"Emily Of Emerald Hill" - A Feistily Shiok Performance

Mention Peranakan and colourful images of brightly intricate sarong kebayas and fussily-prepared signature dishes come to mind.

Sadly, Red Dot Diva sighs, true-blue Peranakans are hard to find these days as the culture is becoming assimilated into the larger mainstream Chinese diaspora through-out South-East Asia.

Red Dot Diva grew up in a household with a strong Peranakan heritage. Even though her maternal grandmother did not wear the sarong kebayas nor belong to a filthy-rich family, one would not be able to mistake "Mama's" inherently feisty matriachal-bibik-ness. Where on earth does one think Red Dot Diva got that Diva attitude from? ;)

“Emily of Emerald Hill”, written by Stella Kon, is an iconic Peranakan play. While highlighting the quirks of the Peranakan culture, it still offers the universal themes about womanhood, love, sacrifices, family and loss that anyone can appreciate.

Cinderel-LAH! She's Not Just A Sengkang Maid

The theatre scene has been heating up on our Red Dot Island the last few years. Before that, affordable and entertaining plays worth attending were few and the target audience tended to be very high-brow.

Local theatre companies have bloomed once they realized that they could be arty and yet reach the hearts of the masses. By crafting a theatre schedule that consisted of a good mix of localized, easy-to-digest themes coupled with less generic and darker ones, they managed to find their footing with a growingly more sophisticated Red Dot Island audience.

One of these companies, W!ld Rice, has pulled in some successes recently with "Animal Farm" and "Boeing Boeing". For the year-end festive season, W!ld Rice has decided to go all colourful and cheery with their 10th anniversary celebratory pantomime, "Cinderel-LAH!"

The classic rags-to-princess fairy tale has been updated and given a very local Red Dot Islandic twist.

Local Theatre News

New local theatre production company Pangdemonium! Productions kicked off to a successful start with "The Full Monty" this year.

As a follow-up, Pangdemonium will be offering more nudity with the dark psycho-drama play by Patrick Marber called "Closer". (Red Dot Diva knows that some may already be familiar with the movie version starring Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts.) The play is directed by Tracie Pang is about love, lust, obsession, betrayal... All those melodramatic stuff. It stars Adrian Pang, Emma Yong, Keagan Kang and Cynthia Lee MacQuarrie as the four main protagonists.

"Closer" will go on stage at the DBS Arts Centre from 17 February to 6 March 2011. Tickets go on sale on December 1st on SISTIC. Remember to check out the early bird discount!