Staging Nation examines the complex relationship between the theatrical stage and the wider stage of nation building in postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore. In less than fifty years, locally written and produced English language theatre has managed to shrug off its colonial shackles to become an important site of community expression. This groundbreaking comparative study examines the role of creative writing and the act of performance as actual political acts and as interventions in national self-constructions. It argues that certain forms of theatre can be read as emerging oppositional cultures which contribute towards the deepening of democracy by offering contending narratives of the nation. The combination of a rigorous theoretical framework and detailed analysis of theatrical texts grounded in sociological analysis of Malaysian and Singaporean societies, together with documentation of specific case studies, makes this book a pioneering contribution to Asian studies, postcolonial analysis, and performance studies.