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Humana Festival 2008: The Complete Plays

Nobu Matsumoto has separated from his wife Masi at her request, though both of them are in their sixties. Nobu's newfound bachelor life is regularly interrupted by Masi who comes by to pick up and drop off Nobu's weekly laundry as part of the duties she still feels a Japanese wife owes to her husband. Their two daughters have opposing feelings about the breakup; Marsha, the more traditional of the daughters, wants to reunite her parents, but not even Nobu and Masi's nostalgia for their courtship in a World War II Japanese-American internment camp can bring them back together again. The other daughter, Judy, who's been estranged from her father since marrying a black American, has been supportive of her mother's attempt at freedom. It is not until Masi tentatively begins a relationship with Sadao, a widower, that the severity of Nobu's traditional values reveals itself; he is inconsolable, obstinate and reclusive, leaving Kiyoko, a widowed restaurant owner who has fallen in love with him, unable to break down his defenses and get him to begin a new life with her. Finally, Masi's decision to divorce Nobu pushes him to the point where he begs her to return to him, but the marriage is irreparable, and Nobu is left at the end of the play contemplating how best to re-acquaint himself with his daughters, friends and most important, his ex-wife now that he begins to perceive that things can never again be as they were.
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Luther

Humana Festival 2008: The Complete Plays brings together all eleven scripts from the 2008 Humana Festival of New American Plays, the 32nd annual cycle of world premiere productions staged at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The seven full-length plays and four ten-minute plays represent an exceptional array of work by some of the most exciting new voices in American theater.
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Dying City

Central psychological drama of the play focuses on Brutus' struggle between the conflicting demands of honor, patriotism, and friendship.
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The Singapore Trilogy

The first of Yeo's Singapore Trilogy, the play blends heated debates about Singapore's state of government with the coming-of-age story of a group of Singaporean university students studying abroad in London. The main characters, brother and sister duo Chye and Hua, together with their friends Richard, Fernandez and Sally, undergo a sexual and political awakening of sorts as they compare the openness of London society with their conservative home country. As they navigate an unruly demonstration at Trafalgar Square and an unplanned pregnancy, they learn more about Singapore - and themselves.  
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Second Chance: A Cross-Cultural Theatre Casebook

On 5 July 1981, Sir Stamford Raffles leaves his pedestal by the Singapore River and pays a visit to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the Istana. What follows is a wide-ranging discussion, both heated and humorous, that illustrates just how very human Singapore’s two most towering figures were. This conversation, along with the introduction of Munshi Abdullah (author of the Hikayat Abdullah), provides a fascinating backdrop for the investigation of historical authority and grand narratives.
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One Year Back Home

Patriotism. Do you have it? How does one express it? Is it worth it? With the first play written just four years after Independence, The Singapore Trilogy raises questions about nationhood that we are still asking today. Robert Yeo was one of the first playwrights to create a dramatic platform for the dialogue of politically-sensitive issues. Influential in steering early Singapore English theatre away from its colonial roots, he conceived characters that were believably Singaporean in speech, thought and behaviour. Yeo's trilogy continues to link us to an exciting time of socio-political flux in Singapore history, and engages Singaporeans today by provoking us to explore the meaning of being Singaporean.
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The Shape of Things

Hua, her brother Chye and friend Reginald, try to find their equilibrium when they return to Singapore after their studies abroad. Friendship and values, conscience and duty no longer balance in the scales back home.
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