by W!LD RICE
 Swordfish attack Singapura, terrorising its citizens. A boy saves the kingdom by lining the beach with banana stems. But the Sultan, at his ministers’ advice, has the boy executed.
A generation later, the Sultan’s successor, his son, breaks the covenant between subject and ruler when he has his concubine publicly executed on trumped-up charges, bringing untold shame to her family. Sure enough, an armada of ships from the Majapahit empire soon appears on the horizon, and threatens Singapura’s supremacy. Acclaimed Malaysian playwright Kee Thuan Chye’s (1984 Here and Now, We Could **** You Mr Birch) first play in more than a decade is a bitingly comic satire that blends ancient myth with contemporary politics. Directed by Ivan Heng (Animal Farm, Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol. 3), and accompanied with live orchestration by Gamelan Asmaradana, this theatrical epic promises to be a dazzling exploration of the senselessness of war, religious conservatism and hypocrisy, and the ruinous abuse of power. “Kee writes from the heart; his works consistently emphasise fair play and equality. They question the state of being of both the individual and the society he lives in.” The Star “Playwrights such as Kee are rare in this country…because at a time when others shrugged their shoulders and walked away, he stepped forward and spoke aloud his thoughts, and theirs too.” The Sunday Mail The Swordfish, then the Concubine was shortlisted from 600 entries for reading at the 21st International Playwriting Competition at the Warehouse Theatre, UK, in 2006.
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