Whenever I am asked why I have chosen refugee law as my major research interest, I always say that I am drawn to the “home” being something fleeting, transient, impermanent – and this is precisely what the characters in Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies struggle with (and in so doing, they struggle with others and themselves). The main character, a recently widowed Leslie, learns that he cannot inherit ownership of his family residence given his lack of United Kingdom citizenship; after having left the country for his birth country, Singapore, he finds out that the storms and floods caused by climate change have destroyed and washed away that residence. At that juncture, he expresses regret at having buried his late wife’s ashes under a tree in that residence, because there are now no guarantees that a piece of land will always be there (and this actually made me contemplate having my own ashes scattered in the sea when I die!). Leslie’s loss is made more poignant by his imagined conversations (mostly one-way, with him doing the talking) with his late wife, Sandra, interspersed throughout the play, such conversations providing him solace in a disorienting world as he struggles to fit back into Singapore with his blood family. The washing away of the land containing Sandra’s ashes (further separating her from Leslie) sadly parallels many families torn apart today, with thousands dying in the perilous Mediterranean Sea while escaping persecution in the Middle East and Africa in the hope of seeking asylum in Europe, all held hostage to the whims of Mother Nature. Leslie’s commitment to Sandra to take care of her daughter, Maxine, sees Leslie and Maxine move together from England to Singapore and then to Kolkata, with their (quasi-)familial bond being the only constant across all three locations in Dragonflies. Hence, “home” for Leslie is less about a location or land, than it is about a person, family, Sandra, and Maxine: this was, to me, the main takeaway from Dragonflies.
By Matthew Seet
For synopsis on Pangdemonium’s Dragonflies: http://pangdemonium.com/productions/dragonflies