Piece de resistance

'Road of Resistance' is the song I've been most anticipating and dreading at the same time. Placed 12th on the KL setlist, this song packs such an inspirational quality. From the instrumentals, to the vocals, to the choreo, to the set, the lighting, the pyrotechnics, to the audience participation, these 8 plus minutes takes theatricality to another level! First of all, I doubt any theatre company has ever played to a 'live' audience of 20000 in one sitting. Second, the entire crowd is completely in sync with the performance, and right on cue with their parts in the the singing and movement. What it must have been like to be in the crowd during this production!

It begins with a riff that will stick in the head for a while. The girls are absolutely still, faces serious, two adjectives we would hardly use to describe this band. Each bearing a flag across their shoulders, they march with great resolve to centrestage and halt. Without saying a word, SU authoritatively parts the crowd with a simple but firm gesture, creating a giant mosh pit. What an epic build up of anticipation as we count the seconds to the imminent wall of death.

1234! and all heck breaks loose. The girls mount their steeds and charge full tilt across the landscape, kicking off yet another electrifyingly energetic piece of choreography. At this point we can pick out a subtle difference between YUI and MOA's approaches. YUI is fully immersed in her performance. At 1:56 YUI's expression looks like she's really giving her heart away and she keeps this attitude throughout. At 2:15 MOA is having the time of her life doing what she most loves to do: sing, dance, entertain her audience. It's nice to see that despite their different personalities, they still sync so well together.

One thing that sticks out for me is how freely they use the word, "forever". To sing of forever at this young age shows a lot of youthful idealism and naivete. It makes me sad because YUI will eventually leave the band, and one of the guitarists will lose his life in an accident within the next few years. After these events, the band is no longer so casual with their use of "forever".

Anyway, just before they get to the audience participation bit, there's an instrumental bridge. The guitar and drums set a blistering pace, then impossibly accelerate even further before dropping back down. But the crowd has already been so excited that they gladly fill in the void when SU invites them to sing the "woah-oh-oh-oh" response, and we get this 20000-strong choir valiantly struggling to keep up with SU's higher notes. She lets them go acapella for a few bars before graciously taking back control and ending the song with a literal bang!

And the moment I've been dreading arrives. With a chorus of "see you" the show comes to a close. At least, it does in the video. Not in KL. Here, without a word, the girls exit stage right, and we're left in darkness and silence. We're not sure what's happening, but since there was no "thank you" or "see you" signal of dismissal, perhaps we're not done yet...?

Are you normal?

No one wants to be normal in Singapore. A 'normal' person takes 5 years to complete secondary education. That's too slow. Not when 'express' only takes 4 years. If a person has to take an extra year to be schooled, they must be stupid and are an embarrassment to their parents who will never be able to hold their heads up again among their contemporaries, all of whom have 'express' children.

Faith Ng's play, Normal, directed by Claire Wong, focuses on two students in their 5th and final year of secondary education. Daphne blanked out after studying too hard at her Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), while Ashley obtained less-than-outstanding results at the same exam -- which they took when they were 12 -- thus qualifying them both as 'normal', and nothing more.

Like every other normal student, they bear the label as a stigma. They have little confidence in their own abilities. Their well-meaning teachers' insistence on upbraiding them on their attire, punctuality and decorum at every slight infraction is simply focused on making the normals conform in outward appearance, but does little to challenge them intellectually where academic learning really counts. As such, with every school day feeling like prison, the normals feel increasingly convinced that they will end up not graduating and their lives will be over.

Unlike the other teachers they have encountered, the new literature teacher who runs the Drama Club takes a different approach with the normals. She believes in them and helps them work out their fears, anxieties and frustrations through theatre and convinces them that they can succeed in the end. But in a plot reminiscent of Dead Poets Society (1989), Ms Hue is alone in her efforts and the system beats down on everyone eventually.

