.. MRT Excuse Chit ... not Shit ah !! My Review of Trainstopping

I finally caught “TrainStopping” last night at the Old Parliament House, @The Art House. It has been more than a year since I have seen anything @ the Art House and I must say that Sight Lines could not have picked a more apt venue for their debut production. As I was shown my seat (thanks Derrick), I felt like I was brought somewhere else .. away from the hustle and bustle and stresses of life. The mood lighting in the hall (is it a hall??) was calming and so was the music. It was an excellent way to cool down and to prepare the audience for what was about to come..

TRAINSTOPPING !!! This is the first production for Sight Lines, the first professionally staged work under the penmanship of Jeremy Yew and also Derrick Chew’s first foray into the murky waters of directing !! I must say that it came together very well and felt more like a production done by a seasoned production house with a veteran crew. The lines were well written and if caught, you cannot help but chuckle at how they cut deep into the current affairs of the country. Well done to Jeremy who also managed to “redo” the lyrics of so many current songs to “fit” into this revue.

The directorial team also did a good job in putting the relatively narrow and long (portrait-esque) stage floor to good effect. It felt like the actors were up close and personal. There were also all the great small little bits and pieces which bound everything together into the main MRT theme. Good job !

As Trainstopping was touted to be a musical revue of Singapore 2011, there were many skits depicting events in Singapore 2011. There were bits on the recent GE2011 (which were not many thankfully as I feel that this issue had been beaten and killed too many times), the flooding along Orchard Road, issues on Foreign Talent in the most unlikely of places and of course major bits about the MRT incidents. It was also very smart of Jeremy to somehow fit in the message of local culture/art being sidelined in Singapore. With so many skits, there are bound to be some misses. For some of the skits, I felt that the impact was lost because there was either too little impact or too little explained …

The actors on the other hand are all veterans to this industry. It was great to see Darius, Celine and Siti working together on so many of the skits and best of all, combining their voices to great effect. Darius was as usual, funny with his nasal voice (except when singing) and funny expressions. Celine was good but I felt that she could be bit more expressive and less hesitant. It is my opinion that Siti stole the show. She is such a natural in her comedy and it is no wonder she won the 2011 Life! Theatre awards best actress. Her delivery of her lines were accurate and smooth. During her solo skit as a Malay girl going to get married, it felt as though she was talking to the audience as naturally as talking to her best friends. I understand Malay language so I found her Malay jokes / nuances very funny. (KETIAK BUSUK!!!)

The one issue I had with Trainstopping was the sound quality. It was at times quite difficult to hear the lines clearly because they were either muffled or drowned out by the loud music. This may also be due to where I was sitting or the acoustics in the venue. (ed : Who plays loud music in parliament???? LoL) Looking at some of the puzzled faces of the other people in the crowd meant that I was not the only one having some issues with catching the words. At certain parts, the lights were pretty glaring as well. Also because of the colors picked for the stage lights, it seemed as though the actors were in 3D !!! (might be my eyes???)

In conclusion, Trainstopping was a well put together and the music lines really played into the actors strengths. It felt very relaxed and though there were some misses, I can guarantee that there are enough hits to make your evening. Do not expect a show of loud, bawdy laughter .. but more a revue of good music, chuckles and giggles on the funny events of Singapore in 2011. Good job to the “virgin” writer, director and Sightlines. I hope to see more soon …

Anywayz folks .. pls get your tickets at www.bytes.sg and GET THEM SOON as you have only 3 more days !!! No excuses .. MRT breakdown ALSO you must get there !!!

Review on Wild Rice's Romeo & Juliet

Hello all of you guys ... sorry for the lack of any posts over the last few weeks. I have been overseas for work and I have not been to anything except for Sarah Chang a few weeks ago (not gonna do a review on that .. it is Sarah Chang ... ‘nuff said!!). So I was really looking forward to Ivan Heng’s Romeo & Juliet !!!

