SINGAPORE — The Necessary Stage’s latest production may be all about “flat cities”, but Sharda Harrison’s most memorable image while preparing for it was of squashed people.

In the lead-up to the group’s Mobile 2: Flat Cities, the 26-year-old performer was part of a two-week cross-cultural workshop in Japan last year. In one of the sessions, her Japanese counterparts played out a scenario involving people on a train.

“Someone was reading this poem about the rules of what not to do on the train — no sitting, no smoking — and the others slowly ‘got on’ the train until it got really packed. It wasn’t just simply being squashed, the people ‘on the train’ looked unhappy. It was a really moving piece,” she recalled (pun probably unintended).

That particular scene isn’t going to be part of Mobile 2, but the trip itself helped to shape the piece and forge a bond between the Singaporean and Japanese performers. “It was nice to connect with people internationally. Even if we all live in different countries, we have the same training background,” said Harrison.

Written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Alvin Tan, Mobile 2: Flat Cities is a follow-up to the first Mobile piece presented in 2006 and is line with the group’s other cross-country collaborations, such as last year’s Crossings, where they worked with a Croatian group.

History, technology, and a handful of characters figure in this play that takes place before Japan’s surrender during World War II, and also crosses into the modern world. Among others, there’s a Japanese general, who is ill, being taken care of by a Malay gardener, and also an Indian human rights activist (played by Harrison, who at some point also appears as a Japanese AV idol in the show’s video elements) married to a Japanese man.

“Some of these characters meet in these different parallel time zones,” she said, adding that the show goes into different styles. “Some of the scenes are very Greek chorus-like, some naturalistic, some of it is rather risky conversation, like when the general talks to the gardener about nationalism. Haresh has written a deep, intricate script, which Alvin is now trying to piece together.”

Similar to their working process for Crossings, the group — which also includes Najib Soiman, Japanese performers Shoichi Ayada, Akihiro Hashimoto, Chihiro Hirai and Doppo Narita, as well as dramaturg Ken Takiguchi — used Skype and Facebook to brainstorm the piece. Their group page in the latter, in particular, has been where the discussions have taken place. “We’ve put in a whole bunch of interviews and articles on suicide groups, the history of Japan, the relationship between Japan and Singapore,” said Harrison. “How much of the war do we all know about? Even the Japanese artists acknowledge that what they know is either passed down from grandparents or the little they know in their textbooks.”

There was also the idea of “flattening”, in terms of technology, too. “We talked about this idea of cities being ‘flattened’ by technology, taking us from our true selves. Facebook is perhaps ‘flattening’ us, but there are some moments where it also amazes me. I can read something on the news feed before anywhere else.”

Preparations for Mobile 2: Flat Cities all seems pretty intense, but that hasn’t stopped Harrison from doing more things on the side as well. She recently started her own theatre company with fellow actor Najib Soiman called Pink Gaja Theatre, which made its debut at the recent Lit Up festival, and has a show lined up for next year — one that has to do with the human scalp.

Harrison is also taking part in next year’s TNS production Poor Thing. “That has nothing to do with parallel worlds. It all just happens in one day,” she quipped.

Mobile 2: Flat Cities, Aug 28 to Sept 7, 8pm, The Necessary Stage Black Box, #B1-02 Marine Community Building. With 3pm weekend matinees. Tickets at S$30 from Sistic.