Archive for theatre
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields & Joshua Bell
June 14th, 2010 music, theatre
I don’t know how to talk about a musical performance but this is the absolute most bestest of the top best performance I have ever attended. It was exciting! It was beautiful! It was damn hot! If it was a man, it would be Robert Downey Jr. First day was hotter than second day but still hot. It makes me want to misspell hot to emphasize how hot it is.
12th June
Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op 62,
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
Beethoven Symphony No 7 in A, Op 92.
13th June
The Marriage of Figaro (momentarily bored)
Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, Op 61
Beethoven Symphony No 4 in B flat, Op 60
Celeb sighting: gssqwho very kindly told me that there is very little difference between cheap and expensive because the acoustics for Esplanade is very good unless I am of the hardcore type.
11 and 12 / Emily of Emerald Hill
June 14th, 2010 theatre
1. 11 and 12
There is something not theatre about this piece of theatre. It feels too preachy and I think the blah-di-blah-blah on religion/spirituality, peace, tolerance is not particularly insightful and is almost tipping to being annoying (but never actually goes that way). A show shouldn’t be tipping towards being annoying, shouldn’t feel preachy even though it has a message/moral. The pieces of rugs as cloths is good idea but that’s unimportant to me as an audience. I want a story.
What didn’t work for me was perhaps the way the play is structured. Right at the start, we were told how by a gentle narrator that the source of the conflict is due to a change in rituals. Then, we see this conflict escalate, we see drama, fighting and killing, but we don’t see the discussion, the argument, the rationalisation to revert to 11 (times they repeat a prayer), which to me, is important to understand the conflict and to resolve it with the audience. Telling us the answer right at the start creates emotional distance and trivialises the arguement which I think made it difficult for me to appreciate the show. The narrator is a problem too. If the writer has to address the audience, I would prefer him to stick to the start and the end, leaving the characters to do all the work of story-telling because that’s theatre. A film can have a narrator, a book, a radio program because for films, books, radio shows, it can be first person and I can enter the mind of another person. For theatre, I am watching the goings-on onstage so I would prefer that the audience be addressed as little as possible.
2. Emily of Emerald Hill
I was curious about the show: I have never seen a one woman show and I didn’t know how it would work. Emily is a simple story of a strong, astute woman who knows what she wants and gets it – with some sacrifices in the way. I was surprised to find out Casey Lim did the multimedia for the show and I am very glad they pared down the multimedia (that’s what they said in the post-show dialogue) because he can really go nuts with the stuff and distract it from the performance. The script was well paced, well-structured and easy to follow. Margaret Chan had a powerful presence and she really commanded the whole performance effortlessly. Not any one moment did the stage feel empty. I told a friend after that it reminds me how much I miss good local theatre, even if all they talk about is HDB flats and coffins. I love seeing acting done well. It captures you and transports you to another place while you are in your seat.
Those Who Can’t, Teach/Gatz
1. Those Who Can’t, Teach
It was funny (great lines!), entertaining, touching (wept buckets) and it restored me to my good mood. Later, however, I thought there were too many messages in the play (which resonated with the audience the night) about NIE, about scholars being teachers, teachers as role-models, about good students, bad students, about over-worked teachers. It seemed to me, a mouth piece than a story of the character’s lives.
There is a POV that I think is outmoded ie, academic success = success in life and somehow the characters seem to expect it.
