SINGAPORE – More than 100,000 people found their way to Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) activities in the just-concluded edition that ran from May 15 to 30. Ticket sales were also up 40 per cent, according to organiser Arts House Group.

The Straits Times’ arts team of editor Ong Sor Fern and writers Clement Yong and Shawn Hoo picks their best watches.

This is ostensibly a straight story about American playwright Arthur Miller directing a Chinese adaptation of Death Of A Salesman being staged by the Beijing People’s Art Theatre in China. Yet, translator-turned-playwright Jeremy Tiang’s storytelling feels quintessentially Singaporean while focusing on an event that has nothing to do with Singapore.

It is in the way he observes, understands and navigates the abysses that divide cultures. There is a chameleonic ability to shift between perspectives that comes from growing up in Singapore, where one code-switches not just within the English language, but also between languages and cultures as a matter of course. 

There is appreciation here for the sophisticated subtlety of American theatre-making. But there is also empathy for the Chinese theatre practitio...