Myle Yan Tay is a writer of plays and prose, invested in sociopolitical landscapes and social construction.

His play Brown Boys Don’t Tell Jokes was staged by Checkpoint Theatre and was nominated for four Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards, including Best Production and Best Script. His novel catskull was published by Ethos Books and won Book Of The Year and Best Literary Work at the Singapore Book Publishing Awards, and was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize.

What inspired you to become a playwright?

My mother used to bring me to a lot of shows while I was growing up. First it was the Wild Rice pantomimes, which were good fun for a child. But there were two plays that made me realise how important the form was to me—Shiv Tandan’s The Good The Bad & The Sholay by Checkpoint Theatre at NUS Stage, and Dreamplay by Alfian Sa’at, from Asian Boys Volume 2. Up until that point, I had always been an active audience member, and that helped me gain such a level of envy and excitement that made me want to start doing this and to be on the other end of it.

What kind of themes do you find yourself drawn to?

I would say my interests are primarily sociopolitical, which is the case with all writing. But I’m also very interested in topics like gender and maleness, which I explored in Brown Boys Don’t Tell Jokes, and my novel catskull. I do think the common theme for me is social construction, change, or even the capacity for change. What does the capacity to change look like? Is it possible for us to change within ourselves, to change our circumstances, and in consequence the world around us? But that’s what I’m thinking about. Ultimately I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to it.

What’s the difference between Yan the novelist versus Yan the playwright?

I don’t actually know if there’s a difference; it’s primarily just Yan the writer. It depends on what kind of story I’m trying to tell. The medium usually comes after that.

What does the process of playwriting look like for you?

I would say my process is very improvisational—I very rarely plan what’s on the next page. I ask myself, 'What’s an interesting story I can write within the theatre? What’s the physical space I can stick the audience in and what dynamic characters can I bring into it?'

Characters are also part of that process. I create a sandbox, put my characters in it and then watch them work. I don’t think of myself as a driver. I think I watch them do stuff, and hear them. It’s a bit wacky. I talk to myself a lot when I’m writing, because I’m trying to figure out where they are, who they are, and how they would react to each other organically, rather than imagining what I would do in this situation.

What would you like to see more of in the future of Singaporean playwriting?

I would also love to see a more DIY attitude in Singapore—which is almost impossible to do because of economics. For instance, theatremakers can’t put up their work at such short notice due to things like IMDA regulations. So I really would love a scene that is constantly popping off, seeing a lot more strangeness and a lot more new voices. And it’s not up to us as individuals; it’s up to institutions with capital. We’re in a rather worse state of DIY, and I hope that’s something that turns around if we want to be a place that is serious about being a cultural capital.