The play is beautifully set. There is the main playing area in which all the action takes place, while a corridor runs behind it framed to look like school chalkboards when lit in front, but becomes transparent when lit from the back (the magic of sharkstooth scrim), revealing the ensemble engaged in a variety of school activities. In a genius piece of lighting design, this corridor-frame is uplit at both ends, casting a shadow that creates the illusion of an old school tower on the upper back wall of the stage.

A snappy script keeps moments of tension, bleak humour, and awkward tenderness flowing at a brisk pace. Scene transitions are done by the cast in low light while singing familiar girls' school songs -- efficient, entertaining and relevant. The dialogue is liberally peppered with colloquial vulgarities, which could be shocking -- if we didn't already know that schoolgirls actually do speak like that. However, in performance, because the dialogue is delivered in perfect English, the colloquialisms feel a little forced and incongruous to the lines. 'Natural' speech is still a paradox local theatre here has yet to figure out. Nevertheless, the few soliloquies at the end are vivid in their revelations of past history leading up to the decision the normals make when events that have transpired cause them believe that kindness has turned to betrayal.

For a play that turns a critical eye on the rigidity of the education system and how it adversely pigeonholes people seemingly for life, it is disappointing that the normals make the decision that they do. The characters of Daphne and Ashley are built strongly and sympathetically. As such, it seems a bit of a stretch that they would succumb to their circumstance rather than rise above it. Perhaps that is the point: that the system wastes much human potential. Like the Alpha, Beta castes of Huxley's A Brave New World (1932), the system gives few opportunities for 'late-bloomers' to excel, or even bloom at all.

But it isn't so much the system that finally drives Ashley's decision as much as her own persecution complex which locks her in a vicious cycle, causing her to interpret every interaction with her teachers as hostile, and escalating that hostility with her own defensive reactions. If Ashley is the architect of her own fate while 22 of her classmates are able to move on from where they are, then the character of Ashley is only there to play the stereotype, pander to audience expectations, and raise sympathy rather than deal with the real flaws of inequality and injustice inherent in a system that is ironically supposed to support meritocracy.

Otherwise, Normal is an excellent and realistic view of school from both student and teacher perspectives. While teachers are well-meaning at heart, their personal biases and choices in responding to their students can be very cruel, indeed.

Review originally published on https://tsupp.wordpress.com (26 March 2017)

Last show of the season

[NYeDC in rehearsal at The Arts House]

Just when we thought we were done for the 2016 season, Sirius engineered an invite for NYeDC to perform at Celebrate Drama! 2016. The theme was "Celebrating Diversity", and it so happened that one of the items at Drama Night suited the bill. Not sure how the item entitled, "The Outsiders", fit the definition of "celebrate" but it was about the exclusion of foreign workers from the society they work in and for.

Our biggest problem was that in its original form, the script was very harsh in tone. While we tried to play it for laughs, our in-house audience saw little humour in it as the behaviour depicted was critical and accusatory of our local population. In rebooting the script, we initially struggled with feelings of being censored by our audience feedback. It was hurtful that this item, featuring one of our stronger scripts, was not as well-received as we hoped, and that to be allowed to perform it in public, we had to "balance" the treatment ad make it less insulting to to the people we meant to insult -- or at least to make them reflect on their treatment of foreign workers.

So, how to make the narrative more audience-friendly without watering down our authorial intent? First, we took out all specific location references and kept them to "foreign" and "local", suggesting the same situations could occur anywhere in the world. Then we gave the characters some psychological and emotional depth so that they no longer were playing out stereotypical scenarios to amuse one another (as in the original script), but rather to depict personal experiences and explore how the discriminated feel about being discriminated against. We kept the Singlish delivery because it sounded more real to the narrative.

Having taken audience feedback and reworking the parts that didn't work, we eventually devised a much stronger script than before. The item carried more weight and more authenticity. The situations were still absurd, but the intentions and emotional linkages were much clearer for both the performers and the audience.

And at the end, the one performing the closing monologue delivered with real emotion: the tears; the cracking voice; the breath pattern; the pauses; all real and nothing like we had ever seen her rehearse before. We couldn't have asked for a more powerful closure. Later, we asked her if the script really meant that much to her. And she said she was really feeling the weight of this performance... being the last one of the season! #oscarmoment

Anyway, such an exciting run for the 2015-6 batch of NYeDC members. The 2016-7 lot have big boots to fill.

