Review: Paper Crane

Tonight I just came back from Paper Crane尾聲, klpac's big musical production for this year. Besides being a fan of musicals, I was also there to support some friends who are in the show, especially my sister Hilda who was making her professional debut as part of the ensemble.(Yes, we are a musical family- next year my two kitties will be performing in the local production of "Cats")

Tonight we had a full house. I was told last night was also a full house. Interesting to note that my last time in pentas 1 as an audience was in 2008, watching "Broadways Parodies Lagi-lah" on my birthday. Saw a lot of familiar faces tonight; there were of course the usual klpac people like Joe, Faridah, etc, and the Dama Orchestra gang were here also. However, we also met some of my sister's old school mates whom, at one point of another, carried me in their arms when I was a baby. Anyhow, back to the play....

I like the set design which is the backstage of an chinese opera stage("Paper Crane尾聲 " is a musical about a chinese opera troupe and not chinese opera, by the way).It tells the story of the rise and fall of an opera star, Ah Kit, brilliantly played by Roax Tan. He started as a backstage worker in this troupe owned by Lou Pan, played by Patrick Teoh. The star of the troupe was Fui Koh who disliked him right from the start. Ah Kit befriended Siu Ngau, another performer, and fell in love with Lou Pan's daughter, Fei Mui. By a strange twist of fate, Ah Kit finally got the chance to shine as an opera star, achieving his dream with the troupe. However, Ah Kit had also become arrogant along the way. What happened next? Will he end up with Fei Mui? Will Fui Koh stage his revenge? I shall leave it at that for you to discover when you go see the show.

What did I think of the show? Let's start with the performers.

Acting wise, as mentioned earlier, I thought Roax was really good as Ah Kit. He was able to capture the innocence at the beginning of the play, and I could see him slowing morphing from a nobody to an opera star in the story. As for his singing, for someone who is not a musical actor, I thought he did a commendable job.

Female lead Lee Elaine was just alright, but this is her first performance. However, she is a fantastic singer. I just wish there were more opportunities for Fei Mui to sing in this musical.

As for the rest of the principals, Amelia Tan was very convincing as Ah Kit's mother, while Kimmy and Patrick's part were not so prominent compared to the rest.  It was obvious they were not that comfortable singing. Amelia's duet with Roax showed her weakness while Patrick only have a couple of singing lines. I don't think Kimmy has any singing line at all. Soon Yoon(Siew Ngau) & Colin Kirton(Fui Koh) were the only principal performers who can both sing & act well, and they aptly delivered in both departments.

Ensemble were good and it was heartening to see new faces, people I don't know, performing. I was told there were a couple of first timers in the production. I do hope that they will continue to perform after this. Singing wise I thought their diction was better in Act 2. I couldn't hear what they were singing a few times in the first act.

Costume was simple for the ensemble, while the principals had their own different costumes. One particular costume I find weird was Fui Koh's- I thought he was wearing a cassock. 

At first I felt weird watching the play which is in both English & Cantonese. It took me a while to get used to it. I thought Act 1 had better pacing, with better story development while Act 2 seemed rushed at times. I had to refer to the scene-by-scene synopsis provided (and asked some people who were involved in the production) to understand some of the things that were happening in Act 2. The most emotional part for me was when Lou Pan was leaving. I had trouble connecting with Ah Kit's emotional state of mind at the end as he had changed so much from the cheerful likeable person he was in the beginning.

Cikgu Lex's choreography was good to watch, especially in the Soup Song- great idea! Lighting & set design were also very good and the dramatic ending, which I shall not describe, was very well done- kudos to lighting designer Amelia Tan(yup, the lady who played Ah Kit's mother), set designers Omar Ali & Yusman Mokhtar. Sound could have been better as there were a couple of times the mics of the performers were not on. Also, there were a few humming sound coming from the speakers.

Overall, it is an entertaining musical. There were some nice & funny moments and with songs to entertain you for about 2 hours(including a 15-min intermission).

Show is on now till 19 August in klpac. After that, they will be heading north to penangpac from 25 August till 2 September. Please go to http://theactorsstudio.com.my/papercrane/ for more information.

With Lee Elaine, "Fei Mui"

With my sister Hilda

Sorry Roax, can't help it!

Mid year crisis? Not really..

In 7 days, I will be half way done with 2012. So far 2012 has been quite calm and smooth sailing for me. Last year was basically busy with production from March until Dec. So this period was a welcoming one.

With only Dead Man Cell Phone & Malaysian Girls(penangpac run), I basically spent most of my time in klpac & The Actors Studio watching my friends perform. The last 2 shows I watched were both in TAS- indicinelive! & Songs for a New World. Both were very well executed and it kinda make me envious of them.

