Singapore’s Ecotheatre: Mind, Body, and Alter Ego

Abstract: Singapore’s glossy image as a well-organized wealthy city-state belies the fact that the nation comprises sixty-four islands, some of which were inhabited by Indigenous people who were forcibly removed and whose environment has been radically transformed. Other islands, with little or no population, have become icons of Singaporean nature and its entanglement with human history. During the past five years, several of Singapore’s thea-tre companies have staged works that deal with the ecology of the islands—both in relation to the main island’s development and in regard to global climate change. Playwrights, directors, and actors have imaginatively approached environmental challenges from a variety of cultural and sociopolitical perspectives, but the performances themselves often wrestle with the sticky problems of melodrama and didacticism, that is, how to present environmental issues without being preachy or simplistic.