn videos, which is very illegal in Thailand. Coincidence or synchronicity? Who can tell? Get the full story from Blissbox, Mango Sauce or AVN (which, coincidentally, also did a brief story about us).

Grace Quek is reportedly very, very happy. =)

Personally, I'm more bemused that a clear breach of contract in California would only be redressed by the legal hypocrisy of Southeast Asian government ten years later. If he was shooting porn and paying his subjects adequately, he wasn't committing a crime in my book.

Of course, if you do want to get your knickers in a twist about banned movies, you should read about what the MDA's done with Martyn See's latest movie on Said Zahari, ISD detainee.

After the show

... we went to Harry's, the bar at the Esplanade. Aren't we a merry bunch.

Yes, Loretta looks unphotogenic for once. The evening shortly dissolved into a session of Chuck, Fuck, Marry, lubricated by the provision of champagne, Guinness and NACHOS.

More photos of us here.

Life!, Tuesday April 10, 2007, p8

Ignatius Low, money editor, has a viewpoint piece in today's Life! about what it was like to view 251 when he knew Grace Quek personally - in fact, he was one of the seven people who witnessed her exorcism, which, as he points out, was not forced upon her (a fact that I didn't quite realise till I read this really good interview with her by Amy Goodman on Nerve.com). Still, it's interesting that he doesn't recall their cell-group as fundamentalist or anything but "happy-clappy".

The title of Low's article is "Fable that's blurry around the edges" (other people write the headers lah), and he says he enjoyed it despite the differences - "Cynthia Lee Macquarrie, cast in the title role, managed to capture any of Grace's defining attributes - how she could be playful and a coquette and yet be serious and idealistic." He's also quite positive about the ideals of the play as a whole - "It's about the anger, loneliness and self-doubt that a Singaporean always feels when taking the path less-travelled."

He also mentioned that other contemporaries of Quek snapped up tickets to examine me. Wah lau, now I'm really nervous. I suppose I have to be glad that Loretta decided not to have us do a Q&A afterwards.

UPDATE: Even better - turns out that it was Ignatius's article on Annabel Chong as National Icon all those months back which prompted Loretta to renew her efforts to have this play created.

Postcards from the wings

Welcome to the sordid world of behind-the-scenes at the Esplanade Theatre Studio.

Aiyah, not so sordid lah. As you can see, Loretta's finally become more relaxed in her post-mortem sessions with the cast and crew.

What may be regarded as more sordid are the props we use for this play. Yeah, the wig helps Paul Lucas to look temporarily un-botak. And you see those diamantes on the strap-on dildos? I glued some of them on myself! See, I'm literary AND artistic!

Another look at the props table, in less rosy light. That monitor up in the corner gives a live view of whatever's happening on stage at the time. That's how I got to witness Loretta's proclivities for using "Blow Wind Blow" as a warm up game.

And a final shot of Anizah rushing over Amy's make-up. Break a leg, guys - Monday, our day of rest is OVER.

Cheap Thrill

I was out with Joyce Yao, one of my ex-schoolmates last week - she works for The Theatre Practice, which is committed not only to theatre research but also to community arts intitiative, such as their recent youth storytelling competition and their Poor Theatre Series, which provides emerging theatre practitioners with rehearsal space and an opportunity to perform their work to a non-paying audience. I wanted to know how come I'd never heard about this free theatre series - and realised that cheap and free theatre generally gets less publicity and media coverage than its more commercial counterparts - even in the case of DramaBox's Sing Your Way Home in last year's Singapore Theatre Festival, or Theatreworks's recent multimedia dance performance, Drift Net.

So, as an antidote to the capitalist sensationalism of 251, I'm proud to announce the launch of a listings page for theatre and dance costing $15 and under:

Cheap Thrill
http://cheap-thrill.blogspot.com

Feel free to write to me if you want your production listed. Any performance event may be listed.

Wow.

Guess what? Today (Saturday) we were really good.

Yeah, I know people thought Thursday and Friday's performances were decent, but Loretta and I were always picking on the actors for not being loud enough, not being fast enough on their feet to provide a tight, professional performance. This afternoon, at the 3pm matinee, we were finally satisfied, and the 8pm show's acting was just as good - enhanced by an extra Hokkien one-liner by Lee Weng Kee, which I'll have to document in a final, publishable script.

Paul Lucas asked me if it was as if I finally saw my play onstage as I'd intended. Oddly, I realised this wasn't the case at all - I go to the theatre prepared to have my words recast in a context in which they're unrecognisable as my own. And Loretta's cuts did work - we have a production I'm proud of.

Of course, this is bad news for those of us (yes, me included) who can't get tickets for ourselves or our loved ones. I've put my name on Sistic's waiting list, but I'm not hopeful - today even Royston Tan called up to ask for tickets and we had to say no. One guy stood outside and watched the entire show on the Theatre Studio latecomers' monitor. Fetishism gone mad, I tell you. Everyone wants a piece of the lady.

Another odd thing about our audiences: the regular theatre crowd we know and love just aren't there. They dragged their feet buying tickets; instead, non-theatregoers provoked by our libidinous publicity shots snapped up the lot - so we're mostly performing to newcomers to the world of live drama. That means there's extra pressure on us to put up a good show - which we have done today. God; let's hope the actors aren't tired out by tomorrow.

Anyway, if you can't make it for a 251 show, or you've got an extra ticket - e-mail me! Or call Sistic, because there's loads of people on their waitlist who'd kiss your toes for the opportunity. Much love!

Power and Grace

Ooh, and on today's Life! on page 15, we've got Hong Xinyi's review of the play - rather balanced , but on the whole positive: it mentions both the pluses and minuses of the show.

Also, there's a leetle article on the "was-it-or-wasn't-it" censorship of the prologue (the censored lines are now printed for all of ST's readership to see! Brace yourself for a religious riot!).

