SINGAPORE — Actress Elizabeth Lazan, who was set to perform in Michael Chiang’s comeback play about tai tais, High Class, has contracted dengue.

But the show, which opens on Friday, will still go on, said director Beatrice Chia-Richmond. Fellow actress Josephine Tan has been roped in to temporarily replace Lazan.

“I’ve been an actor before and this is one of the worst things to happen. Nobody rehearses something to not perform it and Liz has been really been looking forward to this production,” said Chia-Richmond. “She has been away for a while (in New York) and this was one of the first shows she’s been working on since she came back. I’m so sad and disappointed for her, but hopefully she will be back next week and will still be able to perform towards the second half of the run.”

High Class is a comedy play revolving around five contestants who go on a reality show set to groom the next top tai tai. Ironically, Lazan plays a National Environment Agency dengue-control inspector named Sunita Pillay. “Of all the ironies, she’s the one who gets dengue,” said Chia-Richmond.

According to her, Lazan had come for rehearsals on Tuesday with high fever. Results tested positive yesterday.

“As of yesterday, she was still resting at home and from what I understand from her, this week is the most critical. We’ll get an update from her today. I can only hope that for her, it’s not one of those (cases) that require her to be rushed to the hospital. I think she’s disappointed enough and we hope she recovers over the weekend.”

Should Lazan be unable to perform by then, Tan will finish the run. “We’ve asked her to come and learn everything in 48 hours. Fortunately for us, we have very capable actors in Singapore who can step in, learn the lines and also have the grace to go ‘Okay, you’re in trouble, no questions asked, I’m gonna step in and help you out,” said Chia-Richmond, citing others like the late Emma Yong and Hossan Leong, who, during one of the early runs of Army Daze, another of Chiang’s plays, had come in to play Malcolm Png when the original actor contracted chicken pox.

“Jo was one of them — when we called her, she came down immediately. The only thing we can do now is to get her ready, and the whole cast has rallied around her.”

High Class opens tomorrow (July 5) and runs until July 14 at the Drama Centre Theatre. Tickets from Sistic.