Impossible Properties: Language And Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear
This paper explores a landmark production in the history of Asian intercultural theatre, Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen and Japanese playwright Kishida Rio's Lear (1997/1999). A lavish production underwritten by the Japan Foundation Asia Center, Lear helped establish Ong's "fier...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press)
2014
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| Online Access: | http://eprints.usm.my/40856/ http://eprints.usm.my/40856/1/IJAPS-102-2014-Art-1-13-343.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848879135761367040 |
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| author | Edwards, James |
| author_facet | Edwards, James |
| author_sort | Edwards, James |
| building | USM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This paper explores a landmark production in the history of Asian intercultural
theatre, Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen and Japanese playwright Kishida
Rio's Lear (1997/1999). A lavish production underwritten by the Japan
Foundation Asia Center, Lear helped establish Ong's "fiercely intercultural"
aesthetic as an internationally recognisable brand (Peterson 2003: 81). It also
drew critique as a symbolic apologia for neoliberal globalisation. The critical
literature on Lear has yielded trenchant insights into the global political
significance of intercultural performance. At the same time, however, it has
tended to overshadow questions of the work's aesthetic specificity and local
significance. This paper seeks to recuperate Lear's local meanings both as a text
and as a uniquely Singaporean political allegory. In the paper's first section, I
will outline the play and its critique as late capitalist spectacle. In the following
section, I will bracket this critique and return to the texts at hand. Finally, I will
move back outward by tracing a Brechtian tension between Kishida's text, Ong's
realisation, and the Singaporean state's "choreography" of racial, cultural and
linguistic difference. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T17:42:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | usm-40856 |
| institution | Universiti Sains Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T17:42:25Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press) |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | usm-408562018-07-02T08:23:14Z http://eprints.usm.my/40856/ Impossible Properties: Language And Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear Edwards, James P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) This paper explores a landmark production in the history of Asian intercultural theatre, Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen and Japanese playwright Kishida Rio's Lear (1997/1999). A lavish production underwritten by the Japan Foundation Asia Center, Lear helped establish Ong's "fiercely intercultural" aesthetic as an internationally recognisable brand (Peterson 2003: 81). It also drew critique as a symbolic apologia for neoliberal globalisation. The critical literature on Lear has yielded trenchant insights into the global political significance of intercultural performance. At the same time, however, it has tended to overshadow questions of the work's aesthetic specificity and local significance. This paper seeks to recuperate Lear's local meanings both as a text and as a uniquely Singaporean political allegory. In the paper's first section, I will outline the play and its critique as late capitalist spectacle. In the following section, I will bracket this critique and return to the texts at hand. Finally, I will move back outward by tracing a Brechtian tension between Kishida's text, Ong's realisation, and the Singaporean state's "choreography" of racial, cultural and linguistic difference. Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM Press) 2014 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://eprints.usm.my/40856/1/IJAPS-102-2014-Art-1-13-343.pdf Edwards, James (2014) Impossible Properties: Language And Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear. International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 10 (2). pp. 14-34. ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243 http://ijaps.usm.my/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/IJAPS-102-2014-Art-1-13-343.pdf |
| spellingShingle | P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) Edwards, James Impossible Properties: Language And Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title | Impossible Properties: Language And
Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title_full | Impossible Properties: Language And
Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title_fullStr | Impossible Properties: Language And
Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title_full_unstemmed | Impossible Properties: Language And
Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title_short | Impossible Properties: Language And
Legitimacy In Ong Keng Sen's Lear |
| title_sort | impossible properties: language and
legitimacy in ong keng sen's lear |
| topic | P1-1091 Philology. Linguistics(General) |
| url | http://eprints.usm.my/40856/ http://eprints.usm.my/40856/ http://eprints.usm.my/40856/1/IJAPS-102-2014-Art-1-13-343.pdf |