Tammy NYP

Let's talk about Tammy NYP for a second. Yeah, the Nanyang Poly girl who used her cellphone camera to film herself having unprotected sex with her boyfriend in mid-Feb 2006, and then had her image go online after her handphone was stolen. That Tammy.

Wikipedia's got a rather good log of the progress of the video - from IM links to blogs to international mainstream media and iPods, holding up as one of 20 most popularly searched terms for two weeks. Of course, there was the usual chorus of outraged dismay at the shamelessness of the girl (not at her boyfriend, who should've worn a condom, nor at the enemy who stole her phone). Mr Miyagi did an an article commenting on it all for Today newspaper. Even TalkingCock did a spoof video on Youtube.

In a rather absorbing CNET article, Tammy was even described as having "dethroned Annabel Chong". This despite the fact that she was not a "porn actress", and had never intended to disseminate herself. However, the everydayness of Tammy - quite different from the celebrity of Paris Hilton - was a wake-up call for Singaporeans. Guess what, guys. You know that sex thing? Everyone's doing it.

For the sake of Tammy's face, however, this seems like a good time to let her speak for herself - or at least someone claiming to be her, wielding a machinima mask. Does the unwilling legend truly talk back? Who knows? In any case, it's a rather piquant document.

Phew!

... well, that's the first run finished. Some tech snafus and some tightening are necessary, but incredibly, the people I spoke to liked it! Including - believe it or not - one man who'd been Grace Quek's friend in JC, and even went to his exorcism. His writeup will appear in ST on Monday.

Of course, one issue is that changes were requested from the MDA. The Esplanade does, of course, have the power in principle to bypass these requested changes, since they say they're working with us - not against us. And in the end, most changes were made on artistic grounds rather than by means of censorship.

On Tuesday, however, we were told that the MDA panel strongly requested K K Seet's opening prologue to be changed. The line they objected to was:

"In the beginning was the body."

This is problematic on the grounds that it's a Biblical allusion and may thus offend Christian sensibilities, and of course, given what a religiously unstable country Singapore is, we can't have that, can we?

As neither our sound designer nor our voice actor had time to re-record the music on Wednesday, we found it impossible to change the recording on opening night, Thursday. Our decision was to muffle the line instead. By tonight (or the weekend?) the line will be changed, with no great impact on the overal integrity of the work.

An Esplanade employee I spoke to insists that censorship did not occur, because, after all, they're co-creators of the work. But they do urge us to re-record as soon as humanly possible. What can I, a relative newcomer to the Singapore theatre scene, do but accept their word?

Incidentally, if you can't get tickets to 251, I'd strongly recommend going to the other productions in the Esplanade Theatre Studio Season, which was uniformly strong in 2006. I'd especially recommend Cake Theatrical Productions's Nothing.

Also playing this weekend are 72-13's A Wonderful Weekend, the Finger Players' 0501, and the Fun Stage's Unsense. Go buy tickets. :)

Ooh, and happy Easter, everyone. Chag sameach!

Ad Nauseam

Hey everyone,

The show opens in 45 minutes. As I'm sure everyone's aware, we had a front-page story in Life! today, by Hong Xinyi. We also had an interview with Reuters last night from a very cool Egyptian lady who's covering arts and lifestyle for the whole of East Asia. (I agree: wah lau.)

AND - we're sold out.

I know. I couldn't believe it when I heard the news. 15 shows, including matinees.
I hadn't even bought the discounted tickets for my siblings and my best friends. Which means that only strangers are going to watch my piece.

I am a bundle of nerves. I mean, it's illogical - the actors have far more right to be paranoid than I. But I feel cut off, impotent from the development of the play from now on - I was so nervous last night, I woke up at 5am and couldn't sleep. I feel like vomiting and pushing my face into a meat grinder (although come to think of it, that means my brains and my puke would get mixed into the same protein shake, which seems unbecoming somehow). I was biting my own arms last night while watching bits of the run.

The very least I can say, though - is that all this publicity has been a theatrical experience in itself. And going by ticket sales, it's been a very successful one.

God, I hope everything goes well. Cross my heart and hope to swallow if I blow chunks.

Ooh, here's the article from Reuter's, plus a bad photo of the nice journalists:

Whore or hero? Singapore porn star's life on stage
By Miral Fahmy

SINGAPORE, April 5 (Reuters Life!) - Few Singaporeans have courted controversy like sex star Annabel Chong, but a new play about her life which opens on Thursday aims to reveal the person behind the pornography.

"251" is named after Chong's most famous film, "The World's Biggest Gang Bang", in which she set a world record for engaging in 251 sexual acts with around 70 men over a 10-hour period in January 1995.

Starring, produced and directed by Singaporeans, the play also marks a milestone for this city-state which has long
considered Chong a pariah and where oral and anal sex, as well as pornographic films, are banned.

"Singapore has definitely opened up much more in terms of what it's willing to allow on stage," said playwright Yi-Sheng
Ng, who has been fascinated by Chong's life since he heard about her infamous film as a teenager.

"She's an icon, a figure of the taboo, of doing that which is forbidden and scandalous in Singapore, she's one of our country's great anti-heroes," he told Reuters.

Chong, born Grace Quek, was born in 1972 to a conservative Christian family in Singapore, where she excelled at some of the country's top schools. While studying law in London on a government scholarship, she was gang-raped in a rubbish tip.

Aged 21, she went on to do graduate studies in California and then started working in adult films. Today, she still lives in the United States, where she is a Web designer, and refuses to talk to the media about her days as Chong.

"251" is the second biographical production about the actress, who is perhaps one of Singapore's best-known exports.

In 1999, a U.S. film student produced a documentary titled "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story", which was nominated for a Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival the same year.

The film, which highlights her substance abuse and tendencies towards self-harm and depression, is also banned in Singapore.