The one who comes to mind most is someone who at his 25th reunion seemed stumbling along as a seventh grade teacher, so his income was one of the lowest in the study, and instead of being a famous writer he was just helping his seventh grade students write their own papers. It was true he had a nice family and enjoyed sailing, but I didn’t think anything of him. And when it came time to re-interview him at 75, he was leading the most wonderful life and it was a function of, for 75 years, having done everything right. He still was neither powerful or rich, but he lived in a lovely family compound, which he largely built himself. He was devoted to teaching his grandchildren sailing, he had a perfectly wonderful marriage and the inside of the home was beautiful, both from tasteful decoration but also the piles of laundry that reflected the harmonious living together of three generations. Read more
2. Gatz
I didn’t know it was going to be a 7 hour show experience. I might not have bought tickets if I read the sistic website carefully. I bought show tickets more than a month ago and by the time the lights darkened and Mark Barton (as Nick Carraway) began reading the starting of The Great Gatsby in a very old office, I thought, hang on, I know this book. I like the slow build up of activity. He begins reading it, doing the voices of the characters in the book. Gradually, the people in the office begins to do the things as described in the book, saying the lines. It surprises Nick but he continues. By the start of part two, the office setting has faded from my mind and I am watching Jay, Daisy, Tom, Josephine, Nick, Wilson and I completely believe them all.
I have forgotten much of the story now – I read it more than 10 years ago – and yesterday’s show brought back interesting memories. As I was watching it, I was also thinking how Gatsby reminded me of Darryl van Horne (Witches of Eastweek) and Brown (The Comedians). I remember quoting from the book angrily once, complaining about careless people, about working so hard for orgiastic futures and yet borne ceaslessly into the past. How angsty I was! I’ve outgrown the book. Nick was excessively judgemental of Daisy and Tom – they were no more careless (self-absorbed) than Wilson’s wife, Wilson, Gatsby or himself.
Short notes
Tempest
Liked how Stephen Dilliane did Prospero: watchful, yet tired and human. I like the interesting contrast: he, the human magician, controls everything on stage to get his revenge, yet, he is not drawn into the events: he’s outside, watching, observing, almost uninvolved. He’s suppose to be interested in revenge but it is almost as if he lost interest in it halfway through and he’s just doing whatever he’s doing out of curiosity. Also very much liked how the actors don’t ever leave the stage, they remain at the side, sitting quietly or reading – involved but not involved.
Dear Doctor (Film Festie)
I think the movie focused excessively on the goodness of the doctor – makes the person somewhat 2 dimensional.
Frisky and Mannish
Jim Smallman, the warmup was a little too angry for my liking. I liked his “things done while drunk” which was funny in an oh-my-god way. Most shows I’ve been, the audience were too polite to heckle but oddly he thought we were fully capable of heckling and warned he was ready to fight back. Frisky and Mannish’s school of pop was clever-funny. Songs were mashed up to bring out their true meaning: songs written while doped up (What if God Was One of Us), crazy stalker songs (Eternal Flame), sexy children’s songs (Wheels On The Bus), googling (replacing ’search’ with ‘google’), horror songs (Total Eclipse of the Heart), historical songs (No Scrubs as history lesson). Love the stalker songs and Songs Written While Doped Up (HILARIOUS!). They are so accessible I thought it might become a sing-along session but it didn’t. V funny duo!
On Space and Time
March 12th, 2010 theatre
Marking off space in theater is a device for meeting the need to distinguish the watcher from the watched. In most traditions there is a circle or a stage or sanctuary or a playing field.
Plot measures time better than a clock does, but what could measure space? This is a hard question, because theater space seems to be much more elastic than theater time, and nothing serves the function of plot to give space a structure that is comparable to the beginning, middle and end of the time in theater.
From here
Chestnuts Does Christmas – Like A Hard Candy Virgin
December 31st, 2009 theatre
The first time I saw Johnathan Lim was in 42 Waterloo Street Emerald Hole and after that brilliant performance, I attended almost everything he was in. Most times, I’ve come away thinking he was so underused in the shows – he could do much more. At the end of tonight’s Chestnuts, I finally figured out why. In those shows, he was just doing one person. His talent is his ability to rapidly change from one person to another. That’s why Chestnuts is brilliant for him. There could be a thousand other people onstage and he still owns Chestnuts. Nobody could do what he does onstage.
