National Service is an integral part of every Singaporean male's journey towards manhood. In Army Daze, we salute Singaporean boys as they don their uniforms and begin their march to maturity. We also celebrate how these sons of diverse backgrounds and circumstances come under one camp and eventually become brothers; blurring the boundaries of race, age and social status.
Michael Chiang's play is about the misadventures of five young men as they go through their Basic Military Training. The five protagonists are: Malcolm Png, the middle-class mummy's boy whose overbearing and highly protective mother just wants him to be a clerk and "not work too hard"; Ah Beng, the street-wise Hokkien-spewing HDB boy; Krishna, who is always pining for his girlfriend Lathi; the limp-wristed Kenny, who dreams of stardom and wants to join the Music and Drama Company, and Johari, the happy-go-lucky "Rambo".
Screaming superiors and grueling exercises aside, the boys have to deal with their lives outside the microcosm of their platoon, like Krishna's relationship problems with his flirtatious girlfriend and Kenny's angst with his family who have abandoned him for Australia.
While adjusting to army life and their brand new haircuts, the five recruits learn more about themselves and each other with comic results.