I have been reading the reviews by many people about Wild Rice’s version of R & J and they have been sparkling. The hype and my anticipation was built sky-high before I even walked into the Drama Centre last Saturday evening. As mentioned in my previous R & J post, I have seen many different versions of Shakespeare’s most famous play. I have also read the unabridged and abridged versions many times in preparation for my ‘O’-levels literature exam years ago (btw, I scored and A1 for it .. woo hoo). The bonus was that I went with my better half who has a Major in English & English Literature but has never read R & J. She knows the story .. or so she claims .. must be via the Baz Luhrmann movie version. I personally think that was a good movie except that diCaprio was in it.

As we took our seats (right in front .. AA row was removed .. so A row was the first row .. right in the middle), I noticed that the set was surprisingly bare. In fact it was totally empty other than a very large stage floor. There were almost no markings on the floor. This was rare in this age of “large and pretty” sets. The place filled up pretty quickly and you could feel the buzz in the air as others in the audience waited impatiently for the play to start.

The opening scene was extremely stylized as the entire cast came out and stood stoically as Benvolio (Rishi Budhrani) delivering the opening prologue. This set the mood for the entire play. As per my usual reviews, I shall not go into too much details about the play so as not to spoil it for anyone else. All I can say is that it is one of the best plays I have ever seen in my entire life. Why?? Read on ... read on ..

Firstly as the set was bare, it all came down to pure acting. The acting was overall very good. To me, Erwin Shah (Mercutio) was the star of the night. I last saw Erwin in Spring Awakening where he was good but still rather hesitant (see my review of Spring Awakening). In R & J .. he shone. I feel that there are still some minor rough edges as the enthusiasm in his acting seemed to come across as ‘overacting.’ Give him a little more time and I can see him becoming one of the best of his generation here in Singapore.

Another of the cast who was excellent was Julie Wee who played Juliet. One could feel her emotions as she went from a innocent, young daddy’s girl ... to a young lover ... willing to forsake it all for her true love. Ivan did a good job casting her as Juliet.

Remeo was played by Hansel Tan. He did a good job but somehow I felt something missing. He delivered his lines perfectly but his facial expressions came across as forced rather than something truly felt. He seemed to have only two expressions – happy and sad with nothing in between. In the first act, when he was all lovesick and pining for Rosalyn .. he seemed fairly neutral and well “ho hum.”

Reading through the names for the supporting cast, it is expected that they would be great. Kay Siu has yet again shown why he is one of the best in what he does in his portrayal of Lord Capulet. When the tears rolled down his cheeks, I couldn’t help but feel misty-eyed. Swee Lin played the role of the Nurse well with her funny quips and sexual innuendoes. She would easily be many of the audience’s favourite character for the night. I have rarely seen Yu-Beng act other than on TV many years ago. I personally think that theatre fits him better. However, I think Friar Lawrence could be a bit more cheeky and less serious.

I was a little disappointed at how Tybalt turned out. The devil’s horns were a good touch but I felt that he was a little too one-dimensional. Not much was shown in terms of his close relationship with the Capulets. We all had to assume that he was very close to them especially to Juliet. He came across just as someone from the Capulet family who just wanted to kill anyone who was a Montague.

Also, the close relationship between Benvolio, Romeo and Mercutio seemed to be lacking. We know that they are extremely close friends but it came across that there was something missing in the scenes where the three of them were together. Though the “death of M” scene was excellent. “A plague on both your houses” required more blood to be spit out !!! (LoL)

As mentioned earlier in this post, there was very minimal set except for a bed, some tiki torches and backdrop images. That was enough!! Minimal distractions and maximum impact / concentration on the acting. The lighting work was fine with great shadow play of the cast against the backdrop and the floor at various scenes. The music was loud and furious during the fight scenes adding to the atmosphere but yet again kept to bare essentials. Good job backstage guys !! The modern style of costumes also made it all seem more current.