Most of the references were brilliantly put in. I’m quite happy that this year’s show is not only laughing theatre and movies. Including theatre/movie references makes it feel exclusive especially when there isn’t time to explain – I don’t like comedy to be full of in-jokes, even when I get it. That said, I very much enjoyed and admired Scrooge (excellently done by Tan Shou Chen – how come I’ve never seen him in anything?) being warned by Pineapple Tart King Wee Bak Chuan in his yellow pajamas (how on earth did they get the golden pineapple?). The language jokes were well delivered and the comedy never stops to let the audience catch their breaths. (It must be one joke per line in the script!)
The musical numbers were extremely well done. I was worried about Pondon News Asia – I never liked the two characters very much – but I absolutely loved Judy Ngo as the civil servant and later as the chinese waitress who could only say ‘Yes’ ‘No’ ‘Merry Christmas’. The lines in the civil servant bit were not as funny but Judy Ngo delivered superbly. It’s an awful pity the next thing she’s in is a Goh Boon Teck show – I would love to watch her act. Judee Tan as Ris Low brought the house down when she sang her version of 12 days of Christmas. The audience was roaring with laughter. She deserve a prize for this bit and Jonathan Lim a prize for writing it!
I love the musical parts that came later. Although the sketch portion of the Chinese waitresses was overlong, it more than made up for it by having the two break into song (龍的傳人) to counter the influence of Western caroling (God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen). The last sketch featured Madonna heavily in the Nativity play (heh). While I love recognising Madonna’s songs, I thought the intermingling of 龍的傳人 and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen much more enjoyable.
Chestnuts, when it is good, is brilliantly funny (yes, there were some average years). When it was mainly a two man format, I didn’t mind at all if there was not a lot of acting. It wasn’t that kind of show. This year, a whole lot of actors were involved, that’s when I thought that the comedy made it very hard to appreciate the acting. I like to watch good acting so I’m quite happy that there were tickets for me to watch it again. I am looking forward to watching Judy Ngo, Tan Shou Chen and Judee Tan in other shows.
~*~
Ris Low’s version of 12 days of Christmas:
12 months probation
11 day Safari*
10 ad sponsorers
9 English Lessons
8 khaki jins
7 credit cards from 6 different people
5 leopard preens
4-giveness
3 piece bigini
2 polar disorder
and a [thinking pause] diploma in hospitality.
*thanks to commenter ‘ris low’ 
Victor/Victoria
November 29th, 2009 theatre
Once the theatre darkened and Toddy came out and I was all smiles from start to end beaming up at the stage like a satellite to mother ship. I have not been this thrilled at a musical since Tick Tick Boom/Lao Jiu. I love the original broadway show (which I saw on DVD – Julie Andrews/Tony Roberts/Michael Nouri/Rachel York) and I was prepared to be disappointed because the original was fairly entertaining. Seriously, it’s Julie Andrews and Rachel York – it’s not going to be easy to top.
My oh my. I love love love this production of Victor/Victoria. Lots of greats: this is the first time I have ever seen a dancing chorus. The dancing and choreography was fabulous and out to impress – lots of high kicks, jumps and frightfully difficult moves. There was a little untidiness about the dancing but I don’t think anyone noticed because they were so bloody fantastic. The sets looked v expensive. Nicely done!
Laura Fygi completely bowled me over with her singing. Her voice gave Victoria Grant/Count Victor Grezhinski a touch of sultry sadness which I thought was great idea and made the Count seem even more mysterious. Matt Grey (as Carol Todd) sang very well and so did Jake Macapagal (as King Marchand), playing opposite Laura Fygi. I had thought they might be relegated to mere supporting roles but they held their own well. Nicole Stilton got the juicy Norma Cassidy part and got a nice applause at the end. Her singing and dancing was extremely well done but I thought she could have milked the part a bit more. She seemed quite preoccupied with getting the process through especially during Paris Makes Me Horny. She seemed slightly boyish for the role, as if she’s doing Norma in drag(?!) I would prefer it if she were to let flow the lowly educated, bitchy gangster girlfriend stereotype.
