“It takes ten years to nurture a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person” —Chinese Idiom
The Theatre Practice’s Associate Artist Programme began in 2018 as an initiative to develop artists with multi-faceted capabilities, and to create a community of practitioners who could build on each other’s strength and develop different possibilities of collaboration.
Isabella (Issy) joined our Associate Artist Programme in 2020, and it has been a privilege to watch The Last Gardener develop over the past three years — from its initial form as a 2 pax theatrical workshop in 2021 to its current iteration as a black box monodrama.
As her first original non-Theatre For Young Audiences work and her first solo performance, The Last Gardener represents a key milestone in Issy’s art-making career. At the same time, the work’s creation process has proved to be fertile ground for the Practice team to learn alongside Issy.
The play opens with the following line: ‘The state of a garden tells you a lot about the person who owns it*’*. What does the Practice garden look like? Eclectic. Inclusive. With deep roots that connect it to the land, and new growth promising future harvests. With boundaries defined not by plot-lines but by the plants themselves.
Indeed, the message of The Last Gardener is not dissimilar to Practice’s approach to our Associate Artists: just as how each plant blooms in its own time, every artmaker has their own needs and pace. What is most important is a desire for mutual development and learning: we grow together, and we grow each other.
As we witness the blossoming of an exciting artist, I cannot wait to see how her growth will shape our garden.
Kuo Jian Hong Artistic Director of The Theatre Practice
"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ― Nelson Henderson
The Last Gardener is a tribute to our parents and the imperfect ways that they love us.
The little, roundabout ways our parents try to express care and concern, and how we learn over time to recognise that as love. How we, subconsciously or not, do the same with our own children.
This show is a gentle reminder of the strength and hope that passes from generation to generation, residing in us long after the people before us have gone. That even as we move forward in this life without them; making mistakes, laughing, getting hurt, saying goodbye, we will still thrive… the same way a garden bursts into spring after a long winter.
This show is also a coming-of-age story, the one that exists long after one has had their big adventures and youthful exploits. It’s about a woman coming into her own again, grappling with grief and loss, learning to embrace chaos, failure and uncertainty. Not only in gardening, but also in love and life.
We hope that in sharing this story with you, you will take comfort in the fact you are loved in the little, imperfect ways. That you can weather whatever the world throws at you because maybe, your roots are a lot stronger than you think.
P.S. Ma & Pa, this is my way of telling you thank you and I love you too.
Isabella Chiam Creator, Co-Writer, Cast of The Last Gardener
The state of the garden tells you a lot about the person who owns it.
Eve returns to her childhood home to find her father’s beloved garden in disarray.
When will the flower bloom again? In its own time. In its own time.
A compelling mix of heart and humour, Isabella Chiam’s The Last Gardener is a tender portrayal of the maddening, beautifully complex relationship between parent and child. This is a story about growth, grief and good gardening.
A first version was staged at Practice's It's Not About The Numbers series in 2021 to rave reviews, and has been brilliantly reimagined in collaboration with director Tan Shou Chen and co-writer Cheyenne Alexandria Phillips.