Reminiscence 2016

Drama Night 2016 marks the close of performing season. A wild ride, taking on big risks and braving every possibility of a crash 'n burn. But I will continue to say, everyone pitched in and gave their all. I am humbled by and grateful for the amount of faith that carried us through to a successful finale. NYeDC, staff, coach, kids, and alumni, hat's off to you all! Thanks for such a fantastic run!

Distinction

Finally, after 8 attempts since I've been with NYeDC, we have achieved a coveted Certificate of Distinction from the big bi-annual youth drama festival.

I shouldn't feel this elated because theatre shouldn't be a competition between productions, but I've learned that it's ok to celebrate an achievement, especially one this long in coming. Every other year I've been cool just to meet expectations, but there's no stopping the rush to have for once exceeded them.

This year's entry was a true collaboration from start to finish. Beginning with a self-written script by one of our members, it was workshopped, tweaked, rewritten and polished in bits and pieces. Everyone helped out, whether onstage, backstage, admin. With Sirius directing and delivering the final script (her first ever!) we were in good hands the whole time.

Feeling very grateful to everyone who pitched in. It's nice to be on top for once. XD

Remembering 'If I could tell my past self something'

Things that have to go on record about our entry in this year's big Drama Festival 'cos they won't be mentioned anywhere else: Touching up our movable flat screens with white primer, we got streaks of paint on the Concourse floor. That's for not lining the area with newspaper first. Not pictured is me, the wife and Sirius, sitting on said floor, using nothing but water and lots of elbow grease scrubbing the floor with brushes for over an hour until the sun went down. But we did a great job. Little trace of our unintentional vandalism left that could be connected back to our activities of the previous day.

With this slick move, our lead tosses his hat offstage as a time transition cue. Today at the show, his tossed hat landed smack in the face of an official sitting in the audience. Her lanyard indicated she was probably from head office and likely to be an organizer of the event. While we hope that this little blooper isn't going to cost us too dearly in points, it also confirms to us why this boy is in Drama Club and not in a sports CCA.

And finally, a shot of our team this year. Proud of you guys! You make us laugh and give us heart attacks at the same time! But it's not over yet. Drama Night is just around the corner...

More photos of our rehearsal process can be found here.

Edit 01: Forgot to mention the bus. The return bus stranded us at the venue having mistaken our order to depart at 1445 hrs to mean 4:45 pm. Sirius kicked up enough of a fuss with the bus company to get one delivered pronto, though the delay was still about an hour.

Achievement unlocked

This is the team (well, most of it -- there were others helping out in many areas but who couldn't be in this pix) that fulfilled a long-standing ambition of mine. It took 14 years, but NYeDC has finally performed in a professional venue for a national youth theatre festival that isn't the SYF. Cast, crew, coach, all, were dedicated and driven; and strongly bonded through the experience. Good humour abounded in this production. One team member, in particular, received the appellation of 'comedy gold' for his off-stage comments during the feedback interview event. Theatre noobs, all, but thrown in this pressure cooker of juggling rehearsals and schoolwork over these few months, they've grown so much. This team knows what professional theatre is like, running five shows in four days, and it's not hard to tell that they love it. I'm so proud of them!

Last night's show marked the culmination of a peak I've been patiently scaling. My one (and only) career ambition is now fulfilled. I need a new destination that lies somewhere over the horizon. Today, I have the luxury of asking myself, 'where do I go from here?' The answer, I hope, will come to me soon.

Wo men de Drama Malam

Lots of things were different about this year's NYeDC show. It was a single matinee performance, held on the first day of the March hols. It was also a combined effort with the Malay and Chinese cultural groups, so in all we put up a total of four relatively short plays in three languages.