Loretta Chen, the director of "251" which is produced by Toy Factory, said government authorities had vetted the script and laid down some "guidelines" that included toning down some of the language as well as ruling out nudity and scenes that depicted group sex.

But she said the staging of the play showed Singapore's government was also changing with the times.

"Ten years ago, this would not have happened, but with the Internet and the accessibility of porn today, this forces the authorities to address such issues," she said.

Chen, who got Quek's blessings, hopes audiences will come out of the play realising that Chong was a product of Singaporean values, as well as "a person with family, friends and feelings".

"When I started researching, I got intrigued with the idea of her being a national hero ... someone who dared to break boundaries," she said. "The only reason she is not considered a hero is because what she did was a sexual act and we don't consider that to be heroic in any way."

Meet the (s)crew

You've already met the cast (or if you haven't, see this previous entry). But what about the stalwart workers behind the scenes... the crew, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!!!

I got a number of (bad) photographs of us at the first run rehearsal about a month ago; many apologies for my tardiness in only uploading them now. This is me trying to capture the plenitude of our creative staff in audience using a very abd Yashica camera and a mirror.


Meet the inimitable Yo Shao Ann, our lighting designer in funky glasses (kena nominate for best lighting in this year's Life Theatre Awards!) and our costume designer Lai Chan (he's pizza-faced because he's undergoing laser treatment for his acne - don't worry, soon he'll be as smooth as a baby's buttocks, but much more legally fuckable).

This is our set designer, Ripple Sim (also known as Nipple, or - my personal preference - Mul-Ripple Orgasm). She's the cutest one of us, IMHO! 20 years old only... and her boyfriend's just as yummy.

Fran Borgia and Ho Tzu Nyen (not pictured) are our multimedia designers - they just did a brain-boggling conceptual art lecture/performance entitled "King Lear: The Avoidance of Love" at the Esplanade for Sparks 4. Fran is Spanish, and also very fuckable, even though Loretta finds Tzu Nyen even more so (this, coming from a big lesbo, is quite a compliment). Sadly, Fran is straight, and Tzu Nyen's married to a woman. So we'll have to be content on deriving virtual, intellectual stimulation from these young men; pleasures of the mind, alas, must be sublimated from the flesh.

(Update: turns out that Fran has a personal taboo against replication of his image [helas! That such beauty should wither without documentation!] so I've censored him, gracefully.)


Desmond Chen is our choreographer. Do we have a covergirl/boy ensemble or what?

One of our make-up girls, Anizah. (I have to get photos of the others! And is there a PC way to say make-up girl? Cosmetician?)

This guy - Megah Laksana Ashari - was originally supposed to be our multimedia operator, but that job's gone to a student named Tham Pui Yen now. (I had to leave the picture in - how many real afros are there in Singapore?)
Finally, our Production Manager Hatta's in the upper right-hand corner. Loretta's brainstorming with us over Ripple's set design, which I'll be seeing for the first time in full-scale tonight at the full-dress.

And of course, we needed fuel from Maxwell Food Centre to help us think creatively. Singaporeans run on their stomachs.

Queer eyes

Incestuously, I've got my gay and lesbian homies down to do reportage on 251 on the pan-Asian queer website Fridae.com and Singapore's "juiciest" gay-themed podcast, Queercast.

Fridae news editor Sylvia Tan's done a news story and e-mail interview with us, here. Watch out - Loretta and I typed our mouths off.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Deroose (whom I profiled in SQ21) agreed to do an interview with us for Queercast last Saturday... Sorry about the sound quality; I got hungry and Loretta was late, so we were munching at Glutton's Square... then Lor and I had to rush off to "King Lear: The Avoidance of Love", a performance lecture/experiment by our multimedia designers Ho Tzu Nyen and Fran Borgia, featuring our actress Amy Cheng... wah lau, the arts community here is damn small, man!

Anyway, the podcast itself is here. Enjoy!

Dancing on the jetty!

Cynthia Lee Macquarrie and Cheryl Miles workshopping during our retreat... by inventing a childhood friendship between themselves, focussed on a shared obsession with Bananarama. (No idea if this made it into the final version of the play!)

...and some preliminary choreography

Cheryl Miles teaches Paul Lucas how to dance.

251 publicity shoot

This makes me so happy.

Y'know, a couple of nights ago, Nora Samosir called me a media whore. I requested to be known as a Media Meretrix, because a) it sounds more refined, and b) that way I also get to be an MM.

Anyway, as sighted in the Esplanade tunnel:

And in the Esplanade itself, on the second floor:

Chen Xi's "Fly Onto Clouds"

I betcha read about the case of that Chinese nude oil painting which had to be hidden from the eyes of minors a month back. I'd wanted to mention this because 251 is also about women's sexuality, art and repression. Why the hell are we so scared of women's eroticism? Why the hell is an oil painting controversial all of a sudden?

If anyone has a graphic of the original work (the one on the side is a screengrab from Psycho, stupid), please tell us. Scandal breeds curiosity.

The following article is from here.

Nude painting sold after Singapore prohibits general viewing

Singapore- A 4-metre-high nude painting barred from general public viewing in restrictive Singapore has been sold for 60,000 US dollars to an art collector, the gallery owner said on Wednesday. The painting by China artist Chen Xi showed a naked woman covered with soap suds and a parrot flying overhead.

The work, Fly Onto Clouds, was part of a month-long exhibition of Chen's works at the atrium of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts building.

SooBin gallery owner Chua Soon Bin managed to display it for only a few hours during a reception. The ministry pointed to guidelines stipulating that nude or erotic artworks "should not be displayed in venues which are easily accessible to general audiences, including
children and youth."

He was allowed to show it in his gallery to prospective buyers.

Chua took the painting back to the gallery and had to display it horizontally since the ceiling was not high enough to accommodate the work.

