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V29apr2020 Emily of Emerald Hill CONTENTS About The Play 4 Synopsis Production History Biographies Interviews and Articles 8 Stella of Emerald Hill Peranakan Trivia Discussion and Activities 15 General Discussion Points Themes and Issues - Family & Parenting - Tradition & Modernisation - Women in Society For Drama Clubs Further Resources 40 Post-Show Talk in Your School 42 Copyright © WILD RICE Ltd, 2019 All information is correct at the time of publication, but may be subject to change. Views expressed in this Learning Resource Pack are not necessarily those of WILD RICE. Developed and produced by WILD RICE’s Youth & Education department: Associate Artistic Director, Thomas Lim Youth & Education Manager, Ezzat Alkaff To get in touch with the Youth & Education department, please email Ezzat at [email protected]. WILD RICE Ltd 107 North Bridge Road #04-08 Funan Singapore 179105 Reg. No: 200100891D IPC Registration No: 000122 Tel: 6971-1051 Email: [email protected] Website: http://wildrice.com.sg ABOUT THE PLAY Synopsis Ivan Heng is one of Singapore’s most acclaimed actors. Glen Goei is one of Singapore’s most celebrated directors. Together, they bring to life one of Singapore theatre’s most iconic characters: Emily Gan, an abandoned girl who overcomes all odds to emerge as the matriarch of a distinguished Peranakan household. Evoking the golden age of Straits-Chinese culture from the 1930s, this new production promises to be the most immersive version of Stella Kon’s enduring classic yet. Step into our theatre and become one of Emily’s guests in her opulent, meticulously kept mansion… In this decadent world, fulfilment for a woman can only be found in her roles as a daughter-in-law, wife, mother and home-maker. So what must she do to succeed? And at what cost? Is Emily a woman trapped by tradition, or a feminist ahead of her time? Creative & Production Team Written by Stella Kon Multimedia Designer Brian Gothong Tan Directed by Glen Goei Hair Designer / Stylist Ashley Lim Set Designer Wong Chee Wai Make-up Designer The Make Up Room Lighting Designer Lim Woan Wen Production Manager Melissa Teoh Sound Designer Paul Searles Stage Manager Justina Khoo Costume Designers Lai Chan, Frederick Producer Tony Trickett Lee & Raymond Wong Cast Ivan Heng Emily of Emerald: About the Play 4 Production History Wild Rice Productions of Emily of Emerald Hill Over two decades, there have been 134 performances of Emily of Emerald Hill reaching an audience of more than 30,000. 6th - 17th October 1999 October 2002 Dramalab, The Actor’s Studio George Fairfax Studio Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Melbourne, Australia Directed by Krishen Jit Directed by Krishen Jit Starring Ivan Heng Starring Ivan Heng 20th - 25th January 2000 November 2002 Fringe Club, Star Alliance Festival CINARS Hong Kong Montreal, Canada Directed by Krishen Jit Directed by Krishen Jit Starring Ivan Heng Starring Ivan Heng 25th April - 10th May 2000 3rd to 12th March 2011 Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel Esplanade Theatre Singapore Singapore Directed by Krishen Jit Directed by Glen Goei Starring Ivan Heng Starring Ivan Heng 29th August - 16th September 2001 4th to 28th September 2019 Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel The Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre Singapore @ WILD RICE Directed by Krishen Jit Singapore Starring Ivan Heng Directed by Glen Goei Starring Ivan Heng February 2002 Australian Performing Arts Market Adelaide, Australia Directed by Krishen Jit Starring Ivan Heng Emily of Emerald: About the Play 5 Biographies Ivan Heng as Emily Gan Ivan Heng is one of Singapore’s most prominent and dynamic creative personalities. In a pioneering career spanning three decades, Ivan has directed, acted and designed many landmark Singapore theatre productions, which have been performed in more than 20 cities around the world. Ivan founded W!LD RICE in 2000. Under his leadership, the company has reached out to an audience of more than a million people, and is today at the vanguard of creating theatre with a distinctive Singaporean voice. In 2013, Ivan was awarded the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest cultural honour. He has a law degree from the National University of Singapore, and trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RSAMD). Emily of Emerald: About the Play 6 Stella Kon, Playwright Stella has written plays, novels and short stories infused with questions about Singapore’s national identity. In 1977 and 1982, she won the Ministry of Culture’s National Playwriting Competition, and won it again in 1983 with Emily of Emerald Hill. From 2006 to 2019, Stella was the Chairperson of Musical Theatre Ltd. She has written five musicals with composer Desmond Moey. Their latest collaboration, Lim Boon Keng the Musical, will be presented by Musical Theatre Ltd at Victoria Theatre in October 2019. Stella’s parents were both born on Emerald Hill Road, Singapore’s