Emily Of Emerald Hill (2002)

Emily of Emerald Hill is written by Stella Kon ans was first directed by Chin San Sooi. It has since become the longest running local play as well as the most beloved amongst Malaysian and Singaporean audiences. The play, set in the first half of the 20th century explores the same hopes, fears and aspirations harboured by women the world over in their roles as wives and mothers.

The protagonist is none other than Emily. She is in her mid-thirties when the play opens and will move back and forward through time. She is the matriarch of a wealthy Singaporean family, who efficiently runs her household’s physical and emotional life. As a Nyonya, she wears the sarong Kebaya and adorns herself with jade bangles, brooches and ear-studs.

Throughout the play, we witness her triumph and fall. We see the bitter irony of how her love drives her son to despair and contributes towards her husband’s estrangement towards her.

Emily is indeed an endearing piece of work; director Krishen Jit states that Emily of Emerald Hill succeeds because,

“The assuredness of a rooted past, springing from her Peranakan heritage, lends depth to Emily, easily the most convincing character who has so far appeared in Singapore English theatre. Kon’s evocation of an Asian and, therefore, transformable sense of time and space, in her bittersweet eulogy to a disappearing culture of the Straits Chinese, was a rare experience for the ethnically dispossessed and mostly young middle-class audience.”