"It's an important painting and people like to collect major paintings," gallery-owner Chua said.

The painting was sold to a Singaporean, whose identity was withheld.

Chen told The Straits Times she plans to paint at least four other nude paintings for a solo exhibition in Beijing this year.

"I hope Singapore can become more open in the future," the 38-year-old artist was quoted as saying.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

Also see here, here, and here.

Us at the Life! Theatre Awards

The theme was "Curse of the Golden Flower and Other Dysfunctional Royalty". But mostly, we came as sluts.

Cynthia Lee Macquarrie in a slinky calligraphy cheongsam, Loretta Chen as an Indian princess (she got nominated before for Best Director for Ten Brothers, don't pray-pray) and Cheryl Miles as a can-can temptress.

Here we are again - on the right, that's me as LKY and Anne (Loretta's gf) as the Emperor Pu Yi. I dig those glasses.

TODAY, 29 March 2007, plus section, p32-33

Lovely interview by David Chew... :)

Photos from the first runthrough!

ONE WEEK AWAY OMG OMG OMG

Yesterday we did interviews with Today (should be getting a front cover story soon!) and with 8-Days - just us girls: Cynthia, Cheryl, Amy, Loretta and me. I do have some shots of my own, but my new Yashica camera refuses to upload pics onto a computer (it says it's supposed to be plug'n'play... what's with that?). Youtube rejects my videos, too. Technologically cursed, I am. Sorry for the lack of media.

Similarly, the mysterious post below was removed 'cos the Esplanade doesn't want us discussing their negotiations with the MDA on how much of the script we'll have to cut and how much to preserve - we'll probably come through whole in the end; doncha worry, and if we do get cut that'll be entirely in keeping with the theme of porn, won't it? :)

But seriously, there are important people at the top who've made concerned phonecalls to us to politely suggest changes to the play. I'm touched, I truly am - such people truly believe in the transformative power of art.

Anyway, this is just a li'l note to let my friends know that I can get a 10% employee discount for them if they buy through me - drop me an e-mail with the date you wanna come and I'll book ahead. Sorry, buckeroos; friends only - how else am I gonna know if you'll pay me back?

Hey! Hey! MDA!

(As per request, this entry has gone away.)

Digital music

I think this might be interesting to forward to our sound designer. -YS

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kiat Han
Date: Mar 21, 2007 1:50 AM
Subject: 251 & ii-V-I
To: Ng Yi-Sheng

Dear Yi-Sheng,

This is Kiat Han. I spoke to you a coupla hours ago at the Theatre Idols show.

251 isn't merely the Annabel Chong number. Like I said, 251 is also ii-V-I, the very common musical progression in Jazz music.

Wikipedia has everything. Check this out- II-V-I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. How incredible!

have fun,

Kiat Han

Art Jam, March issue, p23-25

This NTU arts magazine features an interview with Loretta. Cannot scan leh...

AP, Friday 16 March 2007

Stage group to tell story of Annabel Chong, Singapore's most infamous porn star
By GILLIAN WONG
Associated Press Writer

SINGAPORE (AP) _ A play about the life of local porn star Annabel Chong _ who gained international notoriety for her 1995 film showing her perform 251 sex acts in 10 hours _ is likely to push the envelope of public tolerance in conservative Singapore.

The play's producers hope that it will challenge some of the preconceptions of Singaporeans, who have long professed a love of traditional "Asian values," even as the government tries to portray a slightly more liberal image.

The video of Chong's antics, which the producers billed as a world record at the time, has never been available in Singapore's stores because pornography is banned here, and Chong has since retired from the industry.

But now Singapore's Toy Factory Productions, an independent stage group, is revisiting the X-rated actress' brief but controversial career in a play titled "251" that opens next month.

"251" explores a little known side of Chong _ including her troubled experience with religion as a teenager, a violent sexual assault as a college student overseas, and the intellectual premise of the video that earned her a spot in porn history.

"Whether we like her or absolutely hate her, we can't deny the fact that she is very much part of our national psyche," said director Loretta Chen. The cast includes local actress Cynthia Lee-MacQuarrie and four others.

But "251" has already been criticized even before its April 5 opening.

"I think its cheap and vulgar to use Annabel Chong as (a) play production," one user named "Tommy" wrote in an Internet online forum last month.

Playwright Ng Yi-Sheng, who wrote "251," said the criticism was unsurprising.

"Annabel is iconic to all Singaporeans because she's a force of sexual chaos," Ng said. "Just to say her name is to suggest a taboo."

In one scene, the Chong character encounters a childhood friend to whom she reveals that her exploits have perhaps affected her self-esteem.

"You never sold out," the friend says.

"I sold my body to everyone - to the church, to the strip club clientele, even the lonely men and women in their homes in front of their video screens," the actress responds.

Director Chen said there would be partial nudity in the play, but declined to detail how they would depict the stunts that earned the play its name.

Annabel Chong was the stage name of Grace Quek, 34, who is now said to be leading a quiet life as a Web designer in the United States since leaving the porn industry in 2003. Quek has since declined media interviews and attempts to contact her were unsuccessful.

Born into a middle-class Christian family, Quek was a top student in Singapore before she went to London to study law on a scholarship. There, she was reportedly gang raped one night.

Quek began working in adult films when she moved to the United States for postgraduate studies. Her stunt led to several media appearances, and in 1999, a documentary about her life was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Quek later admitted only about 70 men were involved in the shooting of the video, though 251 sex acts were shot. She said that she had been partially motivated by her experiences growing up in Singapore - a wealthy financial center with sometimes harsh social and political controls _ a theme Chen said "251" would also tackle.

"The notion of sex is still controversial even though we say we're opening up," Chen said.

