Mama's Wedding

Another play by Action Theatre, named Mama's Wedding. Here's the excerpt from Action Theatre's blog:

MAMA'S WEDDING tells a hilarious story of what happens to three sisters when their mother decide to remarry at the age of 56!

Big sister Ruth, who has not spoken to her own mother in years, has to decide whether to go back to Penang to attend the wedding. The other two sisters Emily and Betty scheme and plan on how to convince Ruth to return so "Mama has one more person to attack"!

In the process, secrets are spilled, relatives are hit and memories are stirred. Funny, naughty and highly entertaining, MAMA'S WEDDING will show you how not to 'kena' from your mother, what to do before kissing a man's chest and why we all need second chances in life, love and family. It's a must-see comedy of the year!

There is even a free opening act of Sarong Party Boy by Claude Giradi, where an 'ang moh' searches for the perfect woman in Singapore. Ok, I frankly don't know what the opening act is about but it sounds interesting!

Date: 3 - 13 July 2008
Time: 8pm daily (except Monday) and 3pm for Saturdays and Sundays
Prices: $30 (Matinees), $35 (Tue-Thu, Sun 8pm) and $40 (Fri & Sat 8pm)
Venue: The Room Upstairs, 42 Waterloo Street

It is literally "the room upstairs".

Tickets can be bought through SISTIC.

Reason for a job

I. MUST. FIND. A. JOB.

ANY JOB.

Because Mama's Wedding is calling out to me. It looks fantastic!

In response to The West Wing (Dance Version) review

It's kind of bugging me so I thought I'll mention it.

In reference to this review of the The West Wing (Dance Version), I have read and re-read my post and I don't think it is really very, very harsh. Is it because they don't know me? Or is it because I did not put my thoughts across properly?

I was so troubled, I SMSed my friend to read it and tell me if I have really erred. I heard from him that that post might have hurt people concerned. I am sincerely apologetic and feeling very guilty. However, we can never escape from criticisms. Sometimes we just have to know which ones are worth taking a note from and which we should ignore, or which aspects of the post to take into consideration and which to ignore. Look, I am just one person in a whole group of audience. Many like it, some don't. Look at both sides and don't let the negative remarks take you down.

Actually I don't know if I should have used the word "review" since I am in no way a professional. But I thought it would be ok, you know, a review from an audience's point of view.

I simply did not enjoy the production as much as I had hoped to. Is it wrong? Must I enjoy it? Must all in the audience enjoy it? I only said very truthfully what I felt was contributing to my un-enjoyment (if there's such a word) of the play. I did not mean to sound like a professional critic in the process. Maybe I do not understand Chinese Opera and cannot appreciate it. I think I should have taken this into consideration while writing the review. That was wrong of me.

One reader said she has paid for the $19 ticket while I paid only $14.50. I don't know how much his/her allowance is every month, I don't know if he/she is the type who spend on movies and think a $3 lunch is cheap. For me, $14.50 is a significant sum. I had previously debated whether to go for this or the other play "Saving Grace", another NUS student production and I chose this because I had high expectations for it (one of my erroneous assumption). Concerts and plays are probably the only things I am willing to splurge on.

Then another reader told me to shove my comments up my ass. I felt very offended by this. I might have made some mistakes in the review of the post, but is it right to criticize your audience or even anybody, like this?

They might respond that I criticized them as well. But I criticized their acting and presentation of the play! I did not criticize the persons themselves! Whereas this reader had made a very personal attack towards me.

If they had told me that I was wrong and that my entry was too harsh, that I was not seeing some things right and would like to tell me the hard work they had put in to make this happen, in a polite way, I would have been very happy to acknowledge my mistakes. If they were very angry over the criticisms, I would even understand. In fact a couple of the comments told me relatively nicely how they felt compared to the above person I mentioned. I thank them for their patience and restrain.

