The Sum of Their Parts

What keeps two actors rooted at home

YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE THEIR faces, even if you don't know their names. You might have caught a glimpse of them in movies or from television mini-series like Noble House. They're the brothers Lim -- Kay Tong, 43, and Kay Siu, 41. The more established actor, Kay Tong regularly surfaces in BBC productions like Tenko, a war epic, and in films such as the early Madonna vehicle, Shanghai Surprise. The younger Lim also found a niche in British television, stage and screen (he played an art smuggler in Nightwatch, a thriller starring Pierce Brosnan).

But both prefer to remain in their native Singapore. The attraction: what they describe as a "cutting-edge" theater scene. That's not a trait many associate with a city better known for its strait-laced ways. But in recent years, the brothers have found Singapore to be a lively outlet for their talents.

"There are new ideas and the boundaries are less set," says Kay Tong, who helped found a local company, TheaterWorks. Most of all, the brothers are excited at being able to carve out new frontiers in drama. "I felt the Singapore scene was growing and I was missing a lot," says Kay Siu. He returned home last year after completing a directing course in Britain. "I feel a stake in drama here; it's our home. In Singapore, there's a pioneering spirit."

And a better range of roles. However talented they may be, Asian actors can expect a dearth of good parts in the West. The Lims know from experience. Kay Siu, for one, has played more "fried-rice Chinamen" and Oriental gangsters than he cares to remember. For his actress wife, Swee Lin, the roles were just as limited: prostitute or maid. Kay Tong has been fortunate to get the odd, three-dimensional role in the U.S. Even so, they were small parts and tended to be stereotypes, he says.

The choice is much better back home. There is a downside, of course. Local drama just doesn't pay very well. Where actors in Britain earn at least $330 a week, there is no minimum wage in Singapore. Often, Kay Siu pockets that much for 10 weeks of theater work. Radio voice-overs and TV commercials help pay his bills. Kay Tong reckons he could still earn a living if he were to accept only the more satisfying roles that Singapore could provide, but "it would be very difficult." He adds: "You'd feed your soul, but it's not that easy materially." Commuting to take the more lucrative -- if less challenging -- jobs abroad is a compromise.

But that's less painful than giving up acting altogether. The two actors had to resist considerable family pressure to take up safer careers. Kay Siu succumbed briefly when he let his parents, both doctors, talk him into a degree in biochemistry: "I was very unhappy, but did it out of a sense of duty." But there was no looking back once he found acting: "It's what I really like to do."

Recently, the brothers found themselves dredging up old feelings of guilt and conflict between duty and personal satisfaction. They appeared together in Lao Jiu, a play about a family which makes huge sacrifices to help their only son to academic glory, only to have him throw it all away to pursue his love of puppetry. It drew performances from the pair that critic Ben Munroe described as "absolutely world-class." Clearly, it was a work in which they did not have to rely on method acting.

-- By Santha Oorjitham