Home truths

STRAIGHT Acting is the most honest and intelligent play about the struggles of the LGBTQ community in Singapore in recent history. Rising young playwright-director Thomas Lim has once again couched a complex and sensitive topic in very local, very human terms. Swinging broadly between sitcom-style comedy and nuanced drama, Straight Acting lays bare all the fears and frustrations that the minority community faces in finding a home, starting a family and asserting their right to love.

Similar to his two previous plays Grandmother Tongue (about intergenerational linguistic barriers) and Supervision (about Singaporeans' relationships with their foreign domestic helpers), Lim hangs his big themes on a simple, straightforward plot. But again, this proves perfectly sufficient for parsing the finers points of some very complicated issues.

The story centres on lesbian couple Olivia and Jaime (Deonn Yang and Eve Voigtlander) and gay couple Russell and Jia Ming (Tan Shou Chen and Darren Guo) who dream of having their own home and child. Because the government doesn't recognise LGBTQ relationships, these young middle-class Singaporeans cannot apply for a Build-To-Order (BTO) flat or the Baby Bonus Scheme if they have a child.