S'pore playwright Jeremy Tiang wins Obie for Outstanding New Play
Singaporean playwright and translator Jeremy Tiang has won an award for Outstanding New Play at the 68th Obie Awards, the highest honour for off-Broadway productions akin to the Tony Awards.
The 48-year-old told The Straits Times via text from New York: “Given that more than half the dialogue of the play is in Mandarin, we weren’t even sure there would be an audience for it in New York. Then, the entire run sold out, and it was wonderful seeing so many people connect with this multilingual, cross-country story.”
Tiang’s all-female cast play Salesman之死 – the Chinese-English title references American playwright Arthur Miller’s classic Death Of A Salesman – is inspired by the real-life 1983 Beijing production of the play directed by Miller himself.
In its prize citation, the judges noted how the play “poignantly captures how, even when some words don’t completely translate, there is still a universal bond that can be brought out through art” and praised Tiang for his “nuanced portrayal of translation and transposition”.
“For a long time, it looked like this play would never happen at all,” Tiang said in an acceptance speech on Feb 1 about the play.
It was originally slated to premiere in April 2020, but was scuppered by the Covid-19 pandemic. It was eventually staged at the Connelly Theater in New York from Oct 10 to 28, 2023.
There was no ceremony for the Obies, but the winners were announced on American cable news channel Spectrum News NY1.
In Tiang’s play, young Chinese professor Shen Huihui interprets for Miller – who does not speak Mandarin – to an all-Chinese cast in Beijing. The cast, reflecting China’s recent emergence from the Cultural Revolution, has never met a travelling salesman – the protagonist of Miller’s original drama.
“At a time when the world feels like it is becoming more polarised, I hope we can build solidarity and community rather than giving in to the forces that would divide us,” he told ST.
Miller’s play, he added, was staged in Beijing at a time when China and the United States did not understand each other well.
The play is presented by Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America and Gung Ho Projects.
The 68th Obie Awards season includes shows that opened between Sept 1, 2023, through Aug 31, 2024. It is jointly presented by the American Theatre Wing and American news and culture publication The Village Voice.
Also a translator, Tiang has translated more than 30 books from writers across the Chinese-speaking world – including Yeng Pway Ngon from Singapore, Shuang Xuetao from China and Lo Yi-chin from Taiwan – into English.
He is the first Singaporean to make the International Booker Prize longlist with his translation of Chinese author and playwright Zou Jingzhi’s Ninth Building (2022). He is also the first Singaporean to win the PEN Translates award for his translation of a collection of short stories, Delicious Hunger (2024), by former Malayan Communist Party fighter Hai Fan.
In 2024, Tiang won the Singapore Literature Prize’s (SLP) inaugural translation category for his translation of Chinese writer Zhang Yueran’s Cocoon (2022).
Tiang, who is also the author of the SLP-winning novel State Of Emergency (2017), said: “It would be great if the play could be produced in Singapore too. As Mandarin and English are both widely spoken in Singapore, it would probably resonate very differently than it did in New York.”
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