Actually I auditioned for indicinelive! back in March but could not make it to the callback due to my commitment to DMCP. Bad timing, but hopefully I can get to do this next time.

Anyhow, I will be busy with the following starting July:

1. Dama Orchestra's Empress Wu The Musical- the show will be staged from 27 Sept till mid Oct at pentas 1, klpac.

2. SIBKL's Christmas musical Everworld- Sunday rehearsal started in June til Aug, In Sept there will 1 additional weekly rehearsal but I will probably be missing most of the rehearsals till I finish Empress Wu.

3. klpac's  Short+Sweet Festival- wifey & I are submitting our very first short musical. I won't be directly involved in the project but will probably try to find the time observe the rehearsal & give my inputs to the director.

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

Another Yellow Brick Road

Last year 9 July I didn't take part in Bersih 2.0 because I was afraid. But this time Bersih 3.0, I wasn't anymore.

So yesterday morning wifey & I had our breakfast at Happy Garden and walked to the Sri Petaling Station to join in the Duduk Bantah. We were supposed to meet up with her colleagues but since they were late and we were concerned that the authorities might shut down the station, we boarded the train to KL ourselves at 10am. We saw more people in yellow boarding the train from Bukit Jalil, Bandar Tasik Selatan, Cheras, etc.

A nice 30-min-ride and we reached Plaza Rakyat and went straight to Petaling Street. The place looked kinda like a carnival, a street party, if you like. There were small groups of people holding up their banners and some people playing music & dancing around. No police man in sight but there was a helicopter flying around... checking on the situation, I think.

The REAL Petaling Street Warriors

While we were all there to demand a clean & fair election, I certainly did not feel like the atmosphere was as tensed as I had expected. Everyone was making themselves heard in their unique ways.

It's been a while since we wore the same colour

 Last night, there were unconfirmed news that our PDRM might be using some hi-tech sonic equipment on the protesters and so I brought my own protection, just in case.

Custom made earplugs

 Back in the uni days in Sydney, I used to work as an earplug tester for a company and they had to test this new product. So they made me these earplugs.

They fit only my ears

 As we were only supposed to start walking to Dataran Merdeka at 1.30pm, we walked about Petaling Street to see the whole area. While most shops were closed, there were still some activities with some of the vendors.

This group seemed to be getting a lot of attention

It felt like a street party

Not sure he was a vendor or he came with the sign

Petaling Street with no fake products? Sure...

Interesting to note that the mata kucing & soya bean stalls were very busy serving their drinks. The Chatime outlet in Petaling Street was closed though. Otherwise, I am very sure they will also have a long queue of Bersih supporters ordering their drinks.

Good business...

By 11am, the crowd grew bigger as more people began to  arrive.

Still, the general feeling is very calm and not agressive.We managed to meet up with wifey's colleagues and we walked together from McD to Nando's to wait for "further instructions". According to one of the collegues, when the time came, there would be someone who would tell us when to start moving to Dataran Merdeka. We saw Selangor Assembly speaker Datuk Teng Chang Khim ariving with an entourage.

Another photo op

He was playing Rasa Sayang

We decided to eat a bit before the walk began and since earlier, wifey had been eyeing this fried fish from this Restoran Hameed, we had a quick lunch there. She ordered the fish while I only had Milo Kosong Ais.

I kid you not. Business was very good

 By the time we came back from lunch, her colleagues appeared to have moved. Phone signals were very bad at that time and we were unable to contact anyone. And so, we were back alone.

He was the only one there where we last saw her colleagues

We assumed that they might have started walking towards Dataran Merdeka as we could see people moving already. So we just followed the crowd and walked towards Dataran Merdeka.

Showing their "love" for our leaders

Some chanting happening here

Today's rally was sponsored by Maybank

 All the way along Jalan Tun Perak, we could hear Bersih and Anti-Lynas chants. Of course there were also reformasi & anti-BN chants but they were not as strong as the Bersih & Anti-Lynas chants. I also mentioned to wifey that this rally cannot be political and I refused  to chant anything but Bersih chants, maybe Anti-Lynas  too.

More people marching behind us

Then I heard one very loud chant led by a guy. I turned to look and commented to wifey that the guy looked like the char koay teow guy in the food court near our home. She exclaimed, "It's him-la!' I didn't think it was him at first because he always appeared very slumber and relaxed at his stall and not as energetic as he was here.

I said hi to him and asked in cantonese, "so, no need to open your stall?" His reply was, "Today I am not opening  my stall, today I want to BERSIH!"

