Jia Lat Lah

Prefaced by an epigraph from Samuel Beckett, this book is framed as an antiplay, defying typical conventions expected of a dramatic production — the antiplay is written up through a series of poems, jokes and test questions. A work in the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd, Jia Lat Lah takes a leaf from practitioners of the form, including Ionesco, Camus and Sartre, while invoking a distinctly indigeneous tone given the use of Singapore colloqualisms. With all its poem titles strung up as a litany of quatrains – an ode to the one-act play structure of Beckett’s Endgame – the illusion of the transparent lyric becomes apparent through the aporia, the Derridean understanding of eternal linguistic flux and indecision. With its publication scheduled for 2017, this collection commemorates the 60th anniversary of the writing and first staging of Beckett’s Endgame, or Fin de partie in French.