Writing history's wrongs

AS any historian would tell you, history isn't always entirely accurate. It is written by the victors and often by men; losers don't get to tell their side of the story, and women systematically get written out.

It is partly to address this problem that playwright Clarilyn Khoo wrote Three Inches of Alive. The play, which won TheatreWorks' 24-Hour Playwriting Competition last year, imagines a 19th century Malayan philanthropist by the name of Leila "Anjung" Keats, who contributed much to society, but of whom little is known and written about.

In the play, a modern-day archivist (Gyan Lee) meets the ghost of Anjung (Siti Zuraidah) to ask questions about her life. And, as it turns out, there is much more to her than what's provided in the entries in textbooks and historical accounts.