Dramas

"If I could, then I would. I'd go wherever you will go." That song keeps cropping up at the most uncanny of moments. Subtract any romantic overtones and you'll get an adequate description of what I feel now. I wish I knew what was going on.

Anyway, the Fruits and Veggies Cult was hilarious! We met up on Thu night in HC to rehearse for the performance for HC's Dramafeste, and they introduced me to this new song that they wrote, Stargazer. It's a love ballad sort of thing, and it actually has a really pro tune and great lyrics. If we didn't mention the vegetable in the chorus, I think it could pass off as a boy band hit =P But then again therein lies our power...to look just like a normal serious band, but delivering the most inappropriate punchlines at the most inappropriate moments.

Then we went to KAP to stone for a bit (JY wanted to get dinner) before starting to write a new song. Now that we've tried love ballads and tearjerkers, we went for some sort of charismatic evangelical tract. My gosh, I have no idea where we get all this stuff from. Something happens when the gang's together, and decidedly bizarre stuff just pops out of nowhere =P It's really funny to see everyone toiling over the new song and throwing weird lyrics all over the place.

Then on Fri afternoon itself we went down to HC. The whole gang was due to perform...me, JY, Joel, Shoojee, Weiliang, Conan and this HC flotist called Hui Wen if I remember correctly. I still marvel at how much musical talent we have...these people don't write songs as much as they improvise with one another as they go along. And the spooky thing is that their random playings actually sound respectable together. The harmonisation and melody and whatnot just appears out of thin air, as if the King of Fruits were blessing us with the gift of Tongues =P There must be some underlying musical theory at work, but I don't understand it, so it looks like magic...

Hehheh, we even had a bit of stagecraft planned, with Weiliang doing...various things with vegetables and fruits. But for you guys who'll be at the RJ Dramafeste, telling you so much about it would be a spoiler, so you can just pay for the $6 ticket and come watch out for us on Friday at RJ =P But needless to say the songs went down quite well with the HC crowd. They were a bit slow with the more literary references, but you can't really go wrong with slapstick. And when they requested a birthday song, and Weiliang bestowed peas on the poor girl, it was just hilarious!

I'd never realised that making people laugh can be so fun. Hehheh, and the best part is that we get to sneak in a few laughs of our own too! After this you'll understand why the Arrogant Worms are so popular =P

This weekend was like the weekend of drama. On Thu afternoon before going for the rehearsal I dropped in on VJ to look for JY to watch Conan's TSD Group Piece. It was most breathtaking, the level of detail put into constructing the set around an airwell overlooking a little garden. The way they handled the audience was also innovative, by distributing them around the entry to the offstage zone. The advantage of doing the piece outdoors was that they had so much space to play with...they had two levels of acting space, and on the ground floor it was further divided into different zones. Trying to keep track of everything that was happening was quite a feat.

Their story was based on a Matrix-like plot, in which human scientists try to defeat the Machine by exposing test subjects to a simulated natural environment, in the hopes that contact with nature would reawaken their human-ness. Conan was acting as one of the test subjects. The piece was intriguing cos these subjects begin with no character whatsoever, and as they are exposed to the plants, a mirror, a typewriter and a pile of Lego, they begin to develop traits like egotism and curiosity and creativity, and it's most intriguing to see their personalities grow out of nothing. It's as much physical theatre as method-acting. And the sparseness of the speech of the test subjects made what they actually said more haunting. They almost exclusively conversed in terms of questions, the only exception being this girl who screamed.

Okay, so the idea isn't really original. But in terms of set design and physical theatre, it is quite impressive, considering all the practical limitations that they had to face. Conan is quite a capable actor, something that I never saw him as before. And once again, the daringness and professionalism of TSD is impressive. I hope they put up their piece for the public performance; more people should be allowed to see it!

Well, we didn't get to watch the HC Dramafeste because we were busy rehearsing (or laming around, depending on your point of view =P) but apparently the Arts play was really stellar. They got all the prizes except Best Script and Best Ensemble (whatever that is), which means that they had the best direction and acting and props and everything that the audience immediately appreciates. I would have liked to see what they put up. I hear that Bernie as a Priest was positively sacrilegious =P

Then on Sat went out with Liang See to watch Dangerous Liaisons. Bleah...there was a big mess with the tickets cos I accidentally bought one ticket too many. A communications failure. But anyway, it's quite obvious why the play is M18. There was so much sexual reference that the book is quite unrecognisable from the play. Or at least I never saw it as being that raunchy. Hmph...there was so much of it that it somehow seemed cheap, as if the director was just using all that sex for its shock appeal, as a marketing gimmick rather than as a tool to make some sort of artistic statement. Of course, that could be because we would regard what the citizens of the 18th century saw as pornographic as quite tame. But there was really too much sex...it was too distracting and too tasteless. And Singaporean audiences being what they are, if they weren't busy frantically fumbling around their pants for their ringing phone, they were busy giggling at the least sexual reference. And then the actors didn't have enough presence of mind to carry out some of the sex scenes and deliver their lines properly at the same time.

Nevertheless, I think the play got better as it went along and they dropped the sex for romance. Okay...not much of an improvement, but at least Singaporean theatre can do a decent job with it. They turned it into a contest between two women for the heart of one man, with the dominatrix exacting Jeux d'Enfants-esque sacrifices from her adoring suitor. I didn't see it that way originally, preferring to regard the whole power play as a test of wills. The best parts of the play were the beginning and the end. The beginning had swings all over the stage and couples on the swings in various sexual poses, and the swinging motion simulated most innovatively the movements of sex. And the play finished with quite an impressive display of stage combat, with snow drifting down the stage and candlelight and one character pushing over a playground slide. And when one of the characters was slain, he fell into a pool of red spotlight, and the snow falling on him was replaced with red flakes. The visual effect was stunning. And it gives me some ideas to try out on Grace's set this Thu.

Ah well...in the end, the play wasn't bad, really. Maybe it's just that I'm prejudiced against such explicitness. But I don't think it was worth nearly $40. The thrill factor and the novelty factor didn't really outweigh the drawbacks.

Heh, then yesterday night I watched Black Hawk Down on TV. Good show. Gripping storyline about normal soldiers trying to come to grips with the tactical blunders of higher ups. But it was epuic...took 3h to finish, and I didn't get much sleep last night. So I shall go off and make up for it now. Have a good night, guys =)

pondered by phoenican @ 21.2.05