How these Stratford Festival actors learned one of the most difficult English dialects

Think “Crazy Rich Asians.” But with more bite. And with some delicious blasphemy thrown in. (It’s hard to see how “Tao” could ever pass muster with Singapore’s strict media censors.)

One of the most challenging parts of staging this show, however, is nailing the local Singapore dialect. Moulded by decades of cross-cultural exchange, Singlish blends English with a variety of other linguistic influences, including Malay, Tamil and various Chinese dialects.

It’s one of the most difficult dialects to imitate, and also one of the most misunderstood aspects of Singapore culture. And yet, for some of the actors in “Tao,” they’ve had to learn Singlish is just a matter of weeks. 

“The challenge with Singlish is internalizing the flow,” explained actor Derek Kwan. “It’s not just about the pronunciation of the vowels and consonants, but also how people will stress different syllables and alter the pitch. There’s a lot of influence from tonal languages.”

Though completely unrelated and sonically unique, Singlish is sometimes compared to Glaswegian. Both dialects share similar qualities: they’re fast, rhythmic and highly efficient dialects filled with elision (the process of dropping, slurring or shortening words). 

Another challenge of Singlish is that there’s no one single, standard form of the dialect. It’s often described as a social dialect — or a sociolect. So, the kind of Singlish one speaks is influenced by factors such as their ethnicity, class and age. 

For dialect coach Joy Lanceta Coronel, who worked with the cast throughout rehearsals, this has meant that she’s had to help each actor find a unique voice for their specific role. “It’s really not a one-size-fits-all process,” she said. “Everything is individual to the character.” 

The coaching process, at times, is technical. Throughout rehearsals, Coronel would send audio and video samples to the cast. She’d also dive into the detailed minutiae of vowel and consonant pronunciations, along with oral posture. 

Agnes Tong, who plays Arabella, the protagonist and main narrator of “Tao,” based her character’s accent — similar to an English Estuary accent — on the British actor Gemma Chan. “Jovanni was very specific in that Arabella is part of a very wealthy upper class and was also British educated,” explained Tong. 

Kwan’s character, Jackson, in contrast, comes from a middle-class background and speaks in a more traditional Singlish accent. For the actor, now in his third season with the festival, diving into the new dialect has been a rewarding experience. “I felt that it was really important to have Singlish in the show because, out of all of the characters, Jackson is the one with the most opportunities to speak it,” he said. “So I’ve been trying to wheedle in more slang and stuff throughout rehearsals.” 

Sy, who is Filipino-Chinese, was only familiar with Singapore through research. As he was writing the play, he leaned on his Singaporean friends to help with the Singlish in the show. In fact, he didn’t visit the country until after he had mostly written the play. 

But Sy long knew that he wanted to set his story in Singapore. “A lot of my works take canonically Western plays and centre them through an Asian lens. For ‘Tao,’ Singapore seemed so right because it’s a confluence of so many different cultures and ethnicities,” he said. Ultimately, I was really writing about Canada, but Singapore became my proxy.” 

Some of the Singlish slang consists of single words. “Lah,” often tacked on to the ends of sentences, is like the equivalent of “eh” in Canada, a mostly meaningless word used for emphasis. “Walao” is used to express shock, disappointment or awe (roughly meaning “wow” or “oh my goodness”). 

But there are also longer, phrasal constructions, that feature in “Tao.” “Can or not,” a phrase that Kwan suggested for his character, basically means “Is this possible?” 

I rarely read scripts of new plays before I see them. As a critic, I want to go into these shows with fresh eyes, much like a regular audience member. But I made an exception for “Tao.” And reading Sy’s play — seeing these Singlish phrases I spoke and heard growing up — was a somewhat surreal yet special experience.

Singapore, a city-state affectionately known as “the little red dot” on account of its small size, is rarely ever depicted in popular media. Most foreigners only know the country for its polarizing and infamous founder, Lee Kuan Yew. Or its bizarre chewing gum laws. (Yes, you can chew gum but, no, you can’t buy chewing gum in the country.) 

So, the prospect of seeing a slice of that little red dot presented live on stage — no matter how highly satirized a slice of that culture it may be — fills this Singaporean boy with both excitement and pride. 

“The Tao of the World” runs until Sept. 26 at the Tom Patterson Theatre, 111 Lakeside Dr., Stratford, Ont. Visit stratfordfestival.ca for tickets and more information.