It made a lot of sense for a triple joint-venture. Dwindling resources means pooling whatever we can afford together for a single show rather than risk three separate, patchy ones. We also significantly reduced our competition to attract the same audience and make them pay separately for each. Usually, by the latest performance in the calendar, audience fatigue would set in and the last show is also usually the least attended. Today, we all got to perform to a full house, and that was very satisfying, indeed.

NYeDC's item was "Staying Alive!" by Haresh Sharma. It explores the reasons why people entertain suicidal thoughts and builds up to a happy resolution in which the characters find their motivation to stay alive. Despite its morbid undertones, the play has its light, comedic moments and isn't too heavy on moralizing and preachiness. Yup, sounds like NYeDC's style.

The Malay and Chinese groups were equally hard at work these last two weeks getting the publicity and ticket-selling going, while putting in a lot of rehearsal time as well. I will commend highly the Audio-Visual team who was always there, first to arrive, last to leave, making sure sound, lights, curtain, screen, projector worked their magic.

Given our new realities, we knew production this year was going to be tough, but though it wasn't always smooth-sailing, our three groups worked surprisingly well together. NYeDC still have our own big event coming up later this year, but could combined performances be the way forward for us? Guess we'll find out after our post-mortem.

Anyway, here's our happy ending for the family that wants (or rather, DOESN'T want) to kill itself. Glad it all worked out well for them in the end!

Dance is only physics

One general piece of advice for all the dancers in today's performance: the more you push in the opposite direction, the further you'll reach in the desired direction. Otherwise, they were lovely.

Independent endorsements

We had the J1s share their personal reflections on their experience with NYeDC and Drama Night to date. Every single interviewee opened expressing how fun it has been for them. Elaborating further, they described how non-competitive our CCA was; how they felt relaxed during our sessions; and how they felt free to create and express themselves without having to fear the judgement of others. They also recognized that working as a team was essential to our success and that each one could contribute to the overall effort in their own special way.

Much of this feedback came from the kids who have had experiences with other CCAs before and then came over to join us because we didn't run our organization like Hitler Youth. With us, they say, they are able to enjoy close bonds of friendship, and many memorable moments spent in good company.

To be fair, it's not like theatre is a haven for slackers and losers. As an art form, there are skills to be acquired through training; a discipline that comes from a dedication to schedule; a sense of teamwork and coordination among people offering different talents and skill sets; and no small amount of courage in stepping out of a teenager's usual comfort zone and willingly "throw face" in front of friends, peers and family. Yet all of this acquired training is transparent because we offer it to them in a fun and non-threatening way. And we laugh a lot. It's the nature of our craft.

It's good for me to hear all this from independent sources speaking from personal experience. It's exactly the kind of CCA I've wanted to build: less focused on a fire-and-forget KPIs or national awards, and more on offering a positive experience in an art form that they will continue to enjoy (some may even grow to indulge in) for the rest of their lives.

But for today, let's hope the J1s will build on their positive experiences and find a way to bring their joy to a larger segment of our campus, not as a KPI but because everybody needs a little theatre in their lives.

What a ride! Drama Night 2014

I wish I could say that Drama Night 2014 went without a hitch. Still, we had the best run ever of our main feature which looked and sounded pretty scrappy during the rehearsals -- even down to the full-dress. The kids peaked on show night, thankfully, and delivered a snappy performance that had the audience rooting for them all the way.

'The Car', by local playwright, Verena Tay, is a script with a little bit of everything: nostalgia; tenderness; conflict; humour; and a conclusion that brings a tear or two to the eye. Yes, even to me who's watched the rehearsals several times over, it still packs quite a potent punch, especially when all the magic comes together like it did last night.

One of the best production decisions we made was to blow our budget on headset mikes for the cast. The dialogue was strong and clear, though we could have balanced the sound better -- particularly when raised voices got a bit too loud over the speakers. Our set elements were minimal, leaving a stage practically bare of anything but generic location markers: a park bench (outdoors); a pile of home removal boxes (indoors); and centrestage reserved for the eponymous car, personified by our lead actor portraying an old Fiat Marvellette with a personality and many wistful memories to share.

