While writing Psychobitch came easily for Chong, balancing her time between being a lawyer and a playwright was tough. She shares that the deadline for submitting the play came in between her two-week UN negotiation in New York and one-week meeting at the UN in Geneva. After coming back from her three-week-long trip, she took leave and wrote the play in two days.

She continues: “I had been thinking about how to write the scenes throughout the trip but only worked on it very intensively in two days. But I think my process suited the energy of the play, which is very chaotic and manic.”

Indeed, Chong’s type-A personality constantly drives her to be the best at everything she does. That much is reflected in her inspiring journey in the legal field. At 34 years old, she already has multiple accolades under her belt, including being the top candidate at the Singapore Bar in 2013, serving on a United Nations Expert Group and negotiating an international treaty.

Beyond the courtroom, Chong is passionate about poetry, having her first poetry collection Professions (2016) shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018 and her poem Lion Heart engraved on the Marina Bay Helix Bridge. Psychobitch isn’t her first foray into the theatre industry, either. In fact, her first play, The Feelings Farm, was produced by Esplanade in 2021. Her second play, #WomenSupportingWomen, won her first prize at the T:>Works 24-hour Playwriting Competition in 2021.

Writing a professional play had never crossed Chong’s mind—until she was approached by Esplanade in 2020. “One of the producers just asked me to write a play, which turned into a musical. I was shocked they approached me because I had no track record as a playwright,” she explains. With no formal training on writing plays, Chong resorted to borrowing books and watching masterclasses online. “Poetry is very isolating, it’s just you and your thoughts. But in theatre, a whole team of people are involved, sharing their own artistic imaginations… I love that collaboration,” she says.

Chong says her imposter syndrome also pushed her to join The Necessary Stage’s developmental playwriting programme in 2022. There, Chong was tasked to write a play and knew she wanted to write a one-woman show titled Psychobitch. While she didn’t know the whole plot of the play, she knew she wanted to dissect toxic relationships and she knew she wanted to work with her close friend, Sindhura Kalidas.

A professional actor and dramaturg, Sindhura was Chong’s first acting partner in Raffles Girls School, where Chong directed, wrote and acted in plays in the Drama Club. “She had once told me that it’s hard to find roles as a brown woman in Singapore theatre. So I said okay, I will write a play just for you,” she shares.

The duo worked closely while writing the play. While Chong was writing, she would send Sindhura scenes to read, bouncing ideas off one another. “Working with someone who’s a dear friend to me is a dream come true,” she adds.

As Chong was writing about a brown woman, having Sindhura’s input on various scenes also helped with her creation process. “In the play, there are certain racial microaggressions that Anya experiences which accentuates the inequalities in her relationship with her Chinese boyfriend. That’s something that I don’t really have experience of and I had to get it from Sindhu,” she explains.

In search of the emotional heart of her play, Chong also asked Sindhura and various other women about their own ‘psychobitch’ moments. Chong wants her play to be as emotionally authentic as possible. She explains: “Everything in the play is either from my experience, Sindhu’s experience, or somebody else’s experience.”

Amidst the chaos, Chong hopes her play can move her audience—regardless of gender. “I hope that people can see themselves in Anya’s story and it gives them the courage to hope for unconditional love not just in the context of a romantic relationship but also through family, friendships and faith,” she explains.

While it’s a story about a woman, Chong shares that it’s also everybody’s truth to desire to be “fully known and loved” for all our flaws.

Psychobitch is running from August 3 to 19 at Wild Rice @ Funan. Tickets are available at wildrice.com.sg.

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