As you can tell, I really liked Ivan’s version of R & J. I felt it just came together nicely without being overly stuffy and pretentious. The acting and choreography was spot-on. The lines were delivered perfectly in terms of intonation and speed. I have some friends who found the ‘ole english’ difficult to understand and another friend actually fell asleep within 5 minutes of the play. They told me Shakespeare is not for everyone. I beg to differ. We all studied English in school. If we bother to pay attention and concentrate to the acting, even without understanding all the words, we can understand the meaning. In my opinion, R & J is the easiest of all his plays to understand as it is fairly light as compared to Hamlet and Macbeth. It is also one of the shortest and the language used is very much similar to modern English except for the poem-style of writing.  

Again, heartiest congratulations to the creative team at Wild Rice .. especially to Ivan Heng for this excellent take on R & J. Here’s hoping that it will not be too long a wait before he decides to tackle another classic ... say ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ or ‘As you Like It’ perhaps?

(ed : sorry this was done in Script font as I felt it would be more fitting)

Upcoming : Wild Rice's Romeo & Juliet

Venue : Drama Centre Theatre

Date : 12 April - 28 April 2012

Ticketing Agent : Sistic

For more details please click here for press release.

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?  Deny thy

father and refuse thy name...”

-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2.2

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any

other name would smell as sweet"

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2.2

Two of the most famous lines from Romeo & Juliet ... in fact two of the most well-known quotes of Shakespeare (ed : what about 'to be or not to be’). How many times have we heard these lines? They have been used countless times in movies, songs, adverts, books, speeches etc.  Even I used to be able to sprout these and a lot more quotes from R & J, not because I was some intellectual romantic .. but because I studied literature for my ‘O’ levels and this was one of the books we were dissecting. I bet many of you guys also had to do some Shakespeare book for your ‘O’s. Pity those who had to do Macbeth and Hamlet .. super boring and super lots of lines to memorize ...

I enjoyed the two years reading / memorising / quoting / discussing / debating / analysing R & J in school. R & J is IMHO the easiest and shortest of all of Shakespeare’s plays. It is easy to digest without much problems with the unabridged version. However, as I am from the 20^th century (albeit the back end), I never had the opportunity to catch R & J being performed live. I thought the movie version was WAY too stylized and I personally do not think that Leonardo de Caprio can act !! So this is the best way to enjoy it being acted out the way Shakespeare may have done. I am pretty confident that if anyone can pull it off .. Mr Ivan Heng can. Looking at his many, many directorial successes, R & J should be well done and a feast for the senses.

I have always felt that R & J is not just about the “star crossed lovers” but included the supporting cast and their little character nuances. The Machiavellian nature of Mercutio ... the loving-doting nature of Nurse .. the hot headedness of Paris .. the stubbornness of the Capulets all come together to bring the play to life and bring out the best of Romeo and Juliet. It is no wonder that in this rendition, the supporting cast are played by well established actors such as Kay Siu, Wendy Kweh, Swee Lin, Brendon Fernandez and Yu-Beng. Romeo will be played by Hansel Tan and Juliet by Julie Wee.  I have to admit I have yet to see Hansel and Julie perform but their theatre CV looks very impressive. 

I have been waiting almost 20 years to finally catch R & J performed live and am very much excited about it. The last theatre I caught was Pangdemonium’s Spring Awakenings which was also about young lovers, forbidden love (in a more physical sense) and the emotional trials and tribulations of growing up. It would be a pretty far stretch to compare Spring Awakenings to Romeo & Juliet but there are its similarities .. and don’t forget, life during Shakespeare’s time was far simpler ... stay tuned for my review and will update any information when I get it ...

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances;”

- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7

 

Trainstopping : Press Release

MRT getting you down? Go catch Trainstopping and laugh your frustrations away !!

Coming soon is “Trainstopping : 2011 in Revue” at The Arts House end April for a run of about 10 days. So far all the information I have received has been via the press release but if the show is ass funny as the press release .. it will definitely be worth watching !!!