The play, which is restricted to an over-18 audience, is being staged amid efforts by the government to boost tourism and cater to a generation exposed to overseas influences. Pornography is still banned, but more films depicting nudity have been screened uncut to restricted audiences, and racy magazines such as "Cosmopolitan" are on sale - though sealed in clear plastic to avoid browsing minors.

Another biographical Singapore play of mine...

I'm finally having my play, "The Final Temptation of Stamford Raffles", performed next Wednesday 21 March, 8pm at Action Theatre's 42 Waterloo St theatre. It's just a staged reading, part of their annual Theatre Idols competition, but I've got a solid cast - Gerald Chew, Lim Yu Beng, Janice Koh, Wendy Kweh and Jeremy Lee (the only experienced actor in the current production of the Swimming Instructor, whom I noted has a nose that French desserts should be named after).

If you guys wanna come, e-mail Action Theatre for comps - 2 to a person. Sorry leh; it won't be as sexy as 251.

Shot memory

Tonight, I'm going for the first full-run with my brand-new Yashica EZ Digital 5011 camera (it's cheap and of dubious branding, just like me.) God, I'm nervous, and I'm not even acting. Just for the hell of it, here's some shots from the original photoshoot.



Click here for more shots of our lovely leading ladies in lascivious states of undress.

Heaty Durians

Met with the Esplanade's Director of Programming J P Nathan today - also Assistant Director Jobina Tan and Programming Officer Rydwan Anwar. (Lovely office they've got in there; I ended up falling into the pebble pond. Sorry, no photo.)

The Esplanade's really in an odd spot when it comes to staging controversial works. They're a government body staffed with non-government management who really do care passionately about developing the arts in Singapore. This means that they've gotta answer both to public and official conservatism as well as to the artists' demand for freedom. If they're staging a work, it doesn't have to be vetted by the MDA beforehand. But if it's rude art, it's gotta be good art.

And they're not requesting changes or anything... Problem was, Nathan was holding on to a copy of the first draft of 251, which was a bare brainstorm of the initial ideas for the play - totally unlike the show you'll be watching in three weeks' time. And he was just terribly worried that what we'd produced would be the same kind of pornographic trash that exploits Annabel all over again. (Quite obviously, our posters haven't helped to dispel that myth.)

The Esplanade's helping us with space and tech and the director knows what else. They're collaborators in this project. Everyone's thrown heaps of passion into this project and naturally we want it to be a critical success.

But I'm also prepared for failure. You see, I've realised that when people look back at Singapore's dramatic history, they don't necessarily remember whether a play was any good. They remember that it happened. So the very fact that we've got a play about Annabel Chong off the ground is half the battle won.

Trust me; someday someone's going to look back at Annabel Chong and create another play/artwork/novel/epic musical. And there's a chance this person's going to think our play was a crock of shit, offensive and devoid of redeeming artistic value. So what? We'll have blasted out a new dimension to the legend. We'll have made a new myth.

Better than just staging tried-and-true favourites over and over again, drawing audiences who'll just go home to compare it to the 1988 version. Isn't that happening a lot recently? Sure, we need our classics, but I miss the '90s, when more than half of all scripts performed were new. Big institutions have gotta take risks and support new plays, new companies, new ideas.

God, I really hope we get glowing reviews and slaps on the back and bouquets and shit, and that the Esplanade doesn't find its faith in us misplaced. But after all that nail-biting, I have to go home and get back to writing.

The passion of the artist is not to succeed, but to create.

Histrionics on the jetty

Some zany pictures from the chalet of Lee Weng Kee and Amy Cheng improvising at the Changi chalet. Doncha love the cast? That's Paul Lucas in the foreground, btw.

Trans Crypt

I've been extremely remiss about updating this blog. For one thing, the webchat transcript is recorded here:

http://www.thestudios.com.sg/chat/TSS_251_chat_transcript.html

Some memorable quotes:

Dutch: For me, I was curious when I heard that we produced a porn star in the US. Later when I knew more abt her background, did I *silently* thank her for showing the world that it is not only boring old Bureacrats running a country of 4 mil zombies. WE CAN SHOCK TOO

kalidas: I agree with DUTCH

kalidas: but dont give heart attack lah

....

F_ggie: Loretta what would you say to 18year olds who come and see your play & themselves have asperiations to be like her, maybe they'll try for 252?

...

Loretta: have i seen 9 songs? no tell me about it. i want to watch it

Mouse: it really blurs the line btween porn and art

Mouse: ts 69 (lol) minutes of two people ****ing

...

F_ggie: Loretta, before you leave do we get complimentry passes for helping advertise; )

Loretta: comp passes? compliment me first!

F_ggie: YOU ARE AWESOME A PRODUCER

Incidentally, kids, Loretta's a DIRECTOR. Although she did do a lot of producer work this time round, corralling up sponsors like Okamoto (yay! Safer sex is hot sex!).

Some photos coming up...

Ghosts of Annabel Past

There's actually a number of theatrical and artistic works in Singapore which reference Annabel Chong. She's that much of an icon. I've already listed one amateur e-mail song parody, but let's look at how the arts world reacted.

The first, and possibly the most influential so far, was Alfian Sa'at's Annabel Lee's Last Stand (1999), originally performed by The Necessary Stage and directed by Jeff Chen in a series of short political sketches by Alfian and Chong Tze Chien entitled sex.violence.blood.gore.


The sketch was based on an allegorical combination of Annabel Chong and Lee Kuan Yew's biographies. The full text is available here, on Alf's blog. sex.violence.blood.gore was censored in 1999, with the police demanding that two of Chong Tze Chien's sketches and one of Alfian's not be shown. Alf was consequently very grateful when Teater Tribunalen of Stockholm, Sweden, staged his version of the script in its entirety. (The image above is from that production in 2006. Yup, those are angmohs wearing black hair extensions.)

