A Handful of Dust
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Written by Wong Kwang Han
in workshop with Mohan Sanchez, Francesca John and Maryann Ng
Cast
Mohan Sachdev
Francesca John
Maryann Ng
Wong Kwang Han
A daughter working as a psychologist tries to connect with her father to resolve issues from the past which has clouded their relationship for so many years. At the same time her father and her lead totally separate lives from each other. While her father is trying to leave the shadow of his divorce which happened long ago, his daughter is trying to make sense of her life by talking to her often self preoccupied civil service friend. This play traces how a relationship changed over many years to result in the present form.
The title of the play was taken from a line in a poem by a Middle Eastern Urdu poet and was suggested by one of the actors Mohan himself. Mohan's contribution to the play was important because it was in the constant improvisations we did between him and Francesca that we gradually came up with the script. Francesca herself was an extremely generous actress as well and worked with Mohan and me in working out the shape of the play. The final play was a 2-hour affair. Mohan was a man with a rich and interesting life and he put much of his experience and knowledge of the world into our improvisations. The play would not have been the same without him. This was once again staged at the Chinese Opera Institute. I would work in the day and in the evening the director of the Institute kindly lent the space for our rehearsals. We met up 4-5 times a week each time rehearsing for several hours over a 4-6 month period. Writing the play was not easy because this was the first work I wrote independently of Kelvin Tan's writing, although he did give me very useful feedback on the play.
