Synopsis

Geng Rebut Cabinet (GRC) is a political satire by Alfian Sa'at, set in an alternate Singapore where Malays are the majority race and the Chinese a minority making up just 14.2% of the population. With the racial dynamics inverted, the country runs in ways that are pointedly different yet uncannily familiar, the roles simply reversed.

The play follows the team from the Chai Chee-Commonwealth constituency of the ruling Workers' Action Party as they strategise to field candidates in a five-member Group Representation Constituency election. Their slate already boasts a Minister, a Brigadier-General, a high-flying lawyer and a grassroots organiser, but to complete the team they still need a minority Chinese candidate, a hunt that exposes the compromises, performances and contradictions of representative politics.

Through this role reversal, the work skewers the pitfalls of electoral politics, the visibility demanded of minorities during campaigns, and how genuine change can feel almost impossible from within the system. First staged to sold-out runs at the Singapore Theatre Festival in 2015 and 2016, this 2024 restaging marked the play's third outing, performed in Malay with English surtitles.