Presents
Three Children
Three young people – two sisters and a brother – are troubled by fear and guilt harking back to their past. They decide to return to the childhood house in Kappan Road to encounter the fount of their troubles.
They go back to Kappan Road in the guise of children on horses making a dream journey. Somebody is chasing them, and they go ever deeper into the jungle, looking for a something ‘like a temple on a hill’. Riding deeper into the jungle, they see visions, peaceful and fearful, of water babies (‘the children of evil’), of meditative masks with god’s faces.
Their journey gets ‘curioser and curioser’. The sun rises in promising glory, but only to give way swiftly to fitful night. They stand in line waiting for the temple door to be opened. One among them is found to be barefoot, and somehow this is a terrible thing. But her size shoes –195- are not to b found in the shoe shop.
What are they to do? Suddenly, the other two also find themselves barefoot and bereft. During breaks in their dream journey, they relive their childhood in Kappan Road. They remember their school lessons about Mrs Lee’s fishcake, and their secret adventures as The Famous Five. They remember the cruel song about “And Tau Mooi” and ‘the bride without flowers in her hair’, the story of the neighbourhood dirty old man, Peng Chek, and the unseemly tale of the quarrelling Ah Ter and Pua Ti.
They also recall their aunt Ah Kim, the child who was given away, of how she grew up and gambled her life away.
And they imagine her as a ghost condemned to roam the netherworld forever.
They finally come home again, but the house of their memories is not the same. The visions of dread and gloom continue to pursue them. Who are these figures, and what is that relentless drumming they hear. Did the journey of return make a difference in their lives?
Playwright
Leow Puay Tin
Directors
Krishen Jit
Ong Keng Sen
Music
Mark Chan
Set
Justin Hill
Lighting
Dora Tan
Costume
William Teo
Sebastian Zeng
Chinese Opera Trainer
Joanna Wong
Tari Acheh Choreographer
Marion d’ Cruz
Hair / Mask
Ashley Lim
Print Design
Karen Hoisington
Producer
Teo Swee Leng
----------
Performers
Lim Kay Tong
Lok Meng Chue
Claire Wong
Neo Swee Lin
Dancers
Farron B.
Karen Foo
Jamil Bin Maswan
Hassan Othman
Melina Quek
Musicians
Mark Chan
Koh Joo Kim
Andrea Teo
Edward Goh
11 – 19 November 1988
The Drama Centre
Singapore
1992 production
(only main changes indicated)
Artistic Adviser
Kazuyoshi Kushida
Japanese Translation
Kazuko Matsuoka
Katsumi Yamamoto
Lighting
Tracie Howitt
Print Design
Goh Eck Kheng (Singapore)
Liew Kung Yu (Kuala Lumpur)
Producer
Tay Tong
---------
Performers
Loong Seng Onn
Lok Meng Chue
Claire Wong
Tan Kheng Hua
And
Hideko Yoshida (Narrator in Japan)
Musicians
Mark Chan
Sunetra Fernando
Koh Joo Kim
Lim Yu Beng
23 January 1992 – 2 February 1992
The Drama Centre
Singapore
12 – 15 February 1992
Five Arts Centre
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
28 February – 1 March 1992
Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon
Tokyo, Japan
4 March 1992
Nishi Ward Public Hall
Yokohama, Japan