The second, which came out in Action Theatre's first 42@Waterloo Festival (Nov 1999), was Rosita Ng's Baby, You Can Drive My Car. This was a one-woman show, performed by the playwright and directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham. Sadly, I didn't watch this (I was a poor student at the time), and Rosita's no longer in theatre, so I know very little about this production.

The third I'm aware of was Brian Gothong Tan's short video, Annabel Chong, which was exhibited as part of his installation for the Singapore Biennale, We Live in a Dangerous World. The video portrays Benny Lim of The Fun Stage in drag with a Suzie Wong-wig and red lipstick on, naked from the shoulders up, humping up and down, screaming out, "The death penalty is immoral! The death penalty is immoral!"


No video, but here's a post-production shot of his work on Imelda Goes to Singapore, another campy interrogation of a Southeast Asian legend. More of his videos here.

I'm quite sure there are references to Annabel in other media I've left out - painting, sculpture, epic poetry, Chinese calligraphy, batik, performance art, a cappella?

Suggest a few resources.

Chat with Loretta!

I nearly forgot to post this!

Is censorship doing our society more bad than good? In an increasingly liberal Singapore, what constitutes pornography and what constitutes art?

Engage in a Live webchat with director Loretta Chen about the controversial themes of her new play, 251, inspired by the infamous story of Annabel Chong, who burst into history in 1994 in a world-record 10-hour gangbang with 251 men.

Register Now!

Log on to www.thestudios.com.sg on 28 Feb 07 (Wed), 8pm and join in the chat.

Loretta, giving instructions during workshopping

This discussion will be moderated by Audrey Wong, Co-Artistic Director of The Substation.

251 is presented by Toy Factory Productions in collaboration with Esplanade as part of The Studios.

Promotion @ Two Queens!

This Thursday at Club Momo. Find out more here.

L'instructeur de la natation

Thought I might as well give a shout-out for our director's other play, The Swimming Instructor, showing at 42 Waterloo St from Fri 9 to Sun 18 March. Loretta's teaming up with film director Sherman Ong to create a filmic/live version of the play by Desmond Sim.

Buy the tickets here... Or you could just ogle the bodies on show.

Ooh, and as a critic, I feel it's only just to link to a balanced Inkpot review. ;)

Design meeting

Happy CNY! We held our design meeting just now at the Toy Factory office; wish I'd brought my camera so I could show off how gorgeous our set designer and lighting and multimedia designers are (even the orchestra is beautiful, bee-yatch).

So it seems that we'll be using a traverse stage, with video projections on the floor (anyone know a good formica deal?). We may no longer have our lingerie sponsorship; if anyone knows a tofu-producing sponsor, that would be great too.

And we'll be seating 160 people per night. That's 160 seats we want to sell out every night. And 160 X 15 performances = 2,400 bums in seats... gee willikers, that's a lot of vacancies!

I don't know if I'm more scared that the reviews will be too kind or too nasty. Loretta says: if they critics don't like it, they should lie and then tell her in private.

Ah, Loretta. She's fifty times more fabulous than I.

Beating a Retreat

On Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 February, 2007, our director Loretta Chen dug into her own pockets and booked a chalet at Changi Sailing Club.

This was where we held a retreat-cum-workshop for 251 - photos here.



Lemme introduce the cast:
From left to right: Cheryl Miles, Lee Weng Kee and Paul Lucas...


The irrepressible Amy Cheng:


And playing Annabel herself, Cynthia Lee Macquarrie:

And of course, our beloved director Loretta Chen:


Our ever-responsible stage manager Stanley Ng:

And moi. You can see why I'm not in the cast. I'm just too campy.

Grace's Anatomy

Did I mention that we're in the latest issue of FHM? Check out the March issue of FHM, p64-65. There's an interview with our dear directrix, as well as photos of our press conference - which means photos of *all of us*.

"last boy" and other autopornographies

These are slides from a presentation I just did at Rojak, discussing my craft as a writer and exhibitionist... both criteria that made me terribly eligible as playwright of 251.

1. last boy, my first book of poetry, drawing on my sexual history in New York, coupled with some extremely passionate poetry readings.



2. My experimental drag in university.


3. Which I also engaged in at the opening of the Singapore Biennale Opening Party for the sake of celebrating the carnivalesque. Components: Japanese oni demon mask and green vintage dress found in an old closet in Columbia.


4. Coverage: A wearable art intervention performed Friday, 10 November at Encounters 34: Beginning Belief, LaSalle-SIA School of the Arts. Materials: Singapore Biennale badges (X 92), Singapore Biennale tote bag, black tights, blazer and marker pen inscriptions of local contemporary artists not included in the Biennale. Reprised Saturday 11 November at the official closing party for the Biennale. Amanda Heng said she liked it. :)


5. And more recently, a grumpy protest against the proposed retention of section 377A, the Penal Code article against gay male sex, at the SQ21 blog.


There are other slides, but I'll curb my sluttiness for now. :)

Rojak!

I'll blog about the retreat we just had in a while... but first, an announcement. I'm doing a presentation this Friday night on my work at the next Rojak. It's an evening of talks by artists and designers, organised by Farm.sg, held quarterly at a cool new location every time. This time it's at Pearl Bank Apartments, near Outram MRT, where I was born and grew up.

My talk's entitled "last boy and other autopornographies". Of course, I'll be talking about 251 as well. Below is the proper invite:

09.02.2007 Fri 08.00pm till 09.02.2007

Welcome to ROJAK 07. This time, it is held in Pearlbank Apartments, part of the "Save the Modern Buildings" series. The Pearlbank Apartments, like our previous Golden Mile Complex venue, is in the midst of en bloc and possibly sold away. These architectural pieces contains many unique spaces and it will be a shame if they disappear from our local landscape. We hope that ROJAK can bring our local creatives from different disciplinaries to experience these spaces and hopefully, works can be inspired from them.

