EMILY OF EMERALD HILL by W!ld Rice

“An Intimate Affair”

Reviewer: Lee Shu Yu
Performance: 7 September 2019

Ask anyone for the title of an iconic Singaporean play and you are likely to hear “Emily of Emerald Hill” – with good reason. The searing monodrama was written by Stella Kon in 1982, and tells of the trials and glories of the Peranakan matriarch Emily Gan. It has been performed more than 500 times across Singapore, Malaysia, Beijing and even Mumbai.

There’s simply no other play fit for the grand opening of Wild Rice’s new theatre at Funan Mall. But what awaited me was a riotous and chaotic first act.

This production, directed by Glen Goei, takes full advantage of the intimate thrust stage. With everyone sitting close together, Heng easily calls latecomers up on stage to tease, and singles out front-row audience members to interrogate as one of Emily’s servants.

Kon’s play requires the audience to keep up with Emily’s various personalities – tender, showy and everything in between – and the meandering chronology of events. And Wild Rice’s liberal additions of audience interaction ends up further confusing the voice of Emily.

While it is thrilling and comical when an audience member is caught off-guard, Heng’s constant breaking off from the text becomes jarring to the overall flow of Emily’s story. I find myself being distracted by his own larger-than-life persona and having to deal with too much added banter. It takes me a while to get used to the fact that I am not watching a one-woman drama, but something closer to a stand-up act involving an audience ensemble.

In a sequence where Emily reveals, through various interactions with her family, just how controlling and demanding she can be, Heng deliberately propels through the montage with added flourishes, never stopping to catch a breath. The feat yields thunderous applause and cat calls, but it feels like such glee is misplaced. In between Heng lifting up Emily’s voice and drowning it with frolics, I wonder if this play could have been titled Ivan Heng of Funan Mall instead.

Yet, for such a no-holds-barred production, its design elements are surprisingly conservative. Set design by Wong Chee Wai is uninspiring; Emily’s web of control over the home is literally conveyed by strings that go across the hulking, white façade of the house. Sound design by Paul Searles is mostly functional, coming on as predictable cues for Emily but very little else.

Thankfully, as Emily grows older, Heng too pulls back. Where he shows little to no restraint in the first half, the second half of the play finally gives us some breathing room as he flaunts his versatility. This is where Heng shows he is no one-trick pony, but a force to be reckoned with when it comes to playing the icon that he has made his own.

And while Heng’s Emily is not for everyone, the endless guffaws from the audience signal that a campy and unexpected performer can indeed refresh an old text.

Alas, one last thing pricks at my experience of the play.

In the first act, amidst the playfulness, Heng confiscates a mobile phone from an audience member trying to video-record his performance. But then, during Emily’s most powerful speech, another person’s mobile phone starts to ring. Some of the audience even laugh in anticipation of what Heng would do. Disgruntled, he momentarily snaps out of character to chide the culprit into silencing their still-buzzing phone.

His recovery from the disruption is seamless and poised, but these incidents nonetheless beget the question: Wild Rice might be ready to get intimate with audiences, but are our audiences ready to be held accountable for their actions?