The all-star cast of Darius Tan, Celine Rosa Tan and Siti Khalijah will definitely have you LOL-ing all over the place. I have seen Darius in “Aladdin” and I personally thought he stole the show (you can read my review somewhere in my blog .. shameless) .. I have seen Celine in Fried Rice Paradise and in The Full Monty .. she is super versatile and crazy. Finally, caught Siti in Boeing Boeing and Gemuk Girls just to mention a few. The 2011 LIFE! Theatre Awards Best Actress is such a natural with her expressions and her delivery. I am now just trying to picture all three of them together .. it is gonna be hard to keep up with them ..

The songs and lines will be written by Jeremy Yew. Jeremy is the guy behind the now widely read “Buttons in the Bread” blog .. (I have to admit.. I got my inspiration for my blog from Buttons). This is his first professional staged work but seeing how talented his writing is, this will be great.

Derrick Chew is the director for Trainstopping. Like Jeremy, this is his professional stage directorial debut. Let this not fool you as Derrick is already a veteran of the Arts here in Singapore as producer for several sold-out shows such as The Hossan Leong Show, The Full Monty and the recently concluded Spring Awakening.

Considering the stellar cast and production team ...  I am the first to say that this show will be a hit and hopefully it can slowly be expanded to a yearly event.

I GOT MY TICKETS ALREADY !!!!

Dates : 26 April – 3 May 2012 (8pm on weekdays, 4pm & 8pm on weekends)
Venue : Chamber, The Arts House
Ticket prices : $48 (excl $2 ticket handling fees)
Ticketing details : NOT SISTIC ... but at www.bytes.sg
Further information can be found here.

Update :

WANNA WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO TRAINSTOPPING?

Simply LIKE their facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SightLinesEntertainment) and stand a chance to win a pair of tickets to the Gala performance of Trainstopping worth $100! Go Go GOooooooooooooo !!! Just a mouse click away ..............

Spring Awakening .. My Awakening ...

Produced by : Pangdemonium Productions

Time / Date : 8pm / 15^th Feb 2012

Venue : Singapore Drama Theatre, National Library

“Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.”

 

Spring Awakening (SA) by Pangdemonium tries to put out the above message .. in the form of a rock musical. It succeeded... beautifully.

Check out the set ..

The entire show was done around 1 set. It was a beautifully designed and produced set. The band members were seated behind the set and a portion of the set was “into” the crowd giving the feeling that you are at a concert standing in the mosh pits. Thanks to D for the great tickets.

I was full of anticipation and expectations before the show as I read the many glowing reviews about this local variant of SA. I have heard about SA overseas but was never able to catch it. Common descriptions of SA were, “daring ... full of energy ...  risque ... touching ... relevant..” The song “My Junk” is described as a very “interesting” take on a love song.

To start off, when I was going through the cast .. only Adrian Pang and Candice de Rozario popped up as common names.. the rest I had to read through their background and realise .. “Ohhhh ... it is that guy ah ...” Lim Yu-Beng doing Lighting Design ??

The show started off brightly with the 3 kids setting the scene of the friendship between Moritz, Melchior and Wendla. This was followed by Wendla all grown up as a teenager pondering about the “birds and the bees.” I shall not continue on with the story as you have to see it yourself.

Adrian Pang as a German school teacher

On the whole, the acting was a bit strained at times. I could sense the slight hesitation in the young actors and that little lack of confidence. You can immediately see the difference in the quality between Adrian/Candice and the young actors. This is apparent in their facial expressions when they show their feelings as it seems a bit strained and single dimensional. I felt that Nathan (Melchior) looked the same when was happy and when he was sad. Also he seemed a bit tense on stage .. he was standing with his shoulders very much hunched and awkward at times. This as compared to the measured expressions and poise of Adrian Pang.

However, it is also very apparent that Julia (Wendla) has had quite a bit of acting experience. It is my personal view that she was the outstanding performer in that show. There were certain “difficult” scenes throughout the show and she played her part masterfully, full of confidence and it all seemed so natural for her.  Another person who stood out to me was Rebecca (Ilse). She also played her part well.

