Singapore, Michigan

by Chong An Ong
Pangdemonium
The Singapore Airlines Theatre
LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore

I was in the shower when the call came.

I scrambled out, furiously towelling off, as a genteel voice on the other line offered me a job at one of London's biggest and most prestigious law firms. As an overseas Singaporean student wrapping up university, it was a life-changing moment. Should I stay on in the UK to start my career or return to Singapore – a place where everything was clean, comforting and familiar but where I inevitably felt pigeonholed and forced to live life according to a script? I still remember gripping my flip phone, water pooling at the floor.

Pangdemonium’s latest production, written by Chong An Ong and directed by Timothy Koh, features a young Singaporean couple at a similar crossroads. Manish (Shrey Bhargava) and Carol (Ching Shu Yi) are students in their final year of university in the US. In the dead of winter, they decide to take a road trip with their American friend Jesse (Zane Haney) to check out a ghost town in Michigan called Singapore – once a thriving place but now buried beneath sand dunes and sadly forgotten following deforestation of the surrounding area. When the trio get snowed in due to a blizzard that makes driving practically impossible, tensions rise, secrets are spilled and difficult choices have to be made.

We never visit either version of Singapore – the real and the forgotten – but they stand like ghosts over this intimate, deeply empathetic drama that unfolds for the most part in a motel room where the friends are holed up. 

Photo Credit: Pangdemonium

Practical, no-nonsense Manish is ready to return home with a solid degree, serve out his scholarship bond and plan the next chapter of his life. Jesse, a carefree writer who believes in the American ideal of individuality, is all for living life fully and embracing every opportunity that comes his way. Carol, caught somewhere in between, is an environmental science major who is drawn to advocacy work in the US but must deal with the pressures of taking over her wealthy family’s oil and gas business back home. Should she choose duty or passion? Her head or her heart? 

Debut playwright Chong, who draws on his own experiences studying abroad, has crafted a play that wears its themes lightly but with a quiet fecundity, interrogating what it means to have a relationship with a place even when one is on the other side of the world and what the idea of "home" truly means. The choices these characters have to make may seem trivial, and indeed smack of privilege, but can end up shaping the entire course of their life. 

And indeed, as any Singaporean who has been in a similar position may agree, there is so much complexity in these decisions. Familial obligations are naturally a major point. Manish cannot contemplate the thought of breaking his bond and saddling his hardworking immigrant parents with debt. Carol resents the idea of a staid corporate life in an industry she is ethically opposed to but feels obligated to the family who funded her expensive degree. Her lone act of rebellion is in dating an Indian boy even though she knows her parents will never approve. How many Singaporeans have compromised their choice of career, housing or even life partner simply to please their parents? 

Photo Credit: Pangdemonium

Koh infuses this dense, layered text with brisk pacing and sharp performances. Bhargava brings the perfect shade of Singaporean bluntness to Manish, casually deriding America at every opportunity while making repeated comparisons to things back home. Ching conjures up the dithering Carol, so desperate to forge her own identity, with subtle code-switching, something her boyfriend is only too happy to point out. Haney acts as a nice foil to the highly strung Singaporeans, easygoing for the most part but with a quiet mettle that suggests there is more to him than one may expect. We get to see all three characters together and each pair (Manish and Carol, Carol and Jesse and Manish and Jesse) then gets a scene, allowing for the dynamics to develop further. Things veer towards melodrama in the play's closing moments but we are left with a powerful image of a character bursting through the door, ready to confront their own destiny. 

The action is convincingly brought to life in Eucien Chia’s set, beautifully lit by James Tan, which features a moving, golf buggy-like car and a backdrop that hints at the snowy landscape in the opening scene. Even when inside the dingy motel room where the bulk of the action takes place, we never lose sight of the constant snowfall from the window, emblematic of that cold, uncertain world that lies outside. The sheet expanse of the space however diffuses the action and one wonders if this could have worked in a tighter, black box setting. 

It's certainly heartening to see Pangdemonium, a company that has built a reputation in staging acclaimed Broadway and West End hits, showcase a new local play (the last was Ken Kwek's This is What Happens to Pretty Girls in 2019) and I am excited to see what other voices their New Works Lab playwriting mentorship program will unearth. Singapore, Michigan is a rich, riveting and deeply relatable story that will certainly strike a chord with all audiences. 

The Crystalwords score: 3.5/5