Article: Singapore Lightens Up - The restrictive city-state relaxes some limits on theatres in a bid to become an arts hub

It is not a good sign when a city is turning itself into a tourist attraction. Think about Rome, or Paris, generating loads of income through whatever they do in tourist cities these days, living an extended exhibition show curated by the stones and sticks laid down centuries ago, their intrinsic meaning long dead and buried in history. For Obama’s sake it is Rome, the name that used to mean conquer and brutality and power, now merely decayed in the dusts of time.

The best comparison is Hong Kong, actually. In the last financial crisis about ten years ago, the city lost its financial edge and decided to promote an image of a world tourist city, then afterwards a high tech city, then afterwards a Chinese traditional medicine city, among other totally random and uncreative new names. It doesn’t work. A city has a life span that cannot be reversed. It must die, and then wait in the queue for its chance to revive. Germany did it, Japan did it, Barcelona did it, and arguably China too.

Theatre is culture, certainly? Not for Singapore. Culture is most effective for a bored and complacent society, like ancient Greece, or America in the 70s; or most edge cutting in times of revolutions, like the 18th and 19th centuries. But for a people like Singapore, and at a time like this,  theatre is but Viagra, you know it’s not going to do you any good.