CInapek Romeo and Juliet~~

Also known as............*drumrolls* Lo Mio and Chiu Liet!!! ("#LMnCL")
Like seriously, get your most Cina-ish friend to pronounce Romeo and Juliet, you will get Lo Mio and Chiu Liet instead. XD


Ok, ok, enough joke. This post is meant to be my thoughts on the currently on-going theatre performance at KLPAC(if you don't know where, the most I know how to say is that it is at Sentul). Before that, let me get the itty-gritty, teeny meeny mini details out of the way first:

Thespian :
Alfred Loh, Amanda Ang, Dylan Yeo, Emily Tan, Fahad Iman, Gregory Sze, Ho Su Chuin, Mark Beau De Silva, Stefanie Paulus & Shawn Loong
(Dem names should be enough to pull you to watch the play, if not enough, read on :p)

Date & Time:
25 – 27 Feb, 2 Mar – 5 Mar @ 8.30pm;
28 Feb & 6 Mar @ 3pm
(Hah! Left 5 more shows only! Also, higher chances of getting tickets on the weekday shows, weekend shows tends to be a bit packed)

Language:
Mainly presented in Cantonese, but with a fair deal of Mandarin and English. Surtitles available, so you can read some of it.

(The above were copied from KLPAC):

Now, here onwards would be what I think about the performance of the day (27th Feb) and in fact, even within the same show, different audience would have different opinion. Let's start, shall we? There might or might not be spoilers, for which I humbly apologise in advance.

As we all should know by now, #LMnCL is adapted from Romeo and Juliet and the setting has been changed to Ancient China, but it is a bit hard to pinpoint which dynasty or era it is from because I am not that good in the history of CHINA. But then, it can obviously be seen that western influence has begun to seep into China, so there might be a strong indicator there. The overall geographical setting of the story is in the Forbidden City(imagine emperor, harems, royal families, dignities yadda yadda, you should be getting the idea by now) but what I find the most commendable is the use of space and the setting up of props because it is being shown in Pentas 2 where the audiences are surrounding the entire stage. Like, a praying altar is set up where it can be seen by everyone or, in between seats, a bed is placed (are you curious yet? ;D ).

However, the general story line remains the same where a pair of star-crossed lovers tries to overcome their family feud to be together. And something about the ending is open to debate whether is it actually a happy ending or a sad ending. Personally, I find it to be a happy ending but hey, it is up to you once you watched the whole thing.  I would welcome an open debate, if any.

To be honest, I am more of a purist, so I sort of did not expect to have such high level of Chinese elements, but then these elements made the entire performance so much more fun. Especially when certain words were mentioned i.e. ham ka chan. And the re-occurence on the complain of the mantou(a plain white bun). There are funnier ones but then, it needs to be experienced in the show itself. Although, I did set a high expectation to have a non-stop laughing session because it is co-written by Cheah Uihua and Freddy Tan(creator of Corporal Punishment) but thinking back, it was unreasonable of me la.. for god's sake, it is based on Romeo and Juliet yo! Which is Shakespeare's most tragedic tragedy of all times!

Talking about Chinese elements, it does take some time getting used to the Cantonese pronunciation by the cast at some point like when the Westernised Chinese aka the Chiu family (representing the House of Capulet) speak Cantonese, they had to make it sound so English but speaking Cantonese, which is very praise-worthy because I honestly cannot do that. On the other hand though, the Lo family (representing the House of Montague) had some really good Cantonese speaker and some of them need to brush up on their Cantonese XD

In terms of acting, I am not going to comment because I don't have the understanding of the technicalities but one thing for sure that I will say is that the potrayal of characters were damn entertaining and the bit I like the best is the one playing dual-role(a guy playing a guy role and a female role) although, most of my friends didn't notice it. So, you may or may not be able to notice this person playing dual roles.

And there you have it. It is definitely not a complete dissection of #LMnCL but it is written to the best of my ability and observation. A final note though, I do hope that more people will go watch in order to support the arts!

#shearmadnessmalaysia!

Pardon the lack of a creative title, but there you go, SHEAR MADNESS is here in Malaysia!! And no, it is not a matter of wrong spelling, but a matter of puns! You geddit? You geddit? ^_^

To be honest, I have not heard of Shear Madness before it was brought to Malaysia, but being an ardent perfoming arts supporter and stand-up comedy fan, I am definitely not missing this one! Furthermore, with names like.. Gardner and Wife, Phoon Chi Ho, Qahar Aqilah, Marina Tan, Junji Delfino, Na'a Murad and Alfred Loh, what could go wrong??!!

So, Shear Madness, how do I words it? Well, let's start off with Gardner and Wife, the production house. They have always been bringing in world-class acts and performances to the Malaysian audience which I am shamefully never a part of until now(due to $$$$-constraints ;_;). But after yesterday, I realised that their performance is worth every penny and cent, and hell, an experience is worth much more than what needs to be paid! (Hint : I am going for round 2 and 3 and......(if I can find kaki to go with la XD))

A retro hair-saloon!!!

 

A bit of Shear Madness storyline:
It started on a normal day, in the hairdressing saloon. A few unconnected individuals but in every aspect, connected to Isabel Fernandez, came together, either by appointment or coincidence and then! Isabel Fernandez was discovered dead! Who did it?? Who so brutally killed her with a pair of shears(we are Malaysians, parang would be better la)?

Now, the beauty of Shear Madness is not exactly in the storyline, but in the execution of the play. From this point on, I fully disclaimed that other that laughter and madness, your experience would have no similarity with mine. XD
The one that I watched had a fair bit of sexual innuendos and satire on politics, so it was really entertaining for me. Or perhaps, even things not meant to have an innuendo also become one for me like the part where Tommy(played by Qahar Aqilah, as a fairly... queer hairdresser) said that Chanel(played by Marina Tan, as a beautician, with super Ah Lian pattern) had a very, very, very close relationship with Isabel Fernandez by doing scissoring motion with his hands, completely naturally. XD
Oh! The poem(s), how melodious it sounded to my ears, because the words were very well-linked to the 'writer' of the poem. And there was a super short reference to Poetry Slam! ^_^

In this opening night(yesterday!), Phoon Chi Ho and Alfred Loh played Inspector and Sergeant, respectively, which eliminated them from the suspects list. OF THE NIGHT. However, I am not ruling out that in other shows, Inspector and Sergeant roles would be played by others, as in the list of suspects, there are also The Contractor and The Student, to be played by Chi Ho and Alfred, respectively. Just a quick note, the Inspector seems to act as the moderator when the time is right. XD

Oh! Oh! Here comes my favourite part of the whole thing, which is, THEY BROKE DOWN THE FOURTH WALL! When things like this happen, I am definitely excited and happy because, the audience then becomes part of the show (reminds me of Corporal Punishment). In this case, things were taken a step further where the audience gets to steer the direction of the murder!! How it goes, I am leaving it up to you to experience it yourself. =P

In short, ie. tl;dr, I am definitely watching it again and perhaps, I can get the outcome I finally wanted. *hinthint*winkwink.