More Drama

Wah it's been quite a long time. Been tied up everyday, but pleasantly so. I guess having somewhere to go all the time makes one feel fulfilled, though the problem is once you get some time to breathe then the pretence of busyness falls apart. Much of this week has been me being occupied doing nothing much really.

Went to watch Romeo and Juliet put up by TNT, a British company, on Tue night. It was at Singapore Poly, which was a redeeming factor. Dover MRT station is the most beautiful station ever built, especially under the night lightup. The sweeps of metal and glass are done tastefully, unlike the Expo station, which is impressive only because of the scale of the simple shapes that make it up. And the architecture of the poly itself is breathtaking...the curves of the Admin block, the landscaped courtyard with terraced levels and the low connecting bridge, the cubbyholes under the walkway and the classical box architecture blending in with the new skewed lines. The composition, especially at night, makes the plaza a focal spot. A pity that RJ didn't get designed by a poly student...

Anyway. The R&J was mediocre, really. They cut the script, which meant that they pared down Mercutio to practically nothing, and Paris was reduced to this bumbling fop who did not die at the end. They cut the starting and ending sonnets. And the Romeo was quite a letdown...there really wasn't enough tension in the production to sustain my attention. Even though the script was cut, you get the feeling that the play is too long. The Juliet wasn't bad...though all I could think of when watching her act was how old the actress was. Especially when she was acting in her underwear. And speaking of which, they hardly made an effort with their costumes. Their gesture towards modernising the setting only made them look like a cheap imitation of Baz Luhrmann's R+J, I'd say.

Purvis said that the play was a good example of ensemble acting. Whatever that is. I would have thought that all drama was ensemble acting...there're a lot of people supporting the actors on stage, after all. And I never liked minimalist theatre...there's a fine line between tasteful minimalism and plain laziness, and to look like you mean it on stage, you have to be really strong actors. The people in the play didn't strike me as particularly committed to what they were doing on stage. Thus when the play ended, it was on such a low note of tension that the suicides seemed rather pathetic and petty, and the reconciliation later seemed rather forced. I daresay the TSD people could have done better. Heck, I daresay my old Edrama people could have done better. Ah well, so much for the acclaimed British theatre...it seems like they can still produce humdrum drama if they're not careful.

But to be fair, there were interesting moments...stage design was innovative, like how they simulated the balcony for that famous scene. And how they used curtains to mark off entries and boundaries. And they added singing and live music to the piece, which sounded good, but was more or less unnecessary in my opinion. They had brilliant tableaux, though, with rich costumes. The most brilliant costumes were for the crucifix tableau that was really striking when it appeared, and the Mantua people in their black trenchcoats and masks. The only trouble was that these scenes didn't appear for longer than five minutes.

Hmm...all in all not really worth the time to go watch it, though I have to admit that the time preceding the performance was interesting enough. Was reading Enduring Love in class while waiting for the time to part, and chatting with Soph and Chern. Heh, somehow or other I've been branded a Protector of the Short =P On the bus there, was remarking to Soph how the Bukit Timah area feels more homey than Bishan. Maybe it's the history...I spent six years studying in the area. Maybe it's the above-average income of its residents. Maybe it's the lack of tall buildings. But Bukit Timah is about as close to a high class suburb as will ever appear in Singapore, I'd say.

Anyway, moving on...I've got to say that RJGE exco meetings are becoming really vexing. Now that we've gone through all the trouble of auditioning and admitting new J1 SYF participants, we discover that we've overshot the maximum permissible ensemble size. So now we're going to have to drop a few people. The trouble is that we can't drop the J1s cos they've put in so much effort to catch up with the J2s in terms of guitar playing, and we can't drop the J2s cos none of them are bad enough to warrant something like that anymore, and they need the SYF points. Which raises the question of how the heck are we gonna decide who to drop, now that we've told everyone that they're going to get their SYF points?

I ask you, why the heck didn't we count the number of new players we needed before admitting new J1s? And which idiot decided that a guitar ensemble shouldn't exceed a certain size? How are we supposed to make a call like this? I feel really bad for the members, cos we're not doing a particularly good job protecting their interests, I'd say. We've bungled up enough things already, with the oversubscription of J1s. And the guilt attached to this is further amplified by a measure of shame, because it has occured to me to resign from the team so someone else will not have to take the fall. But I don't have that kind of reckless courage, and try as I might, I can't find it in myself to forego this SYF in a blaze of rebellious and selfless glory.

Bleah...if I were not in the exco I'd launch a protest...just like what happened with CHS SU. But anyway...Grace is having to rewrite her entire dramatic sequence. Apparently the teachers think that an entirely Kabuki piece would be too inscrutible for an ignorant audience. So now we're going to add naturalistic elements and a clearer plot with more straightforward characterisation. I just hope that these new changes can be put into effect as quickly as possible. Changing the entire script a month (three weeks) before the performance is definitely not reassuring.

Anyway, I have this idea...of a traditional Japanese geisha and a modern Jap kid walking in a countryside setting. The kid can talk, but the geisha only communicates in terms of dance moves. So they try to carry out a conversation, but they hit the linguistic barrier, and they can't communicate. But one day they have a breakthrough, and they start to be able to get to know each other better through their rudimentary common understanding. But at the end of the play, the kid misunderstands part of the geisha's dance and makes a grave mistake that threatens their fragile mutual understanding - and the play ends there. The key, of course, is to keep the dramatic tension high enough so the geisha's muteness can be justified in contrast to the kid's talkativeness. She has to say more with her dance than the kid can prattle on about.

pondered by phoenican @ 3.3.05