SINGAPORE – Marketed as a whodunnit crime thriller, American playwright Jennifer Haley’s prize-winning The Nether (2013) is less Agatha Christie and more Black Mirror. Set in dystopian 2045 where people indulge their fetishes through avatars in virtual reality The Nether, a deviant crime is committed on a child, attracting a detective to investigate. Its dark themes resonate in a world increasingly powered by artificial intelligence and with the internet daily becoming more ungovernable. But one of the central questions goes back further, a complaint levelled
at everything from video games to the films of director Quentin Tarantino. Subin Subaiah, who adapted the play for its Singapore staging by HuM Theatre, says: “What really struck a chord with us is this constant debate about whether virtual behaviour has a relationship with actual offence, whether you can be addicted and still be quite happy in living in this world. What if the virtual world doesn’t become enough for you?” HuM Theatre is staging The Nether at the Esplanade Theatre Studio from July
8 to 12, in part to support the work of Pave, an organisation that tackles family violence and child abuse. The Ministry of Social and Family Development’s (MSF) Domestic Violence Trends report in 2025 showed a rise in child, spousal and elderly abuse. Counsellors at Pave will hold post-show dialogues with the audience. HuM Theatre founder and the show’s producer Daisy Irani is wary that the heavy topic will scare audiences away and promises that none of it will feel preachy. “It’s not a seminar,
not a conference. Even if we want to use theatre as a social tool, it must first be entertaining because you come here to spend an evening with us. That’s why we picked this thought-provoking, intelligent play.” The Nether has been adapted for the Singapore context and is played by a multiracial cast comprising Sharda Harrison, Andrew Lua, Wan Ahmad, Janine Ng and Subin himself. This is not to promote “some kind of integration phenomenon”, Subin says, but to reflect the statistics fairly. Of the
cases he looked at in MSF’s report, instances of violence are equally divided among the races. “I didn’t want to establish that one race was guilty and another race was the victim. We needed to establish that this is a shared situation and story that we as a community have to be cognisant of.” It also allows Subin to introduce an element of instability to the play, initially written for a homogenous cast. Harrison’s detective first enters The Nether with the avatar of a Malay
man. “The Malay is seen as an all-round good fellow, so her choosing him was the least suspicious. He’s sort of on the fringes. That also allows her to experience things she was deprived of, maybe a childhood or complete joy.” In this 2045 world, something devastating has happened to the outside world and audiences will catch glimpses of this during the play’s shifts between The Nether and reality. It raises the question of why, even pre-apocalypse, so many people are opting to spend large
chunks of their life on the internet. Subin says: “What I thought was very nice was this wonderful sentimentality about people who choose to go into the realm and participate in it. Are they lost? Are they angry? Is real life getting more and more boring?” He describes it as a “major migration” into The Nether. Daisy says it has become impossible for parents to know their children’s habits online. “We are giving incentives for them to becoming part of the online space. On a
very basic level, I’m wondering, ‘Where are we going?’” Better known for doing Indian theatre – its last sold-out play Train To Pakistan (2024) was nominated for Best Ensemble at The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards – HuM Theatre’s take on The Nether is its effort at broadening its audience. Daisy, 67, has also ceded directing duties to Yogesh Tadwalkar, who is part of a younger creative team. She recently had an imperious turn in the science-fiction comedy film We Can Save The World!!! directed
by Cheng Chai Hong in 2025, and witnessed first-hand the vitality and virality a younger group can bring. “The film did much better than what this young group of people were expecting, but we were hoping for more traction. They were trying to release it in Malaysia,” she adds. “I’m definitely still waiting for my next film role.” A Pave spokeswoman says there remains a pervasive attitude that family violence cases are a private matter, even when people directly witness an incident or notice bruises.
Pave also worked with The Necessary Stage in 2013 on the forum play Walking Into Doors. “We are seeing more serious cases of families coping with abuse not only between the adults, but also children who are affected deeply by witnessing the violence or are themselves abused,” says the spokeswoman. “Watching a play can be the first time someone in the audience realises that domestic violence is real and not ‘a private matter’. It is a powerful platform to stop people from looking away. Theatre
works.” Book It/The Nether Where: Esplanade Theatre Studio, 1 Esplanade Drive When: July 8 to 12, 7.30pm (Wednesdays to Fridays), 3pm and 7.30pm (Saturdays and Sundays) Admission: $60 (Eligible for SG Culture Pass credits) Info: str.sg/N4hB
The Nether, HuM Theatre, Esplanade Theatre Studio, Pave, family violence, child abuse, domestic violence trends 2025, Singapore theatre