Title: Emily of Emerald Hill. One woman
stage - play to raise funds for Penang Down Syndrome Support Group
Actor: Pearlly Chua Poh Choo (see photo
below)
For whom: Everybody
When: Saturday/Sunday 6th and 7th of March 1999
at 8pm
Where: Komtar Auditorium A
Entrance: RM 20, RM 30, Students RM 12
The tickets can be bought at the
following outlets:
|
Glugor Nursery House Sdn Bhd
21 Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah
10050 Penang
Tel: 05-657 5137
|
Penang Heritage Trust
26A Stewart Lane
10200 Penang
Tel: 04-264 2631
|
|
Jenni Homemade Cakes and Bakery
33-A Cantonment Road
10350 Penang
Tel: 04-226 8596
|
The British Council
3 Weld Quay
10300 Penang
Tel: 04-263 0330
|
|
Cafe Orange
399 Burmah Road
10350 Penang
Tel: 04-228 2399
|
Hot Wok Cafe
1250 Jalan Tanjong Tokong
10470 Penang
Tel: 04-899 0858
|
|
Kaunter kebudayaan dan Kesenian
Ground Floor
Dewan Sri Pinang
Tel: 04-264 2273
|
|
RM12.00 (Students Concession) will be available from the various
schools.
For enquiries call Kwn Woo Yee Saik (Tel: 012-471 6201) or
Kwn Dick Khoo (Tel: 016-271 9116)
For advertising enquiries, please call Kwn Joseph Yeoh
(Tel: 017-475 9090)
This one-woman (acted by Pearlly
Chua Poh Choo) play, written by Singaporean playwright
Stella Kon, has over the years achieved cult status. Many performances have been sold-out
affairs. Despite the fact that it is set in Singapore, it has nonetheless been adopted as
a Malaysian play par excellence. First performed in Seremban in 1984, the play has been
performed all over Malaysia, in Singapore and in various parts of the world, including
Hawaii and Edinburgh.
The play, set in the first half of the century, explores the same
hopes, fears and aspirations harboured by women the world over in their roles as wives and
mothers.
Emily is the matriarch of a wealthy Singaporean family, who efficiently
runs her household's physical and emotional life. She epitomises everyone's most
manipulative and controlling female relative. She is the wife who makes sure her husband
has clean clothes, even when he is living in his mistress's house. She is the parent who
craftily (though not subtly) engineers her son's future. She is the sister-in-law locked
in an ongoing contest of one-upwomanship within the clan. And she is the mother who
entices her daughter to postpone her impetuous marriage - "I'll send you money, don't
worry."
For the next hour and a half, see Emily skillfully deal with weighty
issues like wayward husbands, long-suffering children and bullying by in-laws. Join the
girl-child Emily as she articulates the horror of realising that she is worthless simply
because she is female.
Watch as politically correct Emily pitches her tone in reference to
where the other person lies on the social scale, from "Oi Botak! All the fish you
sent me yesterday were rotten! I throw at your head!" (after all, what would any
self-respecting Nyonya do without some shrieking and gesticulating in her life?) to the
well oiled, dulcet tones of "Oh Mr. Chan, how are you?"
Experience the subtle power struggle inherent in a traditional tea
ceremony and the passing of a lifestyle of garden parties and squadrons of servants.
These and many more treats await you as you accept the invitation to a
soiree at Emerald Hill from none other than the one and only Nyonya Besar, Mrs. Emily Gan,
herself.
San Sooi was awarded a British Council scholarship to the Central
School of Speech and Drama, London in 1969. Since then he has involved himself extensively
in all aspects of theatre: costume,lighting, set designing and make-up. He was one of the
pioneers of the one-woman play back in the mid-eighties when it was considered too
daunting: one woman holding the stage, the narration flitting back and forth through
different stages of her life, from cosseted child to lonely old lady.
San Sooi is no stranger to the theatre-going crowd in Malaysia; he is a
director and playwright with many successful productions under his belt. He is adept not
only at directing Broadway musicals like "Brigadoon', "West Side Story",
"Flower Drum Song" "Annie Get Your Gun", "The King and
I","Sound of Music", "Camelot", "Fiddler On The Roof"
and "Fantasticks" but also at Shakespeare, in plays like "As You Like
It", "Merchant of Venice", "Twelfth Night","Macbeth",
"King Lear", Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello". In March 1996, he
directed "Zhang boils the Ocean" for the Chinese Theatre Workshop at the Abroms
Arts Centre and Taipei Theatre, New York. His forays into local works have been just as
successful. His direction of Stella Kon's "Emily of Emerald Hill" has won
critical acclaim in Malaysia, Singapore and the United States of America.
The plays "Lady White'(1977), "Morning in Night"(1980),
"Yap Ah Loy - The Play"(1985) and "Reunion"(1994) mark his success as
a playwright.
San Sooi is also well known for his numerous workshops on voice and
speech for professionals and students. He is a founder member of Five Arts Centre and
currently is a director of Wholesome Centre of Learning.
Stella Kon’s parents were both born in Emerald Hill Road, the
heartland of the old Peranakan settlement in Singapore. She is a decendant of two well
established Peranakan families and owns a home in an old terrace house near Emerald Hill
Road.
She has been writing for well over 30 years. She won the first prize in
Singapore’s National Playwriting Competition three times between 1979 and 1986. She
then turned to prose fiction and won a Merit Prize in the Singapore Literature Competition
1994, with her novel Eston.
Stella Kon was born in Edinburgh. She received her education in
Singapore, lived for many years in Malaya and now based in Singapore. She has two sons,
one a surgeon and the other is an orthodontist. They live in England and Stella travels
there to visit them often.