My friend has also given me a view into how things were backstage and I truly appreciate his efforts to attempting to make me understand. I have yet to replied his email fully though (if he is reading this: I think the curtain call is absolutely necessary in any production! Their hard work have to be acknowledged. It is not the presence of the curtain call I did not like, nor was it the length of curtain call. Believe me, I have seen longer ones! It was just that a mere accumulation of dislikes which made the disorganization of the curtain call bug me).

I had tried to tone down the review because I am aware my unhappiness with the play is probably not going to be well received. Was also aware that my emotions were running high at that time, especially since I blogged about it soon after watching it. Also, I did not only include bad stuff in the review. In fact, I started off with what I thought was good. Are the good things not important? Why are people focusing on the bad of what I said?

I am actually very upset because I just expressed what I thought as a member of the audience but was criticized instead. I previously wondered if I was very "unprofessional" in the way I criticized the play. The email from my friend made me think about it and I realized that it basically stems from my ignorance of the amount of hard work they have put in. I have acknowledged that it is a mistake on my part, to not have taken that into account, because any performer would want the audience to know how much effort they personally have put in. But are the responses from them very unprofessional? I believe yes, but I now understand it is also because they had put in a lot of hard work and I had seem to, using one of their own words, demean it.

By the way, I have heard of a number of people who have enjoyed the production, so I hope you all do not have a bad impression of NUS Theatre Studies' students in terms of their acting skills. Afterall, everybody has to start somewhere, make some mistakes and gain experience in order to get to the professional level.

Comments are welcome, flaming is not. Keep your "shove your comments up your sorry asses" to yourself, thank you.

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

The West Wing

The West Wing, originally named Xixiang Ji (Tale of the Western Chamber) in Chinese, is a famous Chinese play written during the Tang Dynasty. Due to its controversial nature, it was banned in three dynasties - Yuan, Ming and Qing.

The play is now adapted by NUS Associate Professor, Dr. Shen, who got students in a Theatre Studies Module to stage it. It is the first time it will be staged in Asia.

This Chinese opera is re-written into English, with use of Shakespearean heroic couplets to mimic the original style. As it was in the past when the play was performed, the music used was adapted to suit the music of those times. This time round, actors will be singing to pop tunes of the likes of Josh Groban, Colin Raye, Aerosmith, etc.

There are two styles of presentation, one is the normal Opera, the other is the Opera-dance. Opera-dance is something new. The normal version has on-stage singing and less dancing while the dance version has the lyrics of the song expressed through dance movements with offstage singing. My friend who's in the production told me the dance version is more interesting in terms of its bedroom scene and encouraged me to watch that instead.

Friend,

... it might be too much for your innocent mind.

The West Wing is a romance. It will be tough on the students because they have 7 shows in total. If you are interested in catching this Opera with a modern twist, whether to give them some support or to check out why this play is so controversial, do check out the details below:

Normal Opera (Onstage singing, less dancing)
Date/Day: 4th (Fri) to 8th (Tue) April 2008
Time: 8.00 pm
Tickets: $18, $20, $23 (excluding SISTIC charges)
Venue: University Cultural Centre

Opera-dance (Offstage singing, dance)
Date/Day: 5th April, Saturday
Time: 2.00 pm
Tickets: $15 (excluding SISTIC charges)
Venue: University Cultural Centre

Tickets available at SISTIC.
Do note that the normal versions are all at night while the dance version has only one matinee show. Friend said the director was too afraid of putting up the content of the matinee show for the night version because of its interesting bedroom scene.

I'm going with a friend to the matinee's show.

Theatre Idols Finals 2008

Theatre Idols 2008 Finals is here once again!

Theatre Idols is presented by ACTION Theatre which is under Theatre Oasis. 38 local playwrights from Action Theatre Playwriting Spa have entered this competition. In this final stage, only 2 playwrights, Jacke and Christine, are left to compete against each other with their plays, "Catching Adam Cheng" and "Numb". Click on picture to read the synopsis of both plays.

