3 posts tagged “drama”
So it's the first day of March, a Saturday no less, and the entire Sri Inai community (all six of us! Plus one. Or two. Whatever) has communed to align our destinations toward the International School of Kuala Lumpur, the first such visit since the always-good-but-this-year-slightly-less-emotional SEA Forensics 2008 tournament, which had ended just last Saturday. Complimentary tickets were procured with the help of the ever-helpful Mr. Alan McLean.
I took photos of the Dance portion of that night, so here it is in Preview Mode, before I foist upon you the miracles of Big-O-Vision.
But! Back to the topic at hand.
ISKL was hosting two shows running on what I believe was billed as "IASAS Dance/Drama". To avoid me using overly wordy words that end up taking much of my sentences, as is seen in this current one, I'll try to limit my obvious word-text-communication excitement. The Drama bit, which played first, was a retelling of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, performed under the name The Further Adventures Of Amanda And Her Children. It is my deepest regret to announce to you that I had not taken any photos of the very well-performed play. You can use that admission to hit me on my head multiple times, though preferably not enough to induce incapacitation.
AMANDA AND HER CHILDREN
Photo: Amanda and Her Children: the programme's cover. Starring Elissa Daniels, Marcus Friend, Synnove Eriksen (can I just take a moment to declare my undying love for your first name Synnove? So awesome), and Amrit Sharan, the play was split into two halves - a dramatic and suitably moody version of Tennessee Williams' work; followed by a second half with a more humorous approach, adapted from Christopher Durang's parody For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls, itself a parody of The Glass Menagerie (I happen to know all this because my brain is so crammed full of drama knowledge... or perhaps through Wikipedia). The combination worked to create an atmospheric dynamic, with evocative costumes, a lush set, and extremely professional lighting.
The inclusion of the delightfully funny second half really helped me get my mood up; Williams' work never ceases to depress me.
Extremely well-acted by all four members of the cast, it's a slight shame that the character of Tom lacks an overt humorous side to him in the second half: everybody else has. Eriksen's Amanda gains a more pronounced sarcasm having to deal with her two sons; Daniels' Ginny is the core of the second half's laughs with the recurring gag of her deafness and her lesbianism; and Sharan's Laurence is just absolutely delightful in his portrayal of tragic, exaggerated hypochondriac Laurence.
All this was fit into a highly memorable roughly-forty-five minutes at the Robert B. Gaw theatre, followed by a fifteen minute interlude.
The big three posters in the center were the very exciting promotional posters for Amanda and Her Children, though in hindsight I want to accuse whomever made this awesome set of misleading me. There was absolutely no flying during the show whatsoever.
INTERLUDE
Jim was there, too, and strangely, he is not seen in any of the 60+ photos taken all night. He's so invisible I'm beginning to suspect he doesn't exist, and is solely a figment of my imagination.
FARRAGO: A CONFUSED MIXTURE OF THINGS
Oh! What I meant to say was, it's great being... oh, screw that, why don't you just stare at the photos, and imagine that you're receiving some highly erudite word-text-communication from me regarding artistry and dance.
I'd give this a score, but then again, spending all one's time watching people dance with pulchritudinous grace, staring at eloquent lighting, and, uh, nudging Jim into taking photos of me is more fun than you can usually have with the lights on... Oh wait, the lights were off, it's a bloody theatre.
Now here I am bemoaning my absolute lack of word-text-communications in the category of Dancing, probably something I'd attribute to my own Dexterity rating of 0.
POST-DRAMA/DANCE ELATION
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So there you go, my first long post since returning from the Eastern Provinces.
(and no, Mom, by "Eastern" I actually mean, "so far East, it's across the sea!")
My sincerest apologies for not dishing out a Forensics or Paul's Kuching Adventure (more about that later) post yet, but rest assured: it... will... happen.
... plays always make him happy.
So, here is going to be another phototastic ubermosh of, um, photos. Like yesterday's post, this one will include tedious amounts of Big-O-Vision (tm).
But first, a rough overview of the photos. Holy crap there's a lot of photos.
A lot of photos. Shall I do a random Big-O-Vision selection? Yes.
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But first - we watched a staging of WRECKS, a one man play performed by veteran actor Patrick Teoh and directed by Gavin Yap. It's the fourth play I've watched this year, from zero plays last year, and I'm happily happy. From the opening, where the piano music accompanied the bereaved main character, to the actual beginning when he starts smoking gorgeous rings of smoke, I was hooked. God, I love plays.
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Michelle and Jaziel at the tickets section, buying eleven tickets for a later staging, for classmates I assume. They're here because of an Introduction to Drama individual assignment (where you have to review one play). I think I'm going to review Alias Grace instead.
The title of this photo on my Facebook account is, "It is inevitable that Amirul B Ruslan takes a photo like this in every photo album he has." I think it's true, too.
