6 October 1999
artseefartsee.com
Do I know you, Emily?
by Madame Hanuman Rasa


Dear Emily Gan,

You do not know me but I have always wanted to meet you in person.

When I first read your words in Stella Kon's play "Emily of Emerald Hill", I was struck by your plight as a woman who had to learn how to survive and keep her wits about her in a world which was unkind and unfair. Your predicament as a child who was rejected by her own mother, a wife deemed insufficient and cast off by her own husband and a mother who was dealt the hardest blow of all - the suicide of her own child - made me feel you had been given more than a fair share of suffering. I wondered if it was not because you had more than the usual share of strength and intelligence as well. Something in your words suggested you did.

But when I encountered you last week at The Actors Studio Theatre, I was confused and startled. You seemed to be so incredibly scheming, manipulative and conniving, that I began to feel you deserved all the harshness you received. Your constant dissatisfaction with others, your arrogant superiority complex, your patronising and condescending attitude and your flippant dismissal of other people's lives was most disturbing. Even when you decided to get rid of your tenant so your friend Bee Choo could stay in your house, it felt as if you really did not particularly like your tenant to begin with - and since you did not need the money, it did not matter anyway!

How come? I had thought that beneath the tough exterior you were a deeply sensitive woman of dignity and integrity. I never thought of you as the simply superficial social-climbing type. Although you sounded like such a slave to status, I had thought it was because you believed in it for your children and the welfare of your husband and his family.

But when I watched you among your family and friends that day, you seemed only concerned with yourself and all else was a foil to your ego. Almost as if revenge was your main motive in life and eventually you were miserable and lonely but that was not a big deal either as you still had your wealth and you still had your way.

So dear Emily I just wanted to ask you a few questions? Do you always feel you have to prove something - about the way you speak, dress, prance and dance? Have you always felt rejected no matter how well you succeeded in your own sphere of things? Do you honestly believe that being petulant and going into theatrics is going to help solve your problems? Why have you not grown up even though you have grown old? Were you just having a bad day?

Forgive my impudence in asking these questions. But I would also like to add that my mother-in-law, who happens to be a Nyonya woman from Malacca, was with me that night. And she was most perturbed that you suggested babi buah keluak was alien to our country. She wishes to remind you that the dish originated in our country and continues to be eaten and served as a specialty in our country.

One final question if I may. Was that really you, Emily Gan that I encountered last week? Or was it someone else perhaps?

Yours faithfully,
Madame Hanuman Rasa

Madame Hanuman Rasa is the pseudonym of an artseefartsee critic

Go to the Dramalab website archive of Emily of Emerald Hill.