Sensitive issue subject of play

Sensitive issue subject of play

SINGAPORE (AP): A play staged in Singapore this weekend raised the sensitive topic of a Dutch girl's forced separation from Malay Muslim foster parents which sparked deadly race riots in the city-state 50 years ago.

Racial and religious themes are rarely aired in the arts in Singapore, a tightly controlled Asian country with a complex mixture of ethnic groups.

The play My Name is Nadra, played Thursday through Sunday, is based on the story of Maria Hertogh, whose Dutch parents left her in the care of a Malay woman in Indonesia when World War II Japanese forces overran the former Dutch colony in 1942.

Hertogh, who was five years old at the time, was raised as a Muslim with the name Nadra and married a Malay man at age 13, said the play's writer Edwin Roberts.

Despite the extreme sensitivity of the issue in Singapore, Roberts said the country's authorities - known for routine censorship of the arts - raised no objections to the play.