Merlynn: And actually the existence of this street spirituality is quite literal in Singapore. To the point where there’s a place called Haw Par Villa, which is like this hell theme park, I kid you not. Like actually a theme park of the Chinese 18 levels of hell that you bring children to. Where it’s like: ‘Oh look this man’s tongue is being cut off’ and ‘that person’s being boiled in oil’. And it’s just like part of everyday life. And also everywhere you’re going there’s always a Chinese funeral happening – it’s really common. I mean it looks so a part of the world and not like a funeral that when I was in Singapore with a crew from Australia doing a film, they started like wandering into the funeral to have a feast because there was just food everywhere. Joe: There’s food, it’s out, I guess it looks like a buffet maybe? Merlynn: Yeah! It looks like a celebration. And it is celebratory. So those are the kind of specific feelings and the specific vibe that we’re trying to bring into the work. Joe: Which is why the design of the work isn’t just representational of an idea or a set, it is embedded in the very meaning of the work and the aesthetic – how it looks, how it sounds, how it feels is so crucial to what we’re trying to describe and what we’re trying to put on stage.
Image: Liv Morison
Tell us about your collaboration
Joe: So I think what I’ve enjoyed the most in terms of working together is it’s just felt like we’ve been hanging out. So we talk, we eat, we laugh, maybe we work a little bit, we eat, we laugh some more and then kind of through that has come this really organic kind of writing relationship that is really at once kind of fun and free flowing, but also we’re kind of rigorous about structural and storytelling things in the same way. So it’s felt really natural but also really fun. Merlynn: Yeah absolutely and I feel like we have the same kind of discipline when it comes to rigour – and we approach work very similarly. But also I think our skill sets are actually quite opposite in some ways and complement each other really well. I’ve never written like this before. I’ve mostly written on my own. So this has felt really joyous and there’s an ease and a flow to it. I can’t wait to see how that energy translates to the stage.
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