Meiyi and me. If I had a shirt, a clean one, I'd have worn it. Jaziel went with a shirt. I always go overdressed for days like these, but all I had was a new shirt from last month. Damnations. Meiyi, the only person here who was watching not to write an assignment (aside from me), has never seen a play.
Jaziel "Orberon" Tan. He constantly tempts me with Call of Duty 2 sessions, and adds on that by frequently referring to his BitTorrenting of CoD4, which I can safely reassure others I cannot play due to a weak computer.
As the title says, she likes walls. In any case, this was the third photo of this sort that she took, with the second interrupted mysteriously by an elevator opening to nobody inside.
ELS Secretary Michelle, who will be playing Stella Kowalski in her group's recital of Streetcar (See: previous post). Sidenote One - when me and Josiah first met her, Josiah's comment was, "She looks like Serena C." I concur.
Jaziel and Meiyi are talking here. I have no idea what they are talking about, mainly because I'm just standing here and taking photos, and reciting stories of how I love KLPac.
...far too much.
Jaziel again. He laughs to some joke, probably involving buggery. In any case, he spent much of my photo-taking time talking about how I should get a DSLR. Hahahahaha! As if.
Jaziel takes a photo of feet. Clockwise - Meiyi's (one o'clock), Jaziel's (six o'clock), mine (ten/eleven o'clock). Roslyn has taken nicer ones, but that's not fair because Roslyn wears school shoes to school. I have no such excuse.
In the half-hour we waited before the doors opened, we were at the parking lot. Thus, this photo is entitled "Out In The Parking Lot".
Truth.
Jaziel has first dibs at brick-wall photos. I wish people would take the initiative and photograph me instead, but I think that's too much to ask for.
After the play: sitting down at the faux-sofas outside KLPac. We were talking at length about the Big Revelation in the play, and Jaziel was reiterating his impressedness at how low-budget the set was. It looked wonderful, so atmospheric. My words.
Five months or so in the ELS and I've never been photographed with Michelle. Here is a nice change.
More talkings about the play, sometime involving wild hand gestures, arm wavings, or biting laughter. I am taking the photo whilst talking, resulting in me being missing from the bulk of these discussion-photos.
Wirechairs are nice, but they seem to have caused minor damage to Meiyi's dress. My highly-suspect facial expression seems to resemble one who is riding a motorcycle. Something I cannot do, alas.
Michelle, as taken by Jaziel. The man knows his photography. Or something.
Me and Michelle were completely gun-baffled at the Big Reveal at the end of the play. Jaziel didn't notice until we told him it. Meiyi, the astoundingly analytical and amazing person that she is (one A-word missing, should have been alliterative!), guessed it from way before. I feel stupid all of a sudden. The reveal was surprising - putting full truth to the words at the subtitle of the play: "To Be Loved Is Never Wrong."
We go back from the gardens outside, after me and Meiyi take lengthy walks which involve talking about monsoon drains, and back into the lovely air-conditioned building that KLPac is. Michelle and Jaziel sit down. I prefer to stand. That or the fact that there's no seats for me.
Jaziel's parents, who are truly very nice people, have very nicely transported us from the college hostel gate to KLPac and back. We had late-supper-thing later. The Big Mac I had in their car, ordered due to Tabby's love for nuggets (when we got back from class, before I went for the play), had been swallowed before reaching KLPac. I was full. Such nice people.
Jaziel is dodging a BOOM! HEADSHOT! (Don't let him read this - he will invite me for more CoD2 rounds, and then own-ify me.
This is what happens when you use flash photography in the cramped, four-people-occupying backseat of Jaziel's parents' car. Me and Meiyi, in the car. And exeunt! The end of this tediously long blog post. November does me good not in volume of posts but volume of words in the posts.
...Too many photos from my Streetcar performance. Here is the first selection, to make you want to see the rest. Aye?
Our staging of A Streetcar Named Desire was on Tuesday, for, and I quote, "One Night Only". Actually it was one evening. Afternoon. Whatever. It went really well. We got a 90% grade for it (combined with the presentation score). Okay, actually, 27/30, but that's 90% to me.
It is truly a miracle that Amirul B Ruslan looks this good at half an hour past midnight, having practiced since ten.
Table-reads at 2PM. The magical fingers of Julia coupled with whatever adhesives Eason uses on his hair has resulted in his extremely different look.
Triangles, dammit.
Each and every of my actors preferred their table reads over their actual rehearsals. I think it's because they get to sit down. In any case, the rehearsals are funnier. I ad-lib a lot and generally make several fools of myself, and drag everybody down by forcing them to stay awake til two. No wonder they enjoy table reads. Interruptions often dot the process, with somebody asking "So where's stage left? And why am I exiting there if my house is stage right?" Also, it's always funny the first time when you read the script and there's an offbeat comment on my part regarding the play. In our scene three script I have an existential crisis where my personality splits into two halves: Courier New and Times New Roman. Courier wins, but Times New Roman is the dominant.
I swear, that thing is smiling at me.
