Meow!

Performed by Dew M Chaiyanara, Faizal Abdullah & Hemang Yadav
Saturday 28 & Sunday 29 November 8 pm
The Substation Theatre

Admission: $20 available at The Substation Box Office
Performance is in English. Recommended MDA Rating: R18

What would you do when you win a million in the Singapore Big Sweep? The choices are endless, but for some, winning a fortune is as debasing and disorientating as a horrific ordeal in a car on a rainy night. The millionaires, a ‘subaltern Malay couple’ mechanic at a petrol station and a salesgirl, re-enact their childless marriage baiting each other on a never-ending car journey to take food home to their cat. She berates him about his impotency and other inadequacies; he about her besotted behaviour over their cat for whom he had just bought 32 tins of canned food in a cat food sale. He loves his job. She loves her cat. But the condominium-bound tabby cannot speak and acts as a silent confidante rather than a high counsel for their marital dilemmas.

With instant wealth comes subtle change and revelations of desires laid dormant by social circumstances and convenient relationships. The play particularly addresses the cultural and sexual values of the working class couple and brittle hegemony of multi-culturalism and racial tolerance in Singapore. In MEOW, verbal abuse, physical violence, racism, sexism, and classism are very ugly but demand serious attention. Desperation and loneliness cry out in the midst of communication. MEOW is a marriage from hell for a low-class Malay couple.