The Weight Of Silk On Skin

Event: “The Weight of Silk on Skin” by Checkpoint Theatre (as part of the Man Singapore Theatre Festival)
Venue: Drama Centre Theatre
Run: 3rd Aug – 7th Aug 2011

“The Weight of Silk on Skin” headlines the Man Singapore Theatre Festival, and I was privileged to be able to attend the opening night gala performance two nights ago.

It is an 80-something minute monologue written by playwright Huzir Sulaiman and directed by his wife, Claire Wong.

Expectations for this play naturally ran high, not least because it is Ivan Heng’s second big monologue of the year, although the characters of the matriarchal Emily Gan could hardly be any more different from the red-blooded, sexually-charged persona of this John Au Yong.

“Weight of Silk” is a highly intimate piece whereby John recounts the main lost love of his life Anna, and portrays his anxieties upon his impending meeting with her once again after many years.

Anna is the lover that most of us would know – the perfect partner, the love of our life, the one we want to spend eternity with, the one that no other lover can make us forget.

But sadly, Anna is also the one that we somehow never managed to hold on to.

I think Huzir Sulaiman has not only captured a very real and identifiable sentiment, but has done it in immaculate fashion.

His script is both incredibly lush and layered, and filled with wonderful imagery.

Ivan Heng has to be commended for executing what can be considered a highly demanding script, as it is filled with subtle nuances that requires the delicate portrayal of an upper-class New York-educated Singaporean man who is both self-assured and yet tormented by the spectre of Anna, who unfortunately left him in their New York days through no major fault of his own.

I thoroughly enjoyed “Weight of Silk” for the sheer richness of its script, and I am unable to recall the last time 80 minutes in a theatre watching one single actor ruminate on a relatively bare stage passed by so quickly.

Bravo to the essentially four-person creative team of Claire Wong, Huzir Sulaiman, Ivan Heng and Lim Woan Wen (lighting designer) for pulling off a piece of theatre that, though modest in production values, deeply impresses with its quality and elegance.