Wartime isolation and pandemic grief in Escape To Batam

As part of her coursework for her master's degree at Columbia University in the 1990s, Checkpoint Theatre co-founder Claire Wong was tasked to unearth her family history.

- Clement Yong

She had only the bare facts about her grandparents, so she wrote to her father back in Singapore for more information. Little did she know that her generic brief would prompt a comprehensive unburdening, yielding 140 pages of handwritten notes delivered to her mailbox in the US over the next few months.

About 30 per cent of these memoir-letters forms the source material for Checkpoint Theatre's new play, Escape To Batam, about how her father and his family scrabbled their way to the then-rural Indonesian island during the Japanese Occupation years.

The production plays at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre from Aug 21 to 24, as part of the Esplanade's The Studios season centred on the theme of Sustenance.

Wong co-wrote Escape To Batam with husband and co-founder of Checkpoint Theatre Huzir Sulaiman, who has also been moved by his father-in-law's words.

During a Zoom interview, he jumps in to correct Wong's recitation from memory of the first dramatic sentence of the sheaf of papers. It reads: "My parents were both born in China during the reign of the last Emperor. Their marriage was a pre-arranged affair."

"The resonance of those words always struck me," says Huzir.

Developing the script over its 12 to 13 drafts has been an excavation of Wong's own grief for her late father.