Ivan Heng
Theatre Practitioner
Ivan Heng has had many iconic roles in his career as actor. I had no lack of portraits to choose from highlighting the roles associated with him. In this portrait session, he did something similar to what he did in our portrait session twenty years ago. At that time, after all our wonderful portraits, he decided to play with my ladder and that resulted in an iconic image of him. This time round, after the ‘expected’ portraits, he pulled out a red nose and took off his shirt. This is Ivan Heng, the jester, the surprise popping out of the box. Literally, this is Ivan thinking out of the box and loving it.
I’ve often thought of theatre’s role as our nation’s court jester. One that could be counted on to inject humour in addressing difficult subjects, speaking truth to power, and providing much needed levity for an all too serious nation.
Ngiap Heng had told me that I was to be the final subject of his Drama Mama series. When we were all but done, he asked me if there was anything else I’d like to do. The red nose was a final gesture… a Little Red Dot. It seemed an appropriate way to end the Drama Mama series.