Trust a penangite when he says the FKT is good

We kept walking as wifey wanted to be in the frontline. And we could feel that the excitement level growing as we moved closer to the Jalan Raja-Jalan Tun Perak junction. There were a couple of police vehicles and some policemen stationed along Jalan Tun Perak but they only observed everything. Occassionally they were directing traffic.

PAS' Unit Amal Malaysia were very disciplined

More love for our leader

We managed to squeeze our way through the crowd and were about 100 metres away from the barricades. At that point, it was around 1.30pm.

The barricades

Huge group from Parliment I think

 As we could not proceed further, some people sat on the road and we decided to sit for a while too. Then we got up to give way to the police we walked passed earlier. They were moving to be behind the barricades. There were so many with their own chants & shouts but they were chanting Bersih slogans and some pro-opposition or anti-BN stuff. We tried to sit down again but there were so many of us that it was really difficult getting everyone to sit down. Then some political leaders were being led to the barricades and we had to get up because we could be stepped on. Also, there was a guy who asked us to be careful of "instigators" and we were afraid there could be a stampede should things turned ugly.

Chants of "We Want Dataran!", "Buka!" could be heard throughout and there was a moment that we all stood to sing "Negaraku". There were a couple of occasions, in the midst of all the chanting,  I was almost moved to tears because I saw a Malaysia, regardless of race or religion, coming together for a common cause. I finally understood some of the feelings those who went on 9 July felt.

Around 240pm, the crowd got excited as Datuk Ambiga, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah, Lim Kit Siang & Nurul Izzah made their way to the front. We all cheered for them.

It appeared to me that Datuk Ambiga was gesturing to us to disperse but I couldn't be sure as we all could not hear anything.(Note: from news report, she had earlier made her speech at the Masjid Jamek Station telling everyone that the objective had been achieved and everyone should go home). Shouts of "Buka!" "Duduk!" became even stronger as at the point no one knew what was going on.

Then, I saw some people rushing to the barricade and the policemen behind the barricade moved away. People began to cheer and most were getting ready to occupy Dataran Merdeka. I stood and observed what Datuk Ambiga was doing and she was trying to tell the people to retreat. Too late, as the police fired their water cannons. Wifey I quickly put on our goggles and took out our towels to cover our faces. Then we saw cannisters were fired. That was when everyone got panicky and began to rush back to Jalan Pudu junction.

Situation got chaotic as we were trying to run away from the tear gas(the riot police vehicle with the water cannon were still behind the barricades). However, in the chaos, I saw something else. We were sharing salt & water and young men helping old people to move away from the tear gas. In front of me I saw a Unit Amal Malaysia man protecting an old chinese uncle shouting "Ada orang tua!" to make sure that nobody pushed him.

Thanks to our goggles, our eyes were spared from the tear gas, though we felt it on our skin, nose lips. At first I thought our lips and nose were going to burn but after a while, the discomfort was gone.

We ran back to the front of Menara Maybank and set by the pavement. The phone signal was back and I called OCD to let him know I was ok, while wifey texted her sister. I thought it was over but later people were running again as the police decide move in with their riot vehicle & more cannisters were fired.

We had to decide where to go- Pudu or Petaling Street. We retreated to Petaling Street as we had planned to eat there anyway.

Back to Petaling Street

The police continued to fire their tear gas outside Petaling Steet while we walked about looking for food. We were planning to eat the baked fish but the stall tak buka. We ended up sitting at this bahkua shop while I ate a bahkua bun. Made 2 new friends who shared our table- it was their first time too. We found out from them that the Plaza Rakyat station has been closed by the police. I called Andy from church to check with him- earlier over the phone he said that he was going home. He confirmed the situation and the stupid thing was, he was already inside the station but the train wouldn't stop to pick up passengers.

Wifey was still hungry and there were still tear gas around and we couldn't just hog the table after I finished. Finally we decided to take our chances by going out to Nando's which we saw was open in the morning. Thankfully, it was still open and we went in for our dinner before we walked to Hang Tuah Station(advised by wifey's resourceful colleague) to take our train back to Sri Petaling.

With that, our involvement in Bersih 3.0 came to an end.

It has been an eye-opener being part of Bersih 3.0. I managed to catch a glimpse of how Malaysia can be in the chaotic moment- Someone share his salt with us, I gave my water to the people around me to wash their eyes, all done without looking at the colour of our skins. But why only have this when we are put into a situation? Shouldn't this be a natural thing to do as we watch one another's back as Malaysians?

SALAM BERSIH!

Onwards to other things!

And so, I managed to complete "Dead Man's Cell Phone" with ease... yeah right.

It was the craziest thing I've ever done in theatre! From the day I received the script on 1 Mar to the opening night, I only had 14 days to be ready. 

