AIDS patient takes to Singapore's stage

AIDS patient takes to Singapore's stage

SINGAPORE (AP): Not only is Paddy Chew the first person in conservative Singapore to publicly say he has AIDS. He is starring as himself in a theater production.

The 39-year-old Chew hopes the play will help force the topic of Singapore's growing AIDS problem into the country's living rooms and classrooms.

Although the government runs anti-AIDS media campaigns - mostly calling for restraint and fidelity - Chew and others say the disease is still a touchy topic for most Singaporeans.

The monologue play Completely With/Out Character, which opens May 10, features Chew - gaunt and thin-haired from full-blown AIDS. He tells the audience in a frank and conversational way what it's like to be dying from the disease.

Publicizing a sensitive topic helps make it easier to talk about in Singapore, where the East Asian concept of "saving face" is strong, said Chew. Like 77 percent of Singapore's 3.7 million people, Chew is ethnic Chinese.

"Singapore society is very strange. As soon as there's somebody to point at, you can talk about it, because it's not you. It's somebody else, somebody else's family, so we can talk about it," he said.

And Chew, who says he is bisexual, feels he is in an ideal position to be Singapore's "somebody else."

Three years ago, his doctors gave him three years to live.

Though Chew has pain in his joints and sometimes gasps for air, his quick smile and strong voice show he is a man with purpose.

"I don't work for the government," he said. "I just bloody say what I want to say."

Chew, formerly a Singapore Airlines flight steward, became a household name in Singapore last December when he spoke as an AIDS victim at the island republic's first-ever conference on the illness.

The incident unleashed a rare rush of public discussion on AIDS and related issues. Chew said strangers still furtively stop him in the street to thank him for his bravery, and he believes the new play can keep the momentum going.

Completely With/Out Character uses an austere stage, with a hospital bed and wheelchair as the only props.

Chew describes his AIDS experience while a series of images are projected onto the wall behind him.

The pictures deliberately clash with the tone of Chew's narrative. During his grim opening lines, there are instructional cartoons about Singapore's efficient, squeaky-clean subway system.

Lighter parts of the monologue are offset by images of flesh peeling off corpses, photos of lizards eating bugs, scenes from the film The Exorcist and paintings of the suffering of Christ.