Within an isolated cell, a writer tries to retain her imagination and freedom by writing stories and letters to her daughter, even as she resists attempts by her jailor to force a written confession out of her.

Meanwhile, within the magical world that the writer creates, her young heroine, Ann, similarly defies the authorities to put her stories on the page and bring her brother back to life. However, as pressures on the writer intensify in the real world, she is forced to choose between her stories and her own daughter.

Before long, the boundaries between the two worlds dissolve, and events go spinning out of her control in both her real and imagined life.

Written by Jean Tay (Everything but the Brain, Boom) and co-directed by US-based Singaporean theatre/filmmaker Mei Ann Teo (Lyrics from Lockdown) and Benjamin Ho (Paper Monkey Theatre), the workshop production of The Shape of a Bird evokes a magical world of warring birds and cicadas through the creative use of puppetry, brought to life by performers Tan Kheng Hua, Brendon Fernandez, Jean Toh and Thomas Pang.

Credit source: M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016

Development Milestones

12 July 2015

Work-in-Progress Preview at Guest Room

by Centre 42

The play was supported under the Centre’s Guest Room programme in 2015 where the text was presented in a read to an invited group of audience members comprising of playwrights, producers and theatre practitioners.

The Shape of a Bird by Jean Tay

Start: 12 July 2015

January 2016

In-Residence at Basement Workshop

by Centre 42

The Shape of a Bird was developed in residence at Centre 42’s Basement Workshop on January 2016.

15-16 January 2016

World Premiere as part of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016

at Esplanade Theatre Studio

World Premiere at Esplanade Theatre Studio as part of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2016

Creation Process

Interview 1 - Collaborative Theatre-Making

Co-director Teo Mei Ann and playwright Jean Tay share how essential collaborative workshopping was in getting The Shape of a Bird off the ground. They discuss working closely with the actors to develop and refine the script, a “painful” but ultimately fruitful process which demonstrates how theatre-making is anything but a solo endeavour.

Interview 2 - Staging the Impossible Play

Jean Tay calls her newest work The Shape of a Bird her “impossible play”, having been five years in the making and had been through multiple incarnations. The difficulty with staging it mainly lies in its magical elements told through puppetry. In this interview clip, Jean and Mei Ann discuss bringing the “impossible play” to the stage and learning the language of puppetry and movement from their second co-director Benjamin Ho.

Interview 3 - Telling Important Stories

Jean Tay shares that she created her own company, Saga Seed Theatre, to tell important stories that would otherwise remain untold, such as her latest work The Shape of a Bird. Jean and Mei Ann touch on the themes in this play, chief among which are that the lessons of history need to be remembered, not forgotten, and the extent of the artist’s responsibility to society. The Shape of a Bird then becomes a theatrical exercise in exploring new possibilities and arriving at complex truths about out present and future.