Headline: Art for All But Is it All For Art?

Strap: Rehaan Engineer Appears Nude in Quills But is Nude Still Rude on Stage?
Byline: Lorraine Lim
Date of Publication: 8 September 2005

NUDITY doesn't faze Rehaan Engineer, which is fortunate. Being the Marquis de
Sade in Luna-Id's latest production, Quills, requires him to spend half his time on
stage naked. It's the first play to be staged in Singapore in which the male actor
spends an hour completely naked.

But that doesn't come close to his most uncomfortable stage experience: His debut in
his school nativity play.

"I forgot to get up on stage", he recalled, adding that his misstep caused complete
confusion on stage.

The Naked Truth

Jokes aside, nudity might not bother the 29-year-old Engineer, who's from Mumbai,
but there was a time when being naked on stage was a serious cause for concern in
Singapore.

Theatregoers may recall an incident involving an actor's buttocks in 1993 with The
Necessary Stage's production of Off Centre. Originally commissioned by the Ministry
of Health (MOH), the script contained scenes of frontal and rear nudity. The play was
rated R(A) - a classification self-imposed by The Necessary Stage.

Despite negotiations with the playwright, Haresh Sharma, MOH would finally
withdraw its support, along with $30,000 in funding. The National Arts Council
eventually weighed in with its own recommendations about the nude scenes. Off
Centre was performed without any frontal nudity and no R(A) rating.

Off Centre was staged over 10 years ago - have things changed since then?

The Censorship Review Committee seems to think so. Its latest report, released in
2003, gives the impression that Singaporean audiences have matured enough for
the committee to recommend that greater flexibility should be given to scenes with
nudity and depictions of sex, provided that they were not exploitative and were
relevant to the context of the performance.

Sharma is not so sure.

"I don't think audiences have matured since 1993, though I think they are likely to be
more accepting towards nudity," he said.

How Much is too Much?

Yet a debate on how much nudity is acceptable seems highly ironic when one
considers the plot of Quills, which opens here next week.

The play portrays the Marquis de Sade's tireless efforts to get his story out to the
public despite measures taken to silence him. It is a play that tackles the essence of
censorship; his struggles to have his stories told have struck a chord with the cast
members in the play, as they deal with the question of what people should be
allowed to see, hear or read.

Janice Koh, who plays Madame Royer-Collard, said: "Our censorship laws have
always been murky - always negotiable but never openly negotiated; based on
unheard, unseen presumptions rather than something openly discussed."

That view was echoed by Sharma.

When asked if Off Centre would attract the same controversy if it was re-staged
today, he said: "I'm not sure. One can never tell with censorship in Singapore."

The Case for Quills

Quills will mark the first play presented by Luna-Id that contains nudity. Taking place
in an asylum in which the Marquis de Sade has been imprisoned, the play
documents the different ways in which the Marquis tries to express himself artistically
- no matter the circumstance.

Christian Huber, artistic Director of Luna-Id, believes the nudity is central to the plot,
rather than there to titillate the audience.

"The nudity is not a sexual thing, it's there to show that this character is being
stripped of everything that he can use to write, and left to become completely nude in
a bare cell. He is left with nothing," said Huber.

Is nudity for this purpose acceptable to the authorities?

Koh June May, senior manager for corporate and marketing communications at the
Media Development Authority (MDA), said: "To date, the MDA has not refused a
licence or censored a script on the grounds of nudity."

Luna-Id, however, took the prudent step of applying for a performance licence a little
earlier than usual.

"With this particular play, we were cautious and took a bit more time to apply, and we
expected some questions from MDA on the staging of his nudity on stage," Huber
said.

"But the MDA has been very encouraging and supportive over this production."

Koh added: "When we issue a licence for a play where there is some form of nudity,
we will consider the context in which it is featured and if it is crucial to the plot
development."

Nothing to be Ashamed of
The questions remain, however. By stating that nudity must be crucial to the plot of a
performance, doesn't it also impact upon the wider role of how artists should create?
It would be easy to dismiss the Marquis as a madman with a love for writing sexually
deviant stories, but his continued pursuit to create is what makes his story so
compelling.

Should you stop creating if everyone around tells you that your creations are wrong?

Daniel Jenkins, who will perform as the Abbé du Coulmier, said: "Artists have a lot of
responsibility with the art that they produce but they should have the freedom in
order to do that. What one person might think is rubbish doesn't negate the fact that
the artist think it's art in the first place."

Simply putting a play like Quills on stage will allow a usually taboo subject to be
discussed openly and, hopefully, maturely.
The play's director, Samantha Scott-Blackhall, said: "The fact that it's out there and
we put it on stage means we take away the secrecy of it and suddenly it doesn't
seem so shameful anymore."