Oon Shu An goes through emotional stress during rehearsals for 1st Mandarin play, needs scream pillow to cope

Being on stage and letting loose with rage might seem cathartic, but that is not the case for Oon Shu An.

The local actress spoke to AsiaOne in a recent interview about her experiences rehearsing for her upcoming dark comedy play God of Carnage, where she portrays high-strung wealth manager Annette Lee who seeks to keep things civil and polite in a tense situation.

“It’s been really emotionally draining. You’d think getting to scream and hit things would offer a sense of catharsis, but these characters are always constantly set off by each other and most of the time it’s really nothing personal,” the 39-year-old lamented.

During rehearsals, Shu An needs her own way to de-stress before reaching her limit – namely through venting her energy into a mini scream pillow she’d originally bought as a joke in 2025.

In God of Carnage, Annette is among two sets of parents who meet to talk about their sons’ scuffle in a park, seeking to “peacefully resolve” it. The meeting, however, ultimately spirals out of control with an onslaught verbal assault and objects being thrown around the room. It also stars Mia Chee, Cavin Soh and Tay Kong Hui.

When Annette reaches her breaking point, she snaps – seen in the play’s climactic moments where she throws up all over the stage.

“Annette’s idea of peace is such that everybody stays nice and happy, not necessarily about whether things are fair – she just wants calmness,” added Shu An.

While she also vouches for harmony, she believes it cannot come without justice. She explained: “If someone must swallow harm or continued mistreatment in order for no conflict to take place, then it’s definitely not harmonious for them.”

Shu An also faces trouble playing Annette as she finds it difficult to separate the actor from character in understanding the latter’s anxieties. “When she wants to get a point across, she fears that she seems like she’s starting a fight, but also that people think she’s a coward with no spine,” she explained.

“I mean, yes, it’s a survival mechanism she has and both of us approach things very differently. But when I read her lines, Shu An sees it a certain way, but the actor in me needs to figure out what’s causing her stress. Why is Annette killing herself all over this? Making that switch is something that I always must be conscious about.”

In Shu An’s own personal life, her stress is typically triggered by emotional issues, most primarily interpersonal matters when she feels as if people misunderstand each other, alongside upsetting current affairs including wartime news.

All this stress physically culminates in her stomach twisting and turning, which has her drinking lots of water to relieve her discomfort, as well as popping the occasional anti-anxiety prescription or stomach settler.

‘A whole different way of thinking about the world’

God of Carnage marks Shu An’s first full play in Chinese with Nine Years Theatre. Previously, she starred in Pangdemonium’s bilingual play Chinglish (2015) as well as multiple Chinese dramas including Yes Mdm (2016) and I’m Madam (2019).

She remarked that having worked on these projects in the past, she has since gotten over the initial shock of receiving call sheets entirely in Chinese, but still needs to ensure she interprets the information correctly.

However, as someone who works primarily in English, Mandarin isn’t second nature to her. “Annette has this line where in Chinese, it literally translates to her saying ‘I’m just spitting out bile’.

“But director Nelson (Chia) explained that it holds much more meaning in Mandarin – she means that she’s spitting out all her grievances. And in that moment, I was reminded of the poetic nuances that the Chinese language has. Lines can look the same across scripts of different languages when translated, but in their cultural contexts, we get so many interesting variations.”

Even now, while mostly fluent in the language, she still struggles occasionally and must seek clarification on certain words she is unsure about when working in fully Mandarin environments.

Like many others in Singapore, Shu An used to hold the mentality that studying mother tongue in school was “a waste”, leading to a decline in her grasp on the language.

Looking back on those days, she recalled: “I feel like I wasted a lot of time not paying attention in Chinese classes. At some point it got into my head that learning Chinese was not cool and that it was bad.

“However, before this, I used to get grades as high as 99 out of 100 for my Chinese exams and I was good at the language. But when my brain started to switch off during lessons, I refused to engage with the language, which extended to the culture.”

This went on until junior college, where she described she and her teacher being content with her scoring a bare minimum C5 grade for her final Chinese examination.

Thankfully, she eventually “exponentially” regained her grasp on the language through watching Chinese TV shows, and actively engaging in Mandarin conversations, music and plays.

“Knowing a different language introduces you to a whole different way of thinking about the world,” she said. “There are so many great Chinese books about philosophy and the world that I could be reading with so much more ease, but it takes a lot more work for me because I wasted all that precious time.”

God of Carnage will be staged at The Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre @ Funan with English surtitles from March 20 to 29, with showings at 3pm on Saturdays and Sundays, and 8pm showings from Tuesdays to Saturdays. Tickets start at $27 on Sistic, and are eligible for SG Culture Pass.