As much as I'm not into the genre, I still watched Wild Rice's staging of Stella Kon's one-woman play, 'Emily of Emerald Hill', because I wanted to check out the gorgeous Wild Rice arts facility at the new Funan mall and see the thrust stage. CNA Lifestyle reports, "In collaboration with Capitaland, the theatre was three years in the making. It was designed by the award-winning team that includes Singaporean architecture studio Zarch Collaboratives and internationally renowned theatre design consultancy Charcoalblue, and envisioned by Heng and executive director Tony Trickett." The intimate 358-seat Ngee Ann Kongsi theatre hosts this show, and many more to come. I love it! It's not just beautifully designed, but there's heart and soul in it. You could feel it.
Stella Kon's 'Emily of Emerald Hill' (1982) hounded me through English classes in secondary school, junior college and at university. From a naive young bride in a Peranakan household to being adept at finding favor with her mother-in-law, later on to have to deal with her husband's infidelity and then her eldest son's suicide, and finally Emily becomes the unhappy matriarch of the household, an empty house on Emerald Hill. It was deemed the seminal work of Singaporean English theatre in the 1980s through 1990s. Even the maternal grandmother also waved that book at me at tea-time. I wanted to be rid of it as much as Jane Austen's women.
Margaret Chan, Neo Swee Lin, and Malaysians Leow Puay Tin and Pearlly Chua (this play was first performed in Malaysia by Leow Puay Tin in 1984, produced by Five Arts Center) and many other talented actresses have played Emily Gan. However, Ivan Heng's portrayal of Emily Gan is iconic lah. He's the only reason why I would watch this play. He effortlessly strung together Baba Malay, English and Hokkien. This is like the tenth time I've seen him play Emily, and that factual count is probably ten times more. He literally redefined the Emily in the book.
Directed by Glen Goei, this 2019 performance, like Wild Rice's inaugural opening show in 2000, and its 10th anniversary performance in 2011 (the year when Glen Goei first directed Ivan Heng's Emily), was sterling. Ivan Heng shares what he feels about playing Emily again in this brand new space that Wild Rice can finally claim as its own.
Stella Kon's 'Emily of Emerald Hill' (1982) hounded me through English classes in secondary school, junior college and at university. From a naive young bride in a Peranakan household to being adept at finding favor with her mother-in-law, later on to have to deal with her husband's infidelity and then her eldest son's suicide, and finally Emily becomes the unhappy matriarch of the household, an empty house on Emerald Hill. It was deemed the seminal work of Singaporean English theatre in the 1980s through 1990s. Even the maternal grandmother also waved that book at me at tea-time. I wanted to be rid of it as much as Jane Austen's women.
Margaret Chan, Neo Swee Lin, and Malaysians Leow Puay Tin and Pearlly Chua (this play was first performed in Malaysia by Leow Puay Tin in 1984, produced by Five Arts Center) and many other talented actresses have played Emily Gan. However, Ivan Heng's portrayal of Emily Gan is iconic lah. He's the only reason why I would watch this play. He effortlessly strung together Baba Malay, English and Hokkien. This is like the tenth time I've seen him play Emily, and that factual count is probably ten times more. He literally redefined the Emily in the book.
Directed by Glen Goei, this 2019 performance, like Wild Rice's inaugural opening show in 2000, and its 10th anniversary performance in 2011 (the year when Glen Goei first directed Ivan Heng's Emily), was sterling. Ivan Heng shares what he feels about playing Emily again in this brand new space that Wild Rice can finally claim as its own.
Now, in our own theatre in Funan, I truly believe that Glen and I have created a production of Emily of Emerald Hill that’s unlike any you’ve seen before – or will see again. Our very unique and intimate theatre has given us the opportunity to really distill the play to find its true essence. We’ve boiled it down to the very purest form of theatre: a text, a performer and an audience. Performing this play in this space, with a thrust stage surrounded on three sides by audience members, means that everyone is actually in Emily’s mansion in Emerald Hill. When you see the show, you’re a guest in Emily’s living room!
 |
| Ivan Heng talks to Shawne Wang about 'Becoming Emily of Emerald Hill'. |
No comments:
Post a Comment