The West Wing (Dance Version) - A Review; Performer's Ethics?

*edit* After re-reading this post and getting comments from various readers, I have to admit that I sounded quite crude/rude. No wonder they felt fed-up. In any case, if you can please read the comments in this post.
Also note that all views are personal and even if I did not enjoy it, there are many members of the audience who did.

Watched The West Wing (Dance Version), presented by NUS Theatre Studies, just this afternoon with Shen Chin.

The below review might be offensive for those who are involved in the production of the play.

Please note that everything here is only my view. If it is clear that I am missing out an important part of Chinese Opera, or where I went wrong, please do tell me and I will edit the post accordingly and with pleasure.

It was a 3-hour play but surprisingly did not feel like 3 hours. That was not to say it was fantastic. There is going to be quite a long section on the bad things about my experience so I'll start on something good first.

I thought it was a difficult play to present. There were good actors in there who portrayed their roles very nicely and I felt my friend did his role very well. All of them dared to act, which was great! Even to the point of sex positions in the bedroom scene, they did it quite fluidly. Characters who were supposed to be funny in nature were funny. Scenes that were supposed to be funny made us laugh.

The translation from Chinese to English was nicely done. There were no loose ends or words which did not fit in. Except for the "bitch" word used. I also loved the way the lyrics improvised fit into the English songs nicely.

The actors either remembered all of their lines or when they forgot they improvised very quickly such that we can't tell. I loved that there were no gaps in delivery of lines. When characters were supposed to speak in unison, they did so without hesitation. Most delivery of the lines were nice.

I loved that they had subtitles for the songs, although they kind of distracted me from watching the actors dance.

The live band was good!

Alright, time for the bad stuff.
I think I have set my standards too high for this play. In fact, I have erroneously set it in the league of professional plays, forgetting that those involved are students from a Theatre Studies module, some of whom has had no prior experience to acting. The cause? The high standard of advertising done, with full-length banners and posters. (While reading, please keep in view the mindset I brought with me into the theatre. It is crucial to remember this because I got quite crude towards the end).

Now I better understand when my friend, Eng Wen, told me very simply in reply to my question if it was going to be good, that it is a play put up by students in a module. The teacher-cum-director of this might have set his sights too high despite the fact that he might have wanted the students to have a feeling of how it is like, staging a full play with a real audience.

Frankly, I walked out of the theatre utterly disappointed and feeling like I have wasted a huge portion of my money on it. Nevertheless, I am glad I now have an idea of what this controversial play is about. If the play the students presented was as close to the original, I now understand why it was banned in three dynasties. Politically, religion-wise and sexually, it breached sensitive grounds in a most daring way. I suspect if it were staged in modern day's context, it would have been controversial as well, for the issues of politics, religion and sex are still sensitive areas, though a lot lesser. However, the play is most refreshing and I would have liked to read or watch the original text. Imagine a monk who is money-minded and married, or a very suggestive sex scene. Thinking back now, I half-wished this English version, the first of its kind in Asia, had been done by professionals instead.

I asked Shen Chin how he found the first 18 scenes, during the intermission. He had been actively involved in theatre directing plays before so I wanted to hear from him, get a second viewpoint. He said he felt it was a flashy play with no substance with the sole purpose of entertaining. The original play is actually a romance story. I frankly do not know how the original play is like, so I cannot judge if that is the actual intonation. After the entire play has ended, Shen Chin said he felt the play was not very seriously done. I put it across more cruelly - very amateurish and messy. The amateurish part I can still take but the messy acting part I really cannot. Sadly, being messy is the result of being an amateur.

Several things which bugged me as a member of the audience:

1) Hardly any use of props. No use of props can be alright if the actors can actually imagine the items being there, judge the size and weight properly and then present it well. I don't feel it is an easy task. While watching, I saw so many wrong portrayals of the imagined size, weight and positions of items (e.g. cups, the zither, tables) by the actors that I got really irritated.
A member of the production has told me that in Chinese Opera, there is no use of props, unlike in Western Theatre. Sorry!

2) Number of tape markings on stage. From where I was sitting, the number of bright yellow tape on stage, marking the positions of the few props they had to move around every scene, was supremely distracting. It looked like nobody has swept the stage clean and just made the already messy presentation very, very messy.

3) Moving around of props while transiting scenes. Backstage crew made a lot of noise while moving props around, banging and dragging. The good thing, however, is that they did not talk on stage.

4) I can't stand the dancing. It's just a matter of me being anal. I feel dancing has to be done by people who really know how to dance in order to bring across that lyrical feel. Nevertheless, it was a brave attempt.

5) Getting off-stage after curtain call was disorganized.

If my friend had not been in it, I would have felt like the full $14.50 was an utter waste. I hope the normal version is better.

Ironically though, the play is kind of addictive after one repeatedly thinks about it.

After watching this, I realized something about the performing arts. When we charge a certain price for a ticket to be held at a certain place, we give people certain expectations. Performers have to ensure that the audience feels the ticket is well paid for. Sadly, this is not always the goal of all performers.

We want to have a track record of n number of shows a year (think annual concerts), but the quality of shows is equally, if not more, important. I've always thought from the viewpoint of a performer - not being nervous, just get it over and done with, get people to come support us. But have we, as performers, ever thought about the audience and making sure they feel their time and money are well spent, that they have enjoyed themselves? Is that not the ultimate aim of a performer? Is a performer not also an entertainer?

Ultimately it boils down to one very basic thing we have always talked about - Getting what you paid for.

In response to criticisms about this review