{"id":25622,"date":"2017-09-01T15:18:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T07:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=25622"},"modified":"2021-03-31T18:02:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T10:02:20","slug":"all-the-worlds-a-stage-jalyn-han","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/all-the-worlds-a-stage-jalyn-han\/","title":{"rendered":"All The World\u2019s A Stage: Jalyn Han"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I came into the performing arts<\/strong>\u00a0by accident. I was just 16 and a half years old when I accompanied a good friend from secondary school to an audition for the SAF\u2019s Music & Drama Company (MDC). I didn\u2019t even know what the MDC was! Ironically, I got selected, but she didn\u2019t. I was working as a stock clerk for an American corporation at the time, and MDC offered to pay me 30 dollars more every month. That sealed the deal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d never know it, but<\/strong> I was once officially enlisted in the Singapore Armed Forces! To join the MDC, you have to sign on as a soldier\u2026 so I had a rank and everything. I was a private, and was considered uniformed personnel. I didn\u2019t undergo BMT though; our training was purely in the performing arts. Working in the MDC was a full-time job \u2013 we would go from camp to camp entertaining soldiers. It was a good experience. Ultimately, I stayed with the MDC for 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found my way to the theatre<\/strong> thanks to Ivan Heng! He joined the MDC after I had been there for ten years. He asked me, \u2018Why not go into theatre?\u2019 And I had never contemplated that before. I used to think theatre was very atas<\/em> (\u2018high-class\u2019), and what we were doing in the MDC was just pure entertainment \u2013 very \u2018grassroots\u2019 stuff. But Ivan helped me apply to enrol in Kuo Pao Kun\u2019s Practice Performing Arts School. For six months, I worked in the MDC while attending two courses in acting and directing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jalyn is part of Emily Of Emerald Hill<\/em>\u2019s theatre history!
(L-R) Actors who have played Emily: Neo Swee Lin, Ivan Heng,
Stella Kon (playwright), Pearlly Chua & Jalyn
[Image courtesy of The Peranakan Museum]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My first professional job in the theatre was<\/strong> Lao Jiu<\/em>, Pao Kun\u2019s original play (on which the musical is based), in 1990. I appeared in just two scenes, playing a nurse who spoke many dialects. Later that same year, I took on the challenge of appearing in the Chinese version of Emily Of Emerald Hill<\/em>. I went from a small part in a show to doing a two-hour monologue by myself! Ivan was incredibly supportive throughout, because I was still with the MDC and had to apply for leave in order to perform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show that changed my life is<\/strong> 0Zero01<\/em> \u2013 a piece I don\u2019t think a lot of people saw. But the entire process of creating it was very inspiring. The show was called 0Zero01<\/em> because all our creative workshops began one minute after midnight. Pao Kun drove the four cast members all over Singapore, and left us \u2013 one by one \u2013 in places like Bukit Timah Quarry. We would stay there until 6am. He felt that this was the best time for us to really look for ourselves, for who we were \u2013 since we would be tired and fighting sleep, our thoughts would not be overly \u2018decorated\u2019. I was exhilarated by the experience. It made me realise that the possibilities in theatre were endless. That\u2019s when I felt that I had a calling \u2013 theatre became my religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In The Make-Up Chair: Bobbie Ng, our make-up designer,
helps transform Jalyn into Grandmother Tongue<\/em>\u2019s ah ma<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before I set foot on stage, I always<\/strong> step up my strength training. Theatre is live, and you need stamina to get through every single performance. In preparation for Grandmother Tongue<\/em>, I\u2019ve been jogging and exercising more since May. I also pay some visits to a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner to beef up my immunity. It\u2019s actually harder to play someone older than myself! My character in the show is about 80 years old. I need to have the strength to maintain that character\u2019s physicality \u2013 the way she moves and walks. I want her to be \u2018embodied\u2019 within me, so that she\u2019s not just a voice or the dialogue. That requires a great deal of training and discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always try to<\/strong> do justice to the characters I play. I\u2019m Hainanese myself, and I could speak Teochew well enough before I did Grandmother Tongue<\/em> last year. Nonetheless, I\u2019ve been working with a language coach because there\u2019s no way my character would speak Teochew the way it is spoken today. Dialects in Singapore are now in the Nanyang style, so to speak \u2013 they\u2019re a mix of so many different languages. I didn\u2019t even realise that I was pronouncing words the Hokkien way. But I want to get it right for this character, who would speak proper Teochew. After all, it\u2019s the only language she knows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a performer, my greatest challenge is<\/strong> to keep every single performance organic. That\u2019s not to say we don\u2019t rehearse, of course. In fact, we have to rehearse to the point that we feel confident enough to make every performance raw and real. That\u2019s my goal for this revival of Grandmother Tongue<\/em>: I want to truly be in the moment in every performance. It\u2019s important not just for me, but for the audiences as well. After all, I may have performed this part many times, but it will be their first time encountering this character and this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After almost 40 years in the business, Jalyn Han is still soldiering on! She takes us through her career in the arts \u2013 from enlisting in the SAF to aging 30 years for Grandmother Tongue!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94,205,206],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}