November 1999
MEN's REVIEW
Emily of Emerald Hill
by Sulin Chee


DIRECTOR: Krishen Jit
ACTOR: Ivan Heng
WRITER: Stella Kon
Monodrama, theatre run 1999, Malaysia, Dramalab


Emily of Emerald Hill has been played gadzillions of times. If any non-theatre going public were to know of any local theatre production, it'd be this. Which is why I wasn't too excited on hearing it was playing again, but this time with the lead taken up by premiere Singaporean actor Ivan Heng, and directed by Krishen Jit I was well and truly wrong, however.

This last run was a stupendous show, to be caught by anyone who could catch a cockroach with half a mind and some insect spray. In the first place, Heng does a splendid job. You've never seen acting in local theatre like this before. I hear the reason is because Heng is formally trained (he did a relevant degree in Edinburgh). Whatever it is, Heng draws you in immediately, with a perfectly-timed arsenal of facial and body expressions -- and the captivating personality he takes on and radiates as Emily. I'll never knock formal training again.

Heng also takes his art seriously and probably, personally. With a distant smile of satisfaction, he was heard to say after the show, "When the audience gives you a lot, you also want to give more back."

With Heng it would seem, it's not so much a show but an exchange between the artist and the audience, ending in the artist's sacrifice of his reservations, laying himself bare and pulling out all the stops for his audience, not unlike sex.

Emily itself is an engaging story. It is about a Nyonya (Malacca Straits-born Chinese) woman who claws her way through much manipulation of the people around her, including her family, from being a virtual orphan "from the gutter" to being the Nyonya matriarch, the nexus around which this family, her household and the society she aspires to, revolves. To such a level it proves her undoing in the end. There are several levels to this saga.

On one, it is a case study of self-determination versus just accepting. On another, it is about generational conflict, a mother's ambitions for her son versus the son's own. On yet another, it humanly documents a sector of our history, of the affluent Straits Chinese whose lifestyle was filled with the likes of English-inspired dinner parties, babi buah keluak (a Nyonya dish) and polygamy. Lastly, it is about the lot of the early 20th-century Chinese woman whose bounded possibilities were hidden behind a flurry of self-imposed responsibilities, whose life was only incidental to those of the males around her.

All this sounds terribly deep but Emily never wallows in its misery. It never presumes to. Instead, it is a cabaret show first, complete with audience participation, and a drama, second. Complete with a gorgeously froufrou yet minimal set designed by Raja Maliq and costumes so stellar they'd astound you, Emily is a must-watch.

At the end of the night, I wished I'd brought my mum.

Rating 5 You must go watch it

Played October 99 in Actors Studio. Further info, Dramalab at 03 715 3801