The kids did well to deliver an honest and believable performance. We felt for Daniel, dad with the best of intentions, but obsessively overprotective over his beloved daughter. And as mother predicts, his inability to recognise that his daughter is growing up drives a wedge between the family members, with the car caught in between. Interspersed amidst the family drama are comedic elements provided by the supporting characters of the car salesman and his bevy of show car demonstrators; the frustrated mechanic who can't find spare parts; and the rival Datsun -- bright, shiny, pink, utilitarian, and ultimately disposable.

Based on overheard comments during and after the show, the audience enjoyed a polished performance that was easy to follow and realistic to their experience. They were stunned by the emotionally moving conclusion. We haven't delivered emo for a number of years now, focused as we have been on comedy, and tears -- real, sincere ones -- have apparently made a timely comeback.

The J1 special item would have been utterly hilarious if we had more time to rehearse it in its final incarnation. It was a parody of the god-awful STB 'Let's go over there' ad featuring a female tourist dragging her male companion around S'pore's more touristy locations. In our parody, we focused on the reason why the male had to be dragged around and we settled on playing up the female's neurotic fetish for inanimate objects. The conclusion was meant to degenerate into a Muppet Show chaos... but the J1s are as yet unblooded by onstage mayhem and so it ended more conservatively flat than intended. A few more rehearsals and we could have made an impact.

The irritating bits were the curtain transitions and the rather unprofessional curtain-call which we rehearsed, but perhaps not often enough to become automatic. I suppose we could blame time constraints for not being able to rehearse the entire show from beginning to end. It was all we could manage to make the content satisfactory, but we really have to work harder on the packaging as well if we're going to evolve beyond 'school-show' standards.

So one more big milestone in 2014 is passed. Roll on Drama Night 2015!

Drama Night 2014 FDR in pix

Drama Night 2014 is upon us. Photos of tonight's full-dress rehearsal are available here. Amazing what a little judicious cropping can do to enhance a photo.

Encouragement from a horse

Meh. Getting flack from upstairs about our choice for Dad in 'The Car'. So the kid was nervous and flubbed a couple of lines. Also, our choice of play was "too local" and probably wouldn't resonate with the 'foreign' judges. That, they say, is likely to devalue our assessment, jeopardising our chances at the top tier. Solution: conscript a better speaker for roles in our plays. The advice is, of course, well-intentioned, but certainly targeted at a very different goal from the one I am aiming at.

What is it with leadership? The higher they climb, the shorter-term the vision. There is no use in teaching the unwilling when there are those eager to learn, but would never get the chance to learn if winning was our top priority. Reminder: we're not here to chase accolades, we're here to encourage a life-long love of the art.

What was most encouraging for me at yesterday's performance was when a member of the audience stopped me for a little chat. She revealed that she was a long-ago member of the NYeDC and if I remembered her. I could not. She looked so different from the girl I knew when she was performing in our 'Animal Farm' in 200x. But when she mentioned her name, I immediately knew her role as Clover, the horse. Today, she is with the Arts Education branch of the NAC.

To me, that is a better success story for our little Drama CCA than achieving a high placement in a meaningless competition, which is no longer even identifying itself as a competition.

Double bill

To truly appreciate being Singaporean is to accept the transience of our existence as a people. On the one hand, there is the desperate longing to capture a sense of permanence, but the reality is that life moves us not just from location to location but also through time -- from the here-and-now to the "will we be remembered?" and "will we have meant something?" when the realisation of our mortality finally dawns.

In the two plays in Play Out: A Double Bill featured in the NUS Arts Festival 2014, this theme carries strongly in the slice-of-life family drama, "Wai?" and in the more abstract movement piece, "Candlelight".

In "Wai?" an elderly couple frets over the fate of their son when television news reports a terrorist attack in the country he is residing in. Their anxiety over the possible reasons why the son is not picking up his phone escalates into a blame-game that dredges up the couple's past history, and their deteriorating relationship with each other and their son.