Jacke Chye is a Media Marketing Professional while Christine Sim is a NUS Law Undergraduate.

Theatre Idols is a way for local theatre to reach out to Singapore's public, by giving us a say in which plays we feel are good and worthy of a full staging. I think at every competition stage, the public can request for tickets to attend the readings of the scripts, but I have decided to attend the finals instead. Which play gets the full staging is decided purely by the audience's votes, which is us. You vote by SMS on the day itself. If I'm not wrong, the SMS has no extra charge.

I have attended last year's Theatre Idols finals and it was awesome. Although it was a reading of the script (literally, the actors sit onstage and read the scripts), do not think that it is only a reading. The actors did it so well and injected it with so much emotions that I felt it was akin to watching the full play. Plus it's free of charge! You can see which actors are involved in the reading this time round by clicking on the image.

If you're interested, do try to attend it and vote for your favourite play. Even if you don't feel like voting, you can still go down and watch it. Details as below:

Date/Day: 17th March 2008, Monday (tomorrow)
Time: 8pm
Venue: Esplanade Concert Hall
Price: Free of charge
Age requirement: "Numb" is rated R18

Get tickets by emailing info@action.org.sg with the number of tickets you want. Each person is limited to a maximum of 4 tickets. They will send an email for confirmation and you'll only need to print out the email and bring it to the Esplanade Box Office Counter to reclaim your tickets. It's a little rushed, but you can still send your email today! The last year I went, there were still tickets available at the counter even if you did not send an email.

Cat and Mouse - by VarsityDrama

Watched Cat and Mouse by VarsityDrama last night at UCC. Play was written by Robert Teague, Jr. Think they bought the script, not unlike us buying scores. I don't watch plays often, so I'm not sure what to look out for, neither is there much material for me to compare against.

I found it a bold play though, by asian standards. There was kissing on stage. Not just a peck on the cheek or the lips, but full-fledged french kissing with lots of sound and movement and in one scene, male on top of female. Throughout, I could not help wondering if the male actor ever got aroused, but I suppose not. Students as they are, it is highly likely that they are professional enough to take things seriously. Anyway the male character, Earl, has so many lines that I'm sure he needs to concentrate on those rather than anything else.

Personally found the play confusing. I left the place wondering if there was a "moral theme" behind it, or any sort of theme at all. Mostly, Earl's lines were long and though they were probably essential for portraying his character, it bored me greatly.

Cat and Mouse is centered on Jamie - a girl living in a small apartment in New York, Carrie - Jamie's anal-retentive roommate, Earl - the man Jamie brings home from a wine bar who is a self-styled performance artist, wandering philosopher, declared celibate, but mostly a housecat, as well as Michael - Jamie's ex-boyfriend.

Jamie seems to portray a stereotypical image of a girl in NY who goes to work, goes to club/pubs/whatever and then have one-night-stands. So she brings home Earl one day and things start to go wrong from there. Or maybe it does not. Jamie is infatuated with Earl, Carrie thinks that Earl is controlling Jamie by the leash. Carrie gets mad with Jamie for bring Earl home because "he is choking the life out" of both of them, but we have the impression that Jamie and Carrie's is a strong friendship and Carrie is a nice, sweet girl. Until Michael showed up one day asking for his underwear. And as the story unfolds, we finally see that Carrie isn't the nice, sweet girl, but who has slept with every one of Jamie's ex-boyfriends living with them, though for what reason we don't quite know. Things break down when Jamie caught Carrie making-out/having sex (I don't know which because they only showed the making-out part) with Earl in the living room after a party in the house. Reason? Carrie was pissed off with Jamie and Earl for ruining the sanctity of the house by inviting jerks and assholes in for the party, one of whom even forced himself onto Jamie by turning up in her bed. There was a huge showdown at the end between Jamie, Carrie and Earl, which ended with Jamie asking Carrie to move out and Earl telling Jamie that he is but a housecat, who pleases whoever needs him and who wanders around and needs its freedom, asks her to let him out of the house. He agitates Jamie so much that we thought he would have won, that Jamie would have opened the door for him. There is a twist, Jamie seems to have suddenly awoken and her mind kinds of takes on a thwarted view of what she could do. Instead of letting him off, she decides to "keep" him, taking away his freedom simply by saying no to his asking to be let out. She declares them as partners and the scene ends with Earl sitting on the floor with his head in Jamie's lap as he says meow.

