Full length production The Weight of Silk on Skin and other selected dramatised readings from the 2015 season which revisited landmark plays in Singapore theatre.
Published: 25 Apr 2016
written by Huzir Sulaiman
directed by Tracie Pang
A sensual monodrama about love and loss, The Weight of Silk on Skin is a monodrama that portrays an upper-crust, middle-aged lothario obsessed with the fast life yet tormented by a lost love. Created especially for actor and theatre director Ivan Heng, who performed in the original production at the Man Singapore Theatre Festival in 2011, the play met with rave reviews. This The Studios: fifty production, performed by actor Adrian Pang, brought out both the sophisticated surfaces of the protagonist’s world and the emptiness at its core.
Huzir Sulaiman’s The Weight of Silk on Skin is a powerful play about love and loss. It was first produced by W!ld Rice in collaboration with Checkpoint Theatre in 2011 to wide acclaim. The monologue portrays the wealthy, middle-aged John Au Yong who starts off bragging about his sexual exploits and successful materialistic ventures, yet ends up revealing his loneliness and emptiness.
Following the 2015’s staging as part of Esplanade’s The Studios: fifty season, playwright Huzir Sulaiman, director Tracie Pang and actor Adrian Pang got together at the post-show dialogue to discuss what it takes to bring the provocative play to life.
Jean Tay’s knack for tackling the emotional terrain of familial relationships came through in Everything But the Brain (2005) and Boom (2008), which were selected as GCE ‘O’ and ‘N’ level literature texts. Verena Tay’s The Car (2005) is an intimate work exploring the father-daughter relationship.
Faith Ng (For Better or for Worse), Joel Tan (The Way We Go), Shiv Tandan (The Good, the Bad and the Sholay), and Irfan Kasban (Tahan) belong to the new generation of playwrights who represent the future of Singapore theatre. They have produced acclaimed works despite their young age.
An award-winning novelist, writer, and playwright, Ovidia Yu’s ability to understand human nature and articulate her observations on femininity, gender, and the Singapore identity has been lauded around the world. The plays, Three Fat Virgins (1992), The Woman in a Tree on a Hill (2001) and Hitting (On) Women (2007), reflect different phases of her writing for the stage.
In 2015, The Studios marked the nation’s 50th birthday with a celebration of Singapore English-language theatre and the practitioners who have contributed to its development. Over a period of five weeks, we revisited some of the stories and characters that not only moved and inspired us, but also captured our collective memories and the pluralism of Singapore identity.
Co-curated by Chong Tze Chien, the season featured five landmark plays reimagined in full (with one staged each week) and 45 dramatised readings categorised thematically; some of which were classics written by our pioneer playwrights, while others were award-winning works by the new generation.
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