An all-male, homoerotic, R18 theatrical production of A Clockwork Orange was mounted in Singapore last November. On stage were two men kissing on stage, one of them suggestively rubbing his hands on the other's leg.
Despite that, it ran for five days at Esplanade Theatre without a hitch. Media wrote positive stories (read Coconuts Singapore's review) and there were no complaints from conservative groups.
The movie version of A Clockwork Orange was banned here for 40 years until 2011. Action To The World's recently-staged theatre production was entitled Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.
Today we learned from director Alexandra Spencer-Jones, in an interview with Vice.com, that the Singapore production was already a toned-down version."When we performed in Hong Kong two years ago, the government of Singapore came to see the show to see if we could get it past the censors," she said.
These were the conditions they had to meet with in order to mount the play in the Lion City:
– "We weren't allowed to emulate any sexual reference at the same time as holding the Bible, but we were allowed to show a woman being beaten over the head to death."
– "There's a moment where Alex masturbates whilst holding the Bible that had to go."
– "You can't talk about crucifixion flippantly in Singapore, so when Alex says he'd like to hammer in the nails himself, all that had to go too."
– "Two men kissing was OK, but emulating any sexual activity between men was a problem. So you can be gay, yeah, but not too gay. The censors were very, very clear. They can kiss but they can't touch each other's knobs."
Looking back, Spencer-Jones told Vice that "we should have gone further...We should have really said 'yeah, we're changing history.'"
An all-male, homoerotic, R18 theatrical production of A Clockwork Orange was mounted in Singapore last November. On stage were two men kissing on stage, one of them suggestively rubbing his hands on the other's leg.
Despite that, it ran for five days at Esplanade Theatre without a hitch. Media wrote positive stories (read Coconuts Singapore's review) and there were no complaints from conservative groups.
The movie version of A Clockwork Orange was banned here for 40 years until 2011. Action To The World's recently-staged theatre production was entitled Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.
Today we learned from director Alexandra Spencer-Jones, in an interview with Vice.com, that the Singapore production was already a toned-down version."When we performed in Hong Kong two years ago, the government of Singapore came to see the show to see if we could get it past the censors," she said.
These were the conditions they had to meet with in order to mount the play in the Lion City:
– "We weren't allowed to emulate any sexual reference at the same time as holding the Bible, but we were allowed to show a woman being beaten over the head to death."
– "There's a moment where Alex masturbates whilst holding the Bible that had to go."
– "You can't talk about crucifixion flippantly in Singapore, so when Alex says he'd like to hammer in the nails himself, all that had to go too."
– "Two men kissing was OK, but emulating any sexual activity between men was a problem. So you can be gay, yeah, but not too gay. The censors were very, very clear. They can kiss but they can't touch each other's knobs."
Looking back, Spencer-Jones told Vice that "we should have gone further...We should have really said 'yeah, we're changing history.'"