《上海之夜》 -- Shanghai Blues

just as its english name "shanghai blues" suggests, this show really gives you the blues, literally.

never really wanted to watch this show initially, due to the sheer disappointment of the 2 previous toy factory productions (剃头刀 and 李大傻) which i had watched in 2007. but the name of playwright, raymond to, makes me decide to give toy's production another shot. and what a big mistake it was. not to say about the money wasted on the tickets, but also the time which could have been spent doing something else on the 3rd day of chinese new year!

when one first step into the theatre, the set on stage give much sense of anticipation, with the orchestra right in the middle of the stage! however once the ensemble enters to start off the show with the remix of several retro songs, including 《夜上海》, the tone for a bad evening of show had been set. singing was weak, so was the choreography of the movement, the whole settings simply doesn't bland into one. luckily, the powerful voices of celine tan and emma yong, managed to keep me in this, else it would have been a even longer night. (first time i started counting the time in a performance, since the disastrous lao jiu by SMU in 2007!)

perhaps the only thing which i really had a good impression about this show, was the part where the sets is raised above ground, hovering over the heads of william so and mindee, to create the settings of them meeting under the bridge. very interesting idea, together with the lights that had seeped through from the top, the ambiance beneath was rightly set, at least my opinion.

what makes me most disappointed most was the script, with the story jumping from here to there, let alone the cheesy lines, with the ending of the story being so fast-paced that one would suspect that you are watching a fast-forwarded show. though i really suspect if this is really a script by raymond to, after some of my favorites like 《南海十三郎》、《我和春天有个约会》、《天冷就回来》. with no disrespect to raymond to, this was one which seems that he has lost the grasp of the whole plot.

perhaps, guozheng comment of this being a 3in1 of "beauty world", "lust, caution" and 《天冷》，rightly show the failure of the whole production, having bits parts and shadows of several good shows, but never really put them into one, to create something out of it.

i think i'll be thinking twice about watching toy factory's production in future, not to mention the high pricing which they usually set.

Beauty World Cha Cha Cha!

nearly 1 month gone in 2008, 3 shows watched, nothing written yet, probably time to start putting the thoughts into words, else everything should soon be forgotten...

nothing better to start off the reviews of 2008 with the first musical of the year, "beauty world".

this 20-year-old musical, written by micheal chiang, with music from dick lee, is about a girl, ivy chan poh choo from batu pahat who came to beauty world in search of her long lost father. though being "20year-old", this musical does not bring on any feel of staleness or out-datedness of any form, instead, with the direction from ivan heng, who have never failed to bring in surprises (at least not in the ones which i have watched), i feel very much the mixture of modernness and the nostalgia of the 60s.

john c. dinning's set bring about the "woah" factor the first minute it was brought to the audience. a 2-tier stage of beauty world brought onto the stage proper of the esplanade, together the colourful decoration of the "stage" which really gives a "oldies, nightclub" feeling, and throw in a "live" orchestra on the upper tier of the "stage" as part of the show, i would say it's nothing short of magnificent! (poor grasp of english, thus the poor choice of vocabulary used here). perhaps, what i'm really grateful to dinning is that the choice of having the whole set relatively downstage, instead of using the whole depth of the esplanade stage. this has allowed audience sitting in circle 3 (which includes me) to have a clear sight of the whole "beauty world stage".

what's a good show without good lighting? as usual, mac's lighting is always soothing to the eyes and never failed to add elements of surprises to the show. personal favorite is the scene where he flooded the whole stage with pink and red, bringing everything to a still, highlighting the whole set, yet the set does not take over the stage, which still have show going on downstage. (shan't elaborate too much here, in case i show my lack of knowledge for lighting yet again.)

probably because i watched the second last show of the long run, one can sense the casts' energy is running out, or rather, they didn't hit as high the energy level which i think they could have. especially disappointing was the male lead, daren tan, despite being the winner of channel u's project superstar, his singing is at best, wobbly. however, the ever funny and lovable neo swee lin and irene ang, always captivate the audience with their strong acting and the pin point accuracy of the funny point in the show, were simply a class above the rest, despite being only part of the supporting casts. overall, it's was great effort from the casts, especially the ensembles, who seems to have endless number of quick changes, from scene to scene. perhaps it's due to tiredness or drain physique (due to the long run), there are some points which the actions, steps of the ensembles do not synchronize with each other, but still a job well done.

as always, the regret of watching shows in singapore is that most of the time, we pay exorbitant prices only to sit in locations which we can hardly make out who is who on stage. but at least, this is one which is worth it's ticket price, though i'm only sitting in circle 3.

