Ellison Tan makes directorial debut

Dark comedy Scenes From The Climate Era is part of the Esplanade's Studios season

- Clement Yong

Australian playwright David Finnigan's vignette-driven Scenes From The Climate Era is pitched as a dark comedy, but reading the script, Singapore actor Ellison Tan did not laugh once.

The 35-year-old confesses a niche sense of humour - "Very few things make me laugh" - but Tan, with a matter-of-factness about her, also has no qualms stating that she found some of the scenes unrelatable.

She says before rehearsals at the Esplanade - Theatres On The Bay: "I felt quite distant and couldn't relate. Some of them are geographically really far from where we are now, so I felt like I wanted it to reflect a more regional warmth."

The former co-artistic director of puppetry company The Finger Players is making her directorial debut from July 18 to 20, as part of the Esplanade's Studios season centred on the theme of Land.

After receiving a phone call from an Esplanade programmer, who asked if she would take on Finnigan's work, she began a process of negotiation with the playwright to re-order scenes and insert new ones - a correspondence that astonishingly took place mostly over e-mail.

A frog scene has been retained - featured prominently on the banner art - as well as debates over the ethics of child rearing, and the impudent statement that "No one's ever built a wall in the ocean to trap a glacier before".