The Eye of History: From Stage to Print, #7

By Robert Yeo

On 5 July 1981, Sir Stamford Raffles leaves his pedestal by the Singapore River and pays a visit to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Istana. What follows is a wide-ranging discussion, both heated and humorous, that illustrates just how very human Singapore's two most towering figures were. This conversation, along with the introduction of Munshi Abdullah (author of the Hikayat Abdullah), provides a fascinating backdrop for the investigation of historical authority and grand narratives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Epigram Books
• Release date: Oct 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9789814757706

Book preview

the eye of history

Also in the From Stage to Print series:

A White Rose at Midnight by Lim Chor Pee

Mimi Fan by Lim Chor Pee

Model Citizens by Haresh Sharma

Fear of Writing by Tan Tarn How

Those Who Can’t, Teach by Haresh Sharma

Everything But the Brain by Jean Tay

Boom by Jean Tay

Playwright Omnibus series:

Six Plays by Desmond Sim

Student Plays by Desmond Sim

Four Plays by Chong Tze Chien

Eight Plays by Ovidia Yu

Six Plays by Tan Tarn How

the eye of history

Copyright © 2016 by Robert Yeo

All rights reserved

Published in Singapore by Epigram Books

www.epigrambooks.sg

Published with the support of

the eye of history

National Library Board,

Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Name: Yeo, Robert

Title: The eye of history / a play by Robert Yeo.

Series title: From stage to print

Description: Singapore : Epigram Books, 2016.

Identifier: OCN 953223837

ISBN: 978-981-4757-69-0 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-981-4757-70-6 (ebook)

Subject(s): LCSH: Singapore—History--Drama.

Classification: DDC S822—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First Edition: August 2016

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PERFORMING RIGHTS

Professional and amateur groups wishing to stage this play or perform a public reading of it must get written permission in writing from playwright Robert Yeo at [e-mail].

CONTENTS

Preface by the Author

Message from the 1992 Programme Booklet

Acknowledgements

Production Notes

Characters

ACT 1

SCENE 1 Abdullah at his desk

SCENE 2 Right bank of Singapore River at the spot where Raffles’ statue stands (1969)

SCENE 3 Same location, one day later

SCENE 4 Abdullah at his desk and Hill with his books

ACT 2

Office of the Prime Minister of Singapore in the Istana (1981)

ACT 3

SCENE 1 Office of the Prime Minister of Singapore in the Istana (1981)

SCENE 2 A room in the Istana where the Prime Minister meets his guests

SCENE 3 Same location, on a later date

An Historic Production

About the Playwright

About the Publisher

PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR

Of all my plays, I have the happiest memory of the writing process of The Eye of History.

I must have begun in the early 1980s, around the time when Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was talking about his successor and the new generation that would lead Singapore into the future. On 6 December 1989, as part of the diamond jubilee (1929–1989) of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore, I read from an excerpt of the play on the university campus. This reading was part of the multilingual celebration of Singaporean writers called Voices of Singapore; there was another reading the following day.

Accompanying the reading was a programme that printed poems and prose, and the excerpt I read from became eventually Act Two of The Eye of History. I had intended it to be a one-act play but during a three-month sabbatical in May 1990 at the University of Sydney, the idea of enlarging it into a three-act affair entered my mind. The result was the addition of new material, what is now found in Act One and Act Three; this was written rather quickly over two days, 15 and 21 May 1990, during weekends in a private home in the delightful neighbourhood of Rozelle, New South Wales. Writing quickly means that my pen flowed fluently, prompted by having absorbed fully the ideas therein, and it was a sign of a kind of inspiration for me. Usually, as in this case, there was little revision.

• • •

There are several pleasures to be derived from writing for the stage; I will mention two of the most obvious. The first is to see characters and situations I’ve written fully realised on stage; full is, of course, relative, but as actors perform my words, I become aware that although I provide the cues, much of what happens are interpretations, modifications and additions to my original concepts—and I am frequently left very pleasantly surprised.

The second is how the bare script I have written can be changed sometimes beyond recognition by the director, perhaps the most important of the