The Plays of “Absence Makes the Heart…”

The 1962 play Mimi Fan by Lim Chor Pee, widely recognised as Singapore’s first English-language play, featured two Indian characters, Baram and Sheila Rani. In the ’70s and ’80s, playwrights Robert Yeo and Michael Chiang showcased more Indian characters in their plays. While Yeo’s were politically-minded individuals with oratorical gifts, Chiang’s were larger-than-life scene-stealers in sparkling comedies. In the 1990s, complex and even iconic roles were written, from Vinod in Haresh Sharma’s Off Centre to