The presentation will also start earlier this time at 8pm and do come rest casually and comfortably :)

Due to the nature of our venue, there are a few things to note this time:

1. Please bring drinks to share for the ROJAK dingy. Previously, FARM always try our best to refill the drinks during ROJAK. But as this venue is far from any possible replenishment, we requested that all audience to bring something to share with the rest. It's the least you can do with all the sharing going around on ROJAK night.

2. The owner has requested that there is absolutely no smoking within the space, no sitting on the balcony ledge (which is 37th floor! yikes!!) and please do not touch the antique mirrors hung in the kitchen as they are quite reactive to water and stains (but yes, stare into yourself with them)

3. This is a private event. Please subscribe to FARM FEED for the invites and instructions on how to get to the venue (through the security).

See you soon.

See Website

An SMS from Loretta

Hey all! Good news - Just got an email from Grace, she got my package and your note, everything's cool. Her only complaint is the eyeshadow on Cynthia Lee, she says it's bad makeup job! But otherwise, all cool;-)

FUCKANABEH CHOW CHEE BYE!!!

That was a yell of triumph. I've just finished Draft 3.

(In my contract, it states that Draft 4 should've been ready 2 days ago, but Loretta liked Draft 2 so much she decided she'd give me a break. We'll see on Friday's tech reading whether she's dug her own grave.)

Random question

Why do people keep on misspelling her name as "Annabelle Chong"?

E-mail with da She-male

The Sunday Times today ran its weekly "E-mail Interview" with our director Loretta Chen - who is anatomically female, of course; it's just that she resembles a drag queen in every other way. :)

Check the main section today, just behind the back page - "Who says only women go topless", p43, interview conducted by Kelvin Wong.

Don't Cry for Me Singapura

It was not easy, you'd think it hurts

Though I try to explain how it felt

That I could still get up and run

After two hundred and fifty-one

It took much effort

All you will see is a girl you once knew

Although she's not wearing anything at all

And trying to do it some more

I had to let it happen, I had to change

Couldn't spend all my life down here

Looking out of the window, in a blue pinafore

So I chose freedom, running around,

Trying every man I knew,

But no dick impressed me at all,

I never expected it to

Don't Cry For Me Singapura

The truth is I never left you

All through my orgies, my mad orgasms

I've done my best now, so buy the video

And as for headlines, and as for shame

I'd never invited them in

Though it seemed to The New Paper

They were all I desired

They are illusions

They're not truths the reporter claimed them to be

The answer was clear all the time

I love it, so what's your problem?

Don't cry for me Singapura

Don't read the newspaper either

All through their wild lies, their crazy stories

They hurt my loved ones, to make more money?

Have I screwed too much

Is there no one else tonight I can think of to try to take

But don't deceive yourself, tell me that it's true

That you took delight in it too!

Note: this piece is not by me - in fact, I remember getting this in my e-mail back when I was in JC in 1997 - it's some random citizen's parody of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. If anyone knows who the original author was, please tell me so I can give proper credit. Source here.

Lianhe Zaobao, e@News, Friday 19 January 2007, p9

Some coverage from the Chinese press! The title reads, "Cynthia Lee: This isn't the first time I'm going topless on stage". Sigh, how come everyone thinks this play's about sex? ;-D

Topless okay, but no full frontal

That's the title of the New Paper article that ran last Thursday:

Acting the part of former porn actress Annabel Chong will be challenging, Cynthia Lee-Mcquarrie tells SHEELA NARAYANAN
January 19, 2007

THE first thing Cynthia Lee-Mcquarrie did when she got the lead role in Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble's production, 251, was tell her mother about it.

The 26-year-old actress told The New Paper: 'I said to her, 'Ma, I tell you first ah, I am playing Annabel Chong (ex-porn actress)'.

'I had to prepare her before the relatives found out.'

Cynthia is an old stage hand at tackling sexy roles. She took off her top as Bunny the prostitute in the stage version of Eric Khoo's film Mee Pok Man, and was one of the Kit Kat Klub girls in last year's raunchy historical musical Cabaret.

Which prompted her to joke that every time a hot role was up for grabs, she would inevitably get offered the part.

She said: 'I don't know what it is. If it's a sexy role, call Cynthia.

'And my poor mother will always get questions from relatives asking her, 'Why your daughter always play sexy roles?' It was best to warn her about this one.'

So why is she doing it?

'I was curious about why they were bringing her back. When (director) Loretta (Chen) explained it to me, that it was about her role in our society, I understood it was offering people a different way of seeing the same picture.

As for being typecast in sexy roles, Cynthia said: 'I rather be typecast than not be cast at all.'

251 is based on the life of former porn actress Annabel, a persona created by Singaporean Grace Quek, now 35. (See report on facing page.)

The title is a reference to Ms Quek's claim of setting a record in 1995 by having sex with 251 men in 10 hours.

251's cast includes veteran actor Lee Weng Kee and Amy Cheng, who play Ms Quek's parents, as well as Cheryl Miles who plays Asia Carrera, a porn actress and Grace's friend.

While there have been many references to Annabel's sex video in other local plays, this is the first time a full-length production is being made about her life.

Annabel, as Cynthia found out after she took on the role, still polarised people.

She said: 'When I told my friends that I was going to play Annabel, I had two reactions, they were either horrified or fascinated.

'One person told me, 'Oh no, why? This is going to be a career breaker'.'

Loretta, 30, an associate lecturer at LaSalle-SIA and a research fellow at the National University of Singapore, agreed that Annabel is still a somewhat controversial topic, even 10 years on.

She said the idea for the play came up during a discussion with Goh Boon Teck, the artistic director of Toy Factory, about the video sex scandals that have hit headlines here, such as the Tammy video.

This is the infamously-circulat ed video clip where a polytechnic student used a camera phone to film herself and her boyfriend having sex. When she lost the phone, the clip ended up on the Internet in February last year.