The actors did a very good job in bringing out the lines that I missed watching the DVD: the in your face conversation about sexual preferences. For example. Norma says to Toddy that the right woman could change him; Victoria says that King thinks that he could never be in love with a man because he thinks he’s that sort of man; and Sal saying it’s disgusting). I had forgotten about it and was surprised that a show could air such impolite conversation.
The interpretation of the characters was a tad not to my liking. I found Matt Grey’s Toddy too butch and although I knew the story, I kept thinking Toddy will try to make a pass at her during ‘If I Were A Man’. I also had some trouble believing that the extraordinarily good looking Jake Macapagal was a business man who did business with thugs/gangsters.
Rehearsal videos
The Broadway show, 1995
Link to Karin’s review – ooh she likes theatre, follows bbc comedy and is currently listening to the recent album from Muse. Never seen that combination before, or have I?
RASHOMON (Theatre Practice)
September 13th, 2009 theatre
Rashomon is my favourite movie of all times. I was incredibly excited to learn Theatre Practice was going to put it up. When the weekend came around, the excitement had gone away and I was hoping for something light hearted. It had been a solemn week, brought about by watching District 9, which was very very good but disturbing, and finishing Diamond Age (the book made me pensive).
The play kept to the way it was presented in the movie but reduced dialogue to the barest minimum, using light, sound, and the actors’ bodies to express emotions. In that regard, it was extremely interesting theatre, extremely well executed. There were a lot of looks exchanged between the actors and I’m not sure if the body language would be too subtle for a person really far from the stage but I, three rows from the stage smack center – the best seats IMO – caught most of the glances and liked it.
As a performance it didn’t quite entertain. It is too slow paced and and the restrained dialogue made it difficult to show the different versions of the events. That gave it a pretentious arty flavour because it assumes everyone knows the story well enough to seek an alternate presentation of the story.
Although suspense died quite early on from the slowness, the light and sound were used to good effect to retain interest in the scenes. In particular, I thought the first telling of the killing of the samurai presented as a series of stills captured in light ingenious. The actors are a joy to watch – they are just bloody good at their job. I hope they win some theatre prize money to do more work. It is quite a pity it wasn’t played to a full house.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
August 16th, 2009 theatre
I had been looking forward to the show after reading it during my musical-mad phase. It was a sweet little piece – no fancy footwork, a small music team and limited acting. The show has a goodish amount of humour and the characters were all heatbreakingly cute.
All the singers in the show did very well in their roles. I thought Johann de la Fuente made Coneybear adorable (and not sick-making). He lost focus a little when he had to switch roles to be one of Marcy Park’s gay Dad. Noel Rayos controlled his role switches better. Cathy Azanza-Dy (as Ms Peretti) sounded weak in the high notes.
Memorable songs: Pandemonium / I Speak Six Languages / I Love You Song
The Crucible
August 16th, 2009 theatre
Watching the actors /actresses on stage, I think this play is suitably chosen for The Young Company’s graduation show. The script is fantastic – a lot of drama, a lot of conflict and, I think, fairly accommodating towards bad acting. I was expecting some arm-flinging types and I found a lot of them at the start of Act 1. Most onstage were uncomfortable with the language of the play did nothing more than deliver their lines. I’m not sure more rehearsals would help – they need to spend time working out the characters on their own a bit more. Three actors stood out from the crowd onstage: Andrew Robert Ng, Rishi Parkash Budhrani and Olivia Rummel. While they didn’t express the depth of their characters, they did hold my attention and did not arm-fling. It would nice to see them again in another production.
The entire cast deserve praise for seeing the show through in the face of the simply awful audience. The audience chattered incessantly during the show, laughed inappropriately and at certain moments during the show, I was afraid for the cast that they would heckle. They are probably students and despite being yelled at during Act 1 (by Mrs Daniel Jenkins?), did not settle down. Michael Corbidge came in during the intermission, told them off and they quietened down during the second half of the show. I hope the cast did not have to suffer the same kind of audience on another night.
*Celeb sightings: Daniel Jenkins at the aisle seat of my row and Michael Corbidge. I miss watching local actors onstage.
