Re-scripting identities : performativity in the English-language theatres of Singapore and Malaysia

Abstract

This thesis will study identity in Malaysia and Singapore as a performative construct, and will analyse the role of the theatre in the deconstruction and reconstruction of these identities. Identity is constituted by the authorities in both countries, most importantly along racial lines, for particular social, political and nation building strategies; these · authoritative constitutions are increasingly disrupted and challenged at the individual level. In studying the construction of identity, my focus will be on the post-independence English-language theatres of Singapore and Malaysia, and how they are used to challenge, question, and negotiate with authority-constituted identities. The question of identity-constitution will be approached through a reading of Judith Butler's theory of performativity. This theory suggests that gender identities are performative, that is, that they are (usually at an unconscious or subconscious level) created and acted out. While Butler's focus is on gender identity, my reading will expand that focus to also include national, racial, and transnational identities. If an identity is acted out, then it can also be re-acted differently, or reacted against. In Malaysia and Singapore, the theatre functions as a public but nonetheless unofficial space in which such re-acting or reacting can occur, where state-constructed identities can be countered by individual constitutions of identity. In both countries, the theatre is a particularly vibrant, lively and rapidly developing site of expression which provides fertile and compelling ground from which to study the constitution of identities. This thesis will comprise five chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. Chapters one and two will examine changing attitudes towards national identity. Chapters three and four will narrow the focus from wider public issues to more private issues such as an individual's construction as a racialised or gendered being. Chapter five widens the focus again, to look at conceptions of national identity within an increasingly transnational world. Overall, this thesis will look at the slow growth of overarching Malaysian and Singaporean identities which, while they grapple with the inescapable question of race, also reconfigure that question into new and thought provoking forms, challenging the essentialising hegemony of the state.