Loretta said: 'When I read about these sex videos like Tammy, I realised Annabel Chong, in a way, pioneered it 10 years ago.

'And then I thought about her record and how this country is so obsessed about breaking records and all the discussions in the media last year... I wondered how someone like Annabel would be received today?

'Whether we understand it or not, what she did was impactful and still reverberates in our collective psyche.'

Loretta said she wants to focus on the person behind the persona, instead of Ms Quek's sensational career.

She said: 'She is such an urban legend in a way. It seems everybody knows somebody who knew her in school - like a six degrees of Annabel.

'I wanted to present a different perspective to what we know of Annabel from that sensational video. Why this intellectual young woman did what she did.'

However, she denied that she was taking advantage of, or cashing in on, the myth of Annabel Chong.

She said: 'It is controversial, it will always be controversial but it is worthy of interest and discussion.'

Loretta added that she has watched Annabel's infamous orgy video in LA and described it as 'the most anti-porn porn video' because it was shot in such 'a documentary- like manner, it wouldn't arouse anybody'.

So, will 251 contain that infamous orgy scene from the video?

THIRD DRAFT

Loretta said it is still being considered as the script has not been finalised yet and is currently
undergoing a third draft. Even if it is included, the scene will be stylised, she explained.

Likewise, she couldn't give any indication whether there'll be nudity.

251 has received an R(A) 18 rating because of its theme and subject matter.

Loretta said she never expected a PG or G rating from the onset but one of her concerns was whether they would be allowed to even stage the play at all.

Cynthia said she was okay with going topless but not full-frontal.

Helming the script is newbie playwright Ng Yi-Sheng. He took over the reins from veteran Tan Tarn How, who had been unable to commit to the project due to his tight schedule.

Yi-Sheng, 26, a recent literature and creative writing graduate from New York's Columbia University admitted the project is daunting.

But he emphasised that he was not out to vilify or glorify Ms Quek.

Does Ms Quek know about this play on her past?

Toy Factory said it made numerous attempts to reach her via e-mail and through her friends.

It eventually contacted her in December through author Gerrie Lim, who declined to be interviewed for this article.

According to Loretta, Ms Quek gave her blessings for the production.

She said: 'She was in town last month to visit her family and we were meant to meet up. Then it didn't happen as she changed her mind.

'She told Gerrie that we could do whatever we wanted. She said her Annabel days are over.'

Ms Quek still lives in the US, working as a web designer and consultant.

Cynthia believes that meeting Ms Quek might actually not help her in her role.

She said: 'I would like to play her as a fictional character as the play is fictional anyway. It's just
based on a real person.'

Her bigger worry is bracing herself for the onslaught of public comments that will eventually appear.

'I don't want my portrayal to offend Ms Quek's family and friends, but I don't think I need to explain why I am doing this part.

'I won't say that I'm not worried but I am going to deal with it when it comes.'

The story behind Annabel Chong

SHE attended top schools Raffles Girls Secondary and Hwa Chong Junior College before moving to London as a law student in 1994.

At 21, Ms Grace Quek moved on to study photography, art and feminist studies at the University of Southern California.

Her involvement with the pornography industry started when she answered an advertisement in an LA magazine.

She met porn director John T Bone - whom she once described in an interview as 'sleazy' - and her career as Annabel began.

In 1995, Annabel made headlines around the world, when she starred in a video directed by Bone, where she reportedly had sex with 251 men over a 10-hour period
to break a previous record of 121.

She later told online magazine Spike in 2000 that the actual number of men was only 70.

Singaporeans first heard about Ms Quek's exploits when the video began circulating on the Internet.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

In an exclusive interview with The New Paper in January 1997, she said: 'I was brought up in a
conservative society. I went through a serious identity crisis and a phase of finding out who I
really was.

'I found that the more I talked about who I really was and what sex meant to me, the less I wanted to hide the real me.'

Ms Quek's life later became the subject of a documentary entitled, Sex: The Annabel Chong story, which was a hit at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

In the documentary by filmmaker Gough Lewis, which was never released here, she claimed she was gang-raped by four men while studying in London.

Ms Quek continued working in the porn industry for about six years, acting in as well as directing her own films.

She also set up her own adult website. In May 2003 she shut it down declaring, 'Annabel Chong is dead', and retired from the industry.

Press

Incidentally, we got coverage yesterday in The New Paper and Life!. Will scan in the articles soon.

The conference went well... reporters turned up late, as usual, and the weather was a bit wet, but everyone was fabulous. Many thanks to our volunteer cast and crew.

SYNOPSIS

(Just 'cos I thought you'd like to know:)

Annabel Chong burst into history in 1994 in a world-record 10-hour gangbang with 251 men. The first porn star to come out of Singapore, she became one of the most internationally recognised Singapore icons, right next to the Merlion and Tiger Balm. With her unique brand of feminism, she became the focus of feverish media attention and a controversial public figure, not least because she represented an otherwise conservative country.

Haunted by her memories of home, history, her strict religious upbringing, she struggles to reinvent herself as Grace Quek, the digital diva and matrix mistress. Join us on this racy journey set amidst the landscape of her boudoirs, sleazy studios, raunchy strip clubs, porn parties and the constantly evolving world of cyberspace.

(And of course, by the third draft, everything will change again...)

Press Conference

Well, the press con is tomorrow at Loof. I've done up a cute sketch, based on the Adult Video Network Awards, to promote the show, and of course it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual content of 251, absolutely nothing.

And instead of working on Draft 3, I'm busy setting up a blog for this play. It's my first professional commissioned piece in 9 years, and the first full-length piece I'm being paid money to write.

Many thanks to my director Loretta Tan for support. I'll be posting tidbits as I go along, to fill blog-surfers with an artificial sense of anticipation for the play.

And in case you can't wait, buy your tickets now.

Kickoff

Testing!