“Do you understand what made me what I am?”
“Before my breasts were grown, I learned that a woman is nothing in this world that men have made.”
Born in 1940s Singapore, Emily is abandoned as a child. By dint of her native wit and cunning, she becomes the matriarch of a distinguished household and Singapore society’s “hostess with the mostest”. But at what cost?
Her story, passionately played out against the glamorous backdrop of the decadent glory days of the Singaporean Peranakan community, celebrates the triumph of the human spirit to survive, succeed, and ultimately stay relevant in an ever-changing world.
Written by Stella Kon, Emily of Emerald Hill is a one-woman play about a Nyonya matriarch who dominates and devotes herself to her family, yet in the end, finds that she loses what she loves most. The play won the First Prize in Singapore’s National Play-Writing Competition in 1983. Since then, it has been staged more than a hundred times, by eight different performers – 7 women and 1 man – in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Hawaii, and Edinburgh. An unknown number of students and amateurs have also performed the play in private and school productions. It has been translated into Chinese and Japanese and broadcast over Radio Iceland.
In 1999, Ivan Heng became the first male actor to play Emily, in a production directed by Krishen Jit. In 2000, Emily of Emerald Hill made its debut at the Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel Singapore, marking the birth of W!LD RICE. To date, Ivan Heng has performed a total of 110 performances as Emily in Singapore,Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada.