old Peranakan heartland. Her ancestors include Singapore pioneers Tan Tock Seng and Lim Boon Keng. Stella has two sons and six grandchildren. She has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Singapore in Malaya (1966) and an MA in Creative Writing from Nanyang Technological University (2016). Glen Goei, Director Glen’s substantial body of work encompasses a wide range of the performing arts, including theatre, film, parades and world expos. Highlights include his Olivier Award-nominated performance in the title role of M. Butterfly opposite Anthony Hopkins in London’s West End; and his critically acclaimed feature films, Forever Fever and The Blue Mansion. Glen has also made significant contributions to Singapore’s theatre scene. Since 2002, Glen has served as the Co-Artistic Director of WILD RICE, for which he has directed hits such as Supervision, La Cage Aux Folles, HOTEL, Public Enemy, The Importance of Being Earnest, The House of Bernarda Alba, Cook a Pot of Curry, Emily of Emerald Hill, Family Outing, Blithe Spirit, The Magic Fundoshi, Aladdin and Boeing Boeing. Emily of Emerald: About the Play 7 Emily of Emerald: About the Play 8 INTERVIEWS AND ARTICLES Stella of Emerald Hill By Shawne Wang Close to four decades ago, Stella Kon wrote one of the most iconic plays in Singapore theatre history. She chats with us about creating Emily of Emerald Hill, what the play means to her, and her life-long love of the theatre. Since the 1970s, Stella Kon has built an illustrious career as a writer. Drawing inspiration from Singapore’s history and heritage, Stella has written plays, novels, short stories and musicals that explore issues of home and identity. Of Stella’s remarkable canon of work, Emily of Emerald Hill is perhaps closest to her heart. Emily Gan, the title character, is a formidable nyonya matriarch based on Stella’s own grandmother. Stella spent some of her formative years in her family’s mansion in Emerald Hill, Singapore’s old Peranakan heartland. Following its KL premiere in 1984, Emily of Emerald Hill has become Singapore’s best- known and most-performed English-language play. Outside of Singapore and Malaysia, it has been performed in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, New York, Emily of Emerald Hill: Interviews and Articles 9 Hamburg, Munich, Hawaii, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Beijing and the UK. The play has also been broadcast over Radio Iceland, and translated into Mandarin, Japanese, French and Kannada. 2019 marks the 35th anniversary of Emily of Emerald Hill. Ahead of WILD RICE’s upcoming production of this classic play at its new theatre in Funan, Stella opens up about all things Emily and more. What first inspired you to write Emily of Emerald Hill? I had already received first prize in the Singapore Playwriting Competition twice – for my plays, The Bridge and Trial. But neither play got produced. The given reason from producers was that the casts were too big. Perhaps they also found the scripts unmanageable and too avant garde. I was living in Ipoh then. My friend, Ong Su-Ming, suggested that I should write a one- person play – we had seen examples from British Council touring productions, among others. She suggested her illustrious grandmother as a subject, and I said that I had a formidable grandmother of my own. That was how it began. Take us back to your process of writing Emily of Emerald Hill. I wrote this play over a period of three months, on an early-model no-name computer made in Singapore. I think it had just 32K RAM! As the script itself is like a patchwork quilt of scenes, I printed the separate sections on a dot-matrix printer, punched the pages and kept them in a ring-binder so that I could shuffle them and change their order as necessary. What was your biggest challenge in writing the play? My biggest technical problem in writing was figuring out how to integrate the passages where Emily is acting out a scene with other people into her ordinary narration. I had not seen this done before in other plays, and it felt as though I was exploring new ground. There were logistical challenges too! During the revision period, I moved from Ipoh to London. When I needed to print the final version, I had to borrow my nephew’s printer, and plug my computer into his television set to use the TV as a monitor. It was a cumbersome process! I mailed the completed manuscript to my husband in Ipoh. He took it to the photocopy shop to make three copies, one of which he mailed to the Ministry of Culture in Singapore to submit Emily for the play-writing competition. Emily of Emerald Hill: Interviews and Articles 10 A bevy of Emilys at the Peranakan Museum's 'Emily of Emerald Hill: Singaporean Identity on Stage' exhibition in 2013 | (L-R) Neo Swee Lin, Ivan Heng, Stella Kon, Pearlly Chua, Jalyn Han What was it like for you to watch Emily of Emerald Hill for the first time? I was living in Britain when the play was first performed in Malaysia.
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