The female cast

From the acting point of view, the female cast members played their roles better than the male members. The male cast members lacked the finesse and “polishness” which can only come about with prior stage acting experience. They were trying their best but there were one-two times where they seemed to be over-acting.

The singing and dancing was where everyone shone. As SA is considered to be a musical, this is where it all matters. Before that, high praise must go to the music team, from Wenfu to each and every one of the band members. They were awesome. It was not all about loud music but all the slight sounds and background music which made everything on the stage work. The production / stage guys were also magnificent with extra praise to the “followspot” guy. Good theatre is very often ruined by a bad production team but in this, case the excellent production team took the show to another level.

Classic ...

All the cast members can not only sing but also dance. It is actually pretty funny seeing Adrian and Candice rocking it out on stage. Songs by individuals were good .. the songs with “many” were better. The blending of the voices was very well done with perfect intonation by all of the cast. For most of the songs, the lyrics were loud and clear. There were one or two bits where Eden (Moritz) was more shrieking/shouting than singing. However this was probably due to the high energy in him and the portrayal of the release of his angst. However, is it just me or does Eden sound a bit nasal? Maybe again, he is trying to play his role as a snivelling, confused teenager who has led a life of constantly being berated by his father.

Overall, someone who wants the typical “ha-ha-ha” kind of comedy theatre need not watch this show. However, someone who wants to be “entertained” and be treated to feelings of happiness and sadness ... wonder and shock ... then Pangdemonium’s Spring Awakening is definitely something you have to catch. I highly recommend this show to teenagers and to parents and anyone who wants to see Candice de Rosario making out !!!! Though, this may have been set in Germany in the late 19th century, the issues it addresses (puberty, homosexuality, abortion, religion, sexuality, spanking, falling in lust with your piano teacher etc.) are issues which are still very much relevant today. Teenagers in every country also have to deal with these issues in their own ways. It is important to realise what can go wrong if these issues are not addressed properly ...

Good job guys. Thanks to the Pangs for daring to bring Spring Awakening to us. Thanks also for introducing us to this new crop of young talents. If they are the future of Singapore Arts, then I think the future will be bright....

The future of our local arts scene ...

“...we’ve got our junk .. and my junk is you ....”

Post CNY-merriment ... Spring Awakening

A Happy & Prosperous Chinese New Year to all my readers (yup .. all 3 of you and the 1 who accidentally clicked on my link). May 2012 bring you bucketloads of prosperity and wealth until it all spills over to me.

GonG Xi Fa Cai !!!!

In China, CNY is also known as the "Spring Festival," how apt is it that I am gonna watch Spring Awakenings in 2 days time ...!!! In typical Pangdemonium style .. promotion of this show was done tastefully and rather low key and under the radar. No LOUD advertisements being flashed on billboards, taxi doors and buses.

Of course, this is not gonna be a show for the masses as from what I have heard (I have not read the original book) .. it deals with several "real-life" topics which are very much taboo in our Asian culture, issues which all teenagers face but are too afraid to talk about .. I wonder how is it gonna be played out here in Singapore. I have read several reviews and spoke to some of my friends who have already caught it and they gave pretty good reviews about it. Many of them felt that it connected to them and was better understood than 2011's "Into the Woods," which many felt was rather abstract and draggy. This is a musical so I am gonna be expecting lots of high-energy dancing. As it is a ROCK musical .. I expect to be deaf by the end of the night !!

Anyways .. it will be good to see Adrian Pang in the theatre again. The last I saw him perform was at "Into the Woods" where he was not exactly the main cast as he was in "Boeing, Boeing." I like Adrian because he does not overact .. he just does enough .. and he has very good diction and has a very pleasant "angmoh" accent.

Anyways ... I haven't had my "arts fix" for a few weeks so I am very very very much looking forward to catching this.  Will post my review after.. stay tuned. Anyone wanna join me????

Get your tickets .. show running from now until the 26th Feb 2012 at Drama Centre Theatre.

In the meantime .. a happy Spring Festival to you all ... hope you get your Awakenings too :)