As an amateur group, I think it's a job well done with excellent delivery of lines and expressions by the actors. However, there were some sections supposedly nerve-wrecking, silent-inducing or to bring across an important point, which didn't quite turn out that way.

It was alright, I guess, though a little boring and I was glad it finally ended because I could finally get my aching butt off the chair.

Theatreidols Finals 2007

Remember this Theatreidol thing I blogged about not too long ago?

On Monday I went to watch it with a friend. Benison couldn't make it at the last minute, but luckily YZ could, so we met at Esplanade. She looked kind of formal in that office wear, a bit weird because I was in uh not-so-nice wear.
Anyway the show was marvellous. I haven't really been to plays before, not to say any dramatized readings. The first time I watched a play was in my seconday school days when we watched Macbeth at Victoria Theatre. Not much of an impression. But this, even the dramatized readings itself, were fantastic! I'm glad I didn't give it a miss and I hope YZ enjoyed it as much.

Chong Tze Chien's On Sundays the Kites Come Out to Play is plain funny, quite down-to-earth with a twist within it. It started with a house party/baby shower with some close friends which looked pretty good at first, until the baby said his first word - fuck. Then things went downwards from there. Various themes were explored, like families (a different sort), love, marriage, homosexuality. Things ended nicely in the end and since things started because of the baby's first word, of course it had to end with the baby's first word.

Hitting (on) Women by Ovidia Yu, however, was vastly different. Dark, it was unlike the other play. What I really really liked about this play was the way things were intricately woven together. You start off not knowing anything, then they feed you parts of the story and you form an opinion. You initially think that the play is about lesbianism and a woman's story about it, then all of a sudden with the woman's single line, it hits you that it's all about abuse. A lover's physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. I thought this play was really awesome.

During the SMS voting, YZ went with On Sundays the Kites Come Out to Play while I was very undecided. Each play was so good, interesting, funny, sad all at once and so very different that I couldn't decide. At that time I voted the same as YZ, but after a couple of days of consideration, I think I prefer Ovidia Yu's play, by a slight margin.

The voting results for each play, however, were far from differing by a slight margin. Odivia Yu's Hitting (on) Women won with a percentage of 60+%, close to 70% of votes. So I guess the veteran won. The play will be given a full staging by Action Theatre.

So after the exciting night ended 2.5 hours later at 10.30pm (longer than a normal concert), both of us headed home. Hope YZ coped well with barely 5 hours of sleep before getting up for work. And thanks for accompanying me!
Benison: Tsk tsk! =P just kidding!

Theatre Idols 2007 Finals

Theatre Idols 2007 finals is this coming Monday, brought to you by Action Theatre.


2 plays, Hitting (on) Women by Ovidia Yu and On Sundays the Kites Come Out to Play by Chong Tze Chien will be given a dramatized reading on 26th March 2007, Monday, 8pm at Esplanade Concert Hall. There, the audience will be able to vote via SMS the play they want to see a full staging. It's free admission but you'll have to get tickets by emailing info@action.org.sg your name, your contact number & no. of ticket(s) you require. Note that there is a maximum of 4 tickets per person. Schools and tertiary institutions may request up to 50 tickets to Theatre Idols Finals for your students - subject to availability and on a first come, first served basis. There are adult themes involved so it is only for 16 years old and above. For more details read here.

Here are a bit more details about the plays you'll hear:


So it's a dramatized reading this coming Monday at Esplanade and I'm going to listen. Anybody interested to go too?