Pesta Raya 2025: Teater Kami's Salina travels back to 1950s kampung

Straits Times

23-04-2025

Ariati Tyeb Papar plays the titular character in Teater Kami's staging of Salina in 2025. PHOTO: COURTESY OF ESPLANADE -- THEATRES ON THE BAY
SINGAPORE – Director and playwright Atin Amat has hung on to the set of the 1950s kampung drama Salina for more than 30 years. The set will be reused in the restaging of her adaptation of the Malay-language novel as part of Pesta Raya 2025 – Malay Festival of Arts from May 2 to 4 .
Theatregoers who caught Teater Kami's stagings of Salina in 1993 and 1997 will thus recognise bits of Kampung Kambing (or Goat Village in Malay) at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre. The props will include trinkets the Cultural Medallion recipient salvaged from the bygone Sungei Road Thieves Market and a tempayan (stoneware jar) from her old kampung home.
In Salina, the story's titular protagonist fights to survive in the aftermath of the Japanese Occupation in Singapore. Forced to become a sex worker while supporting her unemployed lover, Salina lives in a squatter village converted from a goat pen where 'the walls are thin and the roofs are leaky', a setting Atin has tried to recreate faithfully.
'I cannot make any mistakes because I think the majority who come for the show would have read the novel,' says the 68-year-old veteran theatremaker. She admits to feeling some pressure in staging an adaptation of the well-known 1961 novel by Malaysian novelist A. Samad Said.
The classic work was a GCE A-level text for Malay literature in the 1990s.
'This play is not just play-play,' she says in an interview with The Straits Times at Teater Kami's space at Cairnhill Arts Centre. Teater Kami, one of the pioneering Malay theatre companies, most recently staged Kemas at the Esplanade Theatre Studio in 2023.
The company's first outing with Salina taught Atin the lesson of taking the text seriously.
Director and playwright Atin Amat with her copy of the 1961 novel Salina written by Malaysian novelist A. Samad Said.
PHOTO: ESPLANADE – THEATRES ON THE BAY
In 1993, four years after Atin established Teater Kami, she had wanted to stage a work that would establish the theatre company's reputation. But the script by Malaysian playwright Johan Jaaffar drew mixed reactions. 'After the performance, the feedback from the students watching the show was that it was confusing, even though the show was good. It was confusing because the show doesn't follow the novel,' she says.
Atin h ad not read the novel before staging Salina, but immediately fell in love with the book when she picked it up after the first staging. She subsequently decided to adapt the scrip t, touring it around 12 junior colleges and education institutions in 1994, and staging it at the Victoria Theatre in 1997.
One of the challenges of staging it in 2025, Atin says, is that she has to shoulder the responsibility of sharing the historical context of the 1950s to her cast – including the different ways Malay language and slang were used. 'Nowadays, they don't know as much about Singapore's past and stories, so my work has doubled.'
The 2025 cast includes younger actors Fir Rahman, Rizal Aiman, Amirah Yahya, Suhaila M Sanif and Rusydina Afiqah. Actors Ariati Tyeb Papar and Rafaat Haji Hamzah starred in the 1997 production.
Ariati Tyeb Papar and Fir Rahman star in Teater Kami's staging of Salina.
PHOTO: ESPLANADE – THEATRES ON THE BAY
To make sure the cast can reliably deliver the dialogue-heavy play, Atin has also taken on the role of literature teacher – requiring her cast members to read the approximately 500-page novel. Her hardcover copy of Salina is well-thumbed and annotated, and she has lost count of how many times she has read her favourite novel.
'From this novel, you learn about how Singapore Malays develop themselves – economically and in terms of their social life. I tell them that if you read this book, there's something you can learn about Singapore society after the Japanese Occupation,' she says.
In rehearsal, she adds with a laugh, she would test her cast members on the plot and relationships in the novel.
Asked whether modern audiences who are unfamiliar with the drama will still relate to this story set in a bygone era, Atin says they can see for themselves how different the present is from the past.
The challenges that Salina faces still resonate today. 'Even now, we can't expect life to be smooth-sailing – there will be challenges thrown at us.'
Book It/Salina
Where: Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade, 1 Esplanade Drive
When: May 2, 8pm; May 3, 3 and 8pm ; May 4, 3pm
Admission: From $45
Info: str.sg/E9EH
Shawn Hoo is a journalist on the arts beat at The Straits Times. He covers books, theatre and the visual arts.
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