Valentina, whose birthday is - can you guess it? - that's right, Valentine's! (A day before mine), guest-starred for our performance as Colored Woman. We hope to maximize her skills in our next staging, which would be that of Kuo Pan Kun's The Spirits Play... though that play has a maximum of five characters.
I have no idea who took this photo, when it was taken, or why I was so unhappy.
On an unrelated note, Julia takes photos with bricks and triangles.
Julia, as a MAN, served for the Amirul B Ruslan Theatre Repertoire (a name I do not hear others utter), with wonderful wonderful skill. I think she may have even upstaged the two lead actors/resses. A bun for her. Two, in fact. You may donate her buns to celebrate her wonderful performance at this address:
The Julia Hoo Bun Donation,
c/o Amirul B Ruslan,
The Center of the Universe,
Somewhere Near The Sun "Sol"
Josiah's table reads are not as exciting as the constant ad-libs or jokes about the Napoleonic code that I do, but in that same sense he's damned more professional than I am. His performance as Steve Hubbell was also good. Nothing to complain about, despite his modesty.
What happens when you force people to practice at minutes past midnight? They hate you. Okay, maybe not, (seeing they still talk to me and all). They play with their phone and act like they're asleep. Here is Tabby, in her oft-unseen pair of glasses, during a table-read on Saturday night. Or Sunday morning.
The cunningly-eyed members of the floor will notice that the word Streetcar in our script, this one of Scene Three, has been replaced by another word, blocked off by my cunningly positioned thumb.
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And now to the actual performance photos. This one's for you.
Wow, everybody's smiling except me. I'm such a dour fellow. So, here's the cast/actor list. From left.
Julia Hoo - Harold "Mitch" Mitchell
Tabitha Rani - Blanche duBois
Valentina Tay - Colored Woman
Sarah Yeoh - Eunice Hubbell
Vishalene Sivaraman (who insisted I place her full name on the poster, no less) - Stella Kowalski
AMIRUL B RUSLAN! - Stanley "I'm Marlon Brando" Kowalski
Josiah Ching - Steve Hubbell.
It was real nice. Our acting time must have only spanned about thirty minutes or so though. Even that's more than it should normally.
The poker scene in Scene Three. Josiah doesn't know how to play poker, and my poker appears to be extremely rusty. This I know from trying to play on Facebook. It looks pretty authentic, though. I mean my Stanley performance.
Damn table lamp, block my face, do you? Blanche - "Here I am, all freshly bathed and scented, feeling like a brand new person!" Stanley - "Uh-huh. That's good." Right around now Tabby was supposed to change into a white dress, offstage, but some funny accidents occurred. For one, I was supposed to tie a ribbon around the back of her dress. My ribbon was woefully weak. Secondly, she forgot her shoes, so she appeared on stage with a white dress and no shoes. In the middle of the scene, just before the shouting about papers happened, Tabby rushed off to get her shoes. She made it seem natural, though, but you could see me smiling. Out of character!
Said white dress and shoes on Tabby. Here Stanley generally makes a jerk of himself, the half-drunk lad that he is.
Visha did a rather swell job as Stanley's wife Stella (Blanche's sister for the un-Streetcar'd), despite me shouting at her daily over her extremely late hours, and the fact that I think she only put in about four hours worth of practice. She is credited in our A3 posters as "Always Coming In Late For Practice". I don't actually blame her, and she knows there is mutual respect. At least I hope it's mutual.
Blanche - "You do have a maid, don't you?" Stella - "No, with only two rooms it's--" Blanche - "TWO ROOMS?"
Like Tabby's room is that nice, either. Talk smack about my house, do you?
(Um, haha, lol, ignore that!)
Stanley - "In the state of Louisiana we have what is known as the Napoleonic code, according to which what belongs to the husband belongs to the wife, and vice versa," This is an injoke with us, because during practices I used to use a super-staccato voice, pronouncing it instead as "NA PO LEON IC CODE." If that somehow makes sense to you. Also, I kept fudging the damn lines, saying "In the state of Napoleonic code, we have Louisiana". Which kinda makes sense, but is definitely not in the script.
Stella, Stella, Stella for star! She's having a baby, she is.
Blanche - "What I mean to say is that I'd like to be left alone." Eunice - "Aw, I'll just make myself scarce then." What a rude (formerly) rich Mississipi miss. They did well, they did. Even if Eunice looked nearly exactly like Blanche. The costumes, I mean.
Later - when it was done. Tabby poses with a poster of herself. It's not particularly good, the poster I mean, but that's because I only had five minutes with Photoshop and no photos of the characters. Also, my nice fancy fonts refused to run on Sarah's computer, sticking me to Times New Roman all day.
Yeah, whatever, Tabby may have her own poster, but I've got mine too. A-HA! Notice that for some unknown unknowable reason, in this photo, faux-Amirul is a lot shorter than faux-Tabby. Scarily enough, though, Tabby could easily walk around with that poster and I might believe her. Just like the time she wore the Clark Kent mask.
That Tabby is scary, she is.
SCENE.