《第一次亲密的接触》

本来并不打算去看崇庆的这出独角戏，但刚好与友人进餐，就临时决定到光华剧院（Jubilee Hall）去碰碰运气，看看是否还有票。毕竟，崇庆也算是名人，他的戏满座也不稀奇，但必须先说明，满座与否，与戏的好坏并无直接的关联，主要只是因为人气而已。

一进去，算是有点惊讶吧，竟然有人在JH搞花样，又有大布景，又是投影，应该是能有所期待的。但戏未开始，就让人有所失望了，竟然延迟了整整15分钟才开场，也没想到场的观众解释。气愤！

很DJ式的开场，算是有点新意，但是随着戏的持续发展，崇庆似乎无法抽离DJ的身份，整出戏根本就像是在空中主持节目。相信若是一出广播剧的话，又或者是 类似933的音乐日记的形式的话，崇庆加上佩芬的Voice Over将会使很精彩的，但可惜这并不是。毕竟这是舞台剧，视觉上的感官与听觉上必须是一致 的，才能将观众带入其中吧。

当然，冗长的换场也使整出戏缺少了连贯性。再加上，换场时基本上是在有灯的情况下进行的（因为后台严重的漏光，同时加上projector的lightsource，舞台上根本不是黑暗的），所有的theatre magic也随之消失了。

技术上与演技上都令人有所失望，不过以只有短短一天半的bump-in time来说，能做到这个程度相信已经是极限了。所以，若要有所惊喜，这绝对不是一出有所期待的戏，但若闲来无事，就去看看吧。（但决不推荐）

《猫人》

终于有机会再度观看《猫人》。我敢大声地说，这出戏，除了导演外，应该就属我看过最多次了。但是这次很不一样，不是以SM的身份看，不需要take rehearsal notes, 不需要operate sound,可以用空荡荡的脑袋去好好的去看戏，虽然只是总彩，但感觉还蛮爽的！

熟悉的空间，熟悉的演员，熟悉的剧，也因为一切都太熟悉，我必须以一个空荡的脑袋去看戏，否则在不断的anticipate 下，我想我可能就无法enjoy 这出戏了。很喜欢辉振在转场的过程中所加入的新元素，让整出戏的过程更清晰，流程也更为顺畅了，让人更容易地跟着整出戏，更能进入戏的情节中。但我觉得最遗憾的是，两个演员的这一次的energy 并不能协调，总觉得是在各演各的，搭不上对方的节奏。同时energy 好像也有点提不起来，或许可能是太多的rehearsal 了，累了，但我相信，他们是能再次将energy 提升回来，为上海的观众带来一出好戏！因为，晓义、桂枝，你们都是很好的演员，加油了！

祝大家在上海演出成！Ｂｒｅａｋ　ａ　Ｌｅｇ！

当然，不要忘了我的礼物！

"The First Emperor"

finally got time to scribble something here again! in fact free enough to catch the last show of "The First Emperor", which turns out to be a huge disappointment. filming an opera performance and showing it on the big screen is never a great idea to begin with, then again, it might still works if the camera angle, editing, post production stuff etc are well done. but not in this one though.

the worst of the lot being the choice of camera angle for some scenes, when there is clearly lots of actions happening on stage, the editor/producer can actually choose to zoom in on a particular person or part of the stage. what the hell is he thinking of? this is the stage, where we want to see a wide picture of things happening, not a zoom in special, especially when everything is happening on stage at the same time! however the only consolation is that, the camera is switched to the conductor, Tan Dun, who is never short of action, during the draggy scene changes.

the only 2 saving graces of this show (at least the videoed version) are the powerful singing of Placido Domingo and the majestic sets on display. at least these 2 things kept me awake for the whole 190min, so as not to waste the 15bucks on the ticket and 1hr plus of traveling time...