Joel Tan tackles repressed and rebellious teens in new play

The playwright's "reckless" new work, The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party Of 1993, opens on Oct 17

- Shawn Hoo

Joel Tan's upcoming play features a teenage protagonist living in "bougie neighbourhood" Serangoon Garden who discovers the rebellious underbelly of 1990s Singapore over 24 hours. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY

(ST PHOTO: GIN TAY)

With Gen Z preferring to sober party in a foodcourt basement rather than spend a night out getting wasted at the club, playwright Joel Tan, 38, laments: "It actually breaks my heart to see young people who don't want to get f***ed up. The guai kia (Hokkien for 'well-behaved kids') have won.

Candice, the teenage protagonist in Tan's upcoming play The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party Of 1993, is no guai kia. Convinced that her cushy life in her big landed Serangoon Garden property is too flat to be real - and seduced by the disaffection of rock band The Smiths in her ears - she makes a dash for the rebellious underbelly of 1990s Singapore over a breathless 24 hours.

"It's a world of punks, hard rock, lascivious expats, unhinged radio deejays - and the police are never too far away," says Tan of the play's mad universe. It runs from Oct 17 to Nov 1 at The Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre located at Funan the mall which, ironically, hosted Singapore's biggest sober party with 5,000 partygoers recently.

In contrast, Tan's own teenagehood was tame. The most rebellious thing he did, he notes sarcastically, was "becoming a sociopolitical blogger" - which seems like his equivalent of sober partying.

Realising this, he adds: "Maybe this play is an elaborate act of wish fulfilment."