Image Caption: Pandan aims to reduce the stigma attached to the term “jihad” by demonstrating their characters’ personal growth by facing spiritual tribulations. Photo credit: Back Alley Media

By Choy Myn

The term “jihad” is a controversial one as it is often conflated with religious violence and terrorism. Pandan demonstrates that “jihad” is a more nuanced concept of personal spiritual struggle by showing how their characters find their truest selves by struggling with their faith, public identity and personal feelings. Allow NUS FASS, NUSStage, NUS Malay Language Society alumna, Rupa co.lab co-founder and Pandan producer Nessa Anwar tell us about her entry into the Singapore theatre scene and her experience working on Pandan.

How did you get started on your artistic journey?

My first foray into the arts was acting, for both stage and television. It was something I stumbled into during my school days, but I didn’t manage to go to any arts school. Instead, I just kept going for auditions. And one of the auditions was for the 2009 – 2011 class for the Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Young Company. My time there fuelled my self-esteem, but more than that, it made me want to learn more, so I started exploring all forms of creative work from there.

It is certain that my years in NUS was the foundation for my creative writing process, where I took the liberty to fill up my electives with writing modules. I studied Playwriting and Advanced Playwriting with then-lecturer Huzir Sulaiman of Checkpoint Theatre and took Screenwriting with Wee Li Lin of Bobbing Buoy Films. The lessons gave me the opportunity that I never thought I’d have to learn the fundamentals of writing from illustrious individuals, who then became my mentors, collaborators and even friends. So, you will never know what kind of meaningful relationships you’ll be making in NUS.

I also wrote and directed my first full-length play in NUS, staged by the Malay Language Society for the annual Pentas Budaya production. Being part of the executive committee as well, I was very involved. I wanted to learn all areas of theatre, not just understanding theatre as an actor. It was very much a serious playground, where I learnt to experiment with all forms of creative work, while also understanding what is needed to produce and finance a play. It was a necessary stepping-stone for me to be able to do what I do as a playwright, producer and director now.

How have you evolved since you left NUS in your artform?

Now, I’m a full-time multimedia journalist for a news platform, writing across all media: video, digital and social media. But after leaving NUS, pretty much every job I had was writing and producing in some way. Like… I worked in television and video as a writer, producer and director, I was a researcher and writer for historical sites in Singapore, I was a copywriter at one point. With the help of a close-knit community in theatre and really amazing mentors, I’ve staged 2 full-length plays, Riders Know When It’s Gonna Rain and Rumah Dayak. The former was commissioned by Checkpoint Theatre in 2015 and re-staged by Wild Rice for the Singapore Theatre Festival in 2016.

The latter was produced by Rupa co.lab, a theatre collective I founded with 3 friends (Hazwan Norly, Nabilah Said and Raimi Safari), which will be staging our second production, Pandan, for the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in 2021, written by Hazwan Norly and directed by Rizman Putra. We have sold out in-person seats! (Online tickets still available) I’m truly proud of how far all of us have come in achieving this, as we are an independent group, all with our own full-time jobs, doing our best to contribute original, Singaporean work to the local arts scene.

What inspired your show?

I apologise for not answering this question in reference to Pandan as I am neither the director nor playwright.

However, for Rupa co.lab shows, our main inspiration is to reshape and share stories from the perspective of the downtrodden, marginalised, underrepresented or misunderstood subsets of the community on stage. In this way, we hope to enrich Singapore theatre with real, diverse characters from the Malay community.

What is your most significant memory in preparing for the show?

This seems like a mundane occurrence now and even before the pandemic, video auditions were pretty frequent, but back in June 2020 when we were preparing, we auditioned our actors in their first full read through Zoom. It was obviously a strange, limiting experience but it was also surprisingly freeing. I took delight in texting the core team non-stop in real time and reacted with laughter and affirming nods at certain lines without disrupting the flow. And also of course, watching the inimitable Rizman Putra (Director for Pandan) at work.

Pandan by Rupa co.lab will be playing live at the Esplanade Theatre Studio from 29 – 31 January 2021 and will be available in on-demand video format from 2 – 8 February 2021. Further details and bookings are available at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival website. Join our Friends of CFA programme to win tickets to shows like Pandan, created by or featuring NUS artists.