What's the big deal, you might ask. Well, I had only 2 scenes but 1 scene involved a 7-min monologue. And on 5 Mar we had to present the play to the klpac peeps. It means I had only 4 days to memorize everything. 

On 5 Mar, I managed to do my thing. Actually it's more of just spitting out lines without meaning. Although I was allowed to call for lines, I was really not ready for the preview. We got our feedback & I realized that I had a lot of work to do.

From that moment onwards, I was basically spending time either on my own memorizing my lines, meeting with Christopher Ling or Amir(who played Dwight), or will be doing the runs with the cast. I counted and I only had 5 rehearsal runs with the cast before opening night.

So how did I do? I'm not sure how people saw it, but for me, I think overall I did better in the Penang run as I managed to get comfortable with Gordon after the KL run. I believe given another 1-2 weeks of rehearsal time, I would have been more confident portraying Gordon. Nevertheless, it was a great experience getting to know new people & working with Christopher Ling- my only wish is that I had more time with them instead of just 25 days.

 The cast & the director

With that all wrapped up, it's time to look to the future again. So what is next?

In about a week's time, wifey & I will be auditioning for a role in Dama Orchestra's "Empress Wu The Musical". The musical will be held from mid Sept to Oct 2012. Should we make it, I think rehearsal will commence in June. I am kind of torn between Empress Wu and another project I have been approached to do in Oct as well. I saw their production last year that was pretty awesome and it would be a wonderful experience to be part of their new project.This one looks to be a theatre piece but I will have to meet up with one of the producers probably by end of Apr to find more details.

If both also don't work out for me, then I am going to audition as a performer for Short+Sweet Malaysia 2012 Musical & as a director for Short+Sweet Malaysia 2012 Theatre. In fact I am currently trying to write something for Short+Sweet Malaysia 2012 Musical too.Hopefully the S+S workshop next weekend will help me to create something interesting:)

Year end, I hope to be in a musical again, but I will have to wait for the audition in Aug/Sept,... and that will probably be another blog entry in the second half of 2012:)

And the nominees are...

Last year was a year of breakthrough, as far my stage work is concerned.

I did my first theatre piece(sort of auditioned for it by mistake) which gave me more confidence in myself as a stage performer.

I also stuck my head into stage managing for the first time, and it allowed me to see & learn how a show is put up from the director's point of view. Thanks to that experience, it also helped me to land a role in Malaysian Girls.

Today, I just found out that the show I stage managed has garnered a couple of nominations in the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards 2011. BCA Awards is like our very own Tony Awards, so it's sort of a big thing.

We have been nominated in the following categories:

* Best Group Performance

* Best Sound & Music Design

* Best Lighting Design

* Best Costume Design

I reckon there should be a category for best props, coz our guy Kenneth did a fantastic job making our props.Those of you who watched the show should know what I'm talking about.

Not sure if we will be winning any of the awards as we do have a lot of excellent people nominated as well. But I'm exceedingly overjoyed with this great news today:)

I am a dead man...

This week has been a rather normal week, right until Thursday evening.

After last Sunday's callback for "Paper Crane", I have 6 days to decide and let Joe & Faridah know if I am accepting the offer as part of the ensemble - at the callbacks, we were informed that we would given the rehearsal schedule and to think it through before accepting the offer.

For me, as mentioned before, it was time for me to challenge myself with more things. I don't want to be stuck as someone who only does musicals. So I have decided that I would decline the offer & book an audition spot with Kelvin Wong for his IndicineLive! comedy show in June. To certain extent, I was wondering if I would be doing any production this year. While I am confident doing musicals, doing "SNL-style" comedy may be a little too much for me.

Then Thursday night, something happened. I left my phone in silent mode. When I checked it later, I discovered that I had a missed call from Christopher Ling. He also send me an SMS asking me to call him back. Sensing something is not right, I called him and he went straight to the point; one of his performers in "Dead Man's Cell Phone" had to pull out due to family emergency and he needed to get someone in ASAP. 

To cut the 1-2 hour story short, I spoke to wifey to get her blessings and I went to klpac to start my rehearsals with Christopher & the cast that night itself.

So now, I have about 10 days to be ready for the show. What a way to get into my first production of 2012, right?

Company loyalty

You know, my late father had only one job in his entire life. That's more than 30 years with the same shipping company. For me, since I graduated, I have worked with 8 companies across 3 industries. That's only 12 years!

What ever happened to company loyalty, right?

It's interesting to note that while companies would like their employees to stay loyal to them, most will have no qualms to remove them once they've outstayed their usefulness. Call it what you want, VSS, restructuring, transfer, etc... just the same la!

So I say, do what you need to do. Don't let anyone shortchange you. If you need to go, just go. Company loyalty is dead. PERIOD.