The presentation is realistic and made-for-TV, the stage set up in a typical dining room-living room suite familiar to HDB-dwellers. The dialogue is chronological and easy to follow, as the couple reveals their attempts to cope with raising a child whom they hope will live a much better life than them, yet regretting not being able to hold on to that child when he does fulfill their dreams for him.

Veteran actors, Gerald Chew and Judy Ngo are obviously playing characters older than themselves, but have a good sense of timing in delivering the kind of verbal fencing that elderly couples (like my own grandparents) are wont to do. There is some humour and poignancy in the jabs that they trade... predictable, yet true-to-life at the same time. At one point, I wanted to rush the stage as their son to reassure them that I was all right, but since I was in a box seat a floor above, I exercised a little restraint and the urge went away.

"Candlelight" was visually arresting in the movement choreography of the chorus whose members also portrayed specific characters in the play. Some movement could have been trimmed for brevity and the lurking presence of Grandpa's, um, ghost(?) seemed superfluous, at least until closer towards the end when its appearance could have been more impactful. As such, this play took a while to warm up, but when it did, there was quite an interesting story to follow about a dyslexic man tasked with recording his family history. Of course, not being able to read and write puts a bit of a damper on his efforts to do so.

The man remembers his grandfather's stories, verbally passing them on to his daughters as a way to keep the memory of "Ah Kong" alive. Despite initial resistance, at least elder daughter, Jadene, learns from her linguistic heritage to become her own person with her own brand of storytelling.

The script is quite linguistically clever, although it tends to bounce a lot between internal reverie and family interaction. Snatches of memories do not necessarily connect with other real-time incidents, but rather make linguistic and philosophical connections with the characters they involve -- dad and daughter, in particular. This piece is clearly harder to follow than the previous one, but at its core it is pretty substantial. It just makes the brain work harder to get at it.

Overall, a satisfying double bill. A nice contrasts of styles, well-executed in presentation make for a decent evening at the theatre.

The Language of Mime

One way to describe mime is that it is a means of telling stories without using words. However, that's not an accurate description at all. Like the spoken word, mime too is a language that follows a set of linguistic rules in order to communicate its message.

Breath and energy:
In the spoken word, before we speak, we fill our lungs with air. Speech is created by regulating the release of the air in our lungs. How many words we can speak from a single breath determines the bandwidth of information transfer. Our volume, inflexions, nuances and emotions are dependent on our degree of control over this release of air from our lungs. The better the control, the more meaning can be encoded in our speech, thus maximizing the bandwidth determined by our lung capacity.

Mime shares the exact same starting point as speech. The inhale stores energy released through movement at the moment of exhale. The speed of the exhale determines the rate of energy released, which conveys the intention of the actor (the person who is acting on this release of energy). The expression of different nuances, moods and textures all stem from the breath. A sudden, explosive release of energy has a very different connotation from a slow, controlled release.

The mime has total control over the breath. Every movement is begun and completed in the same breath, just as is a spoken sentence. There is no call to complete a movement mid-breath, or to continue after the lungs are exhausted without some cause that runs counter to the actor's intention -- an interruption from another actor, perhaps; or a sudden change in the dynamic of the narration.

Joint articulation and isolations:
Individual words are discrete units of information carried through vibrations we perceive as sound. They make little sense on their own beyond their particular definitions. It is in the combination of words within a particular syntax and context that words are able to communicate meaning.

The mime's vocabulary is located in the joints between his bones. The more joints he can move in isolation of the other joints, the wider the vocabulary with which he can express himself. Like any spoken vocabulary, it takes discipline and practice to amass enough words to be able to communicate, except that the mime trains muscle memory. Instead of discovering and verbally repeating words to remember them, the mime discovers new muscles to move in new ways and repeats those movements until he is fluent in them.

Manipulation:
Words are strung together in a sequence to form sentences that convey meaning. Likewise, the mime strings together different isolations in a sequence that conveys his intention. Unlike a spoken vocabulary, however, isolated movements do not represent meaning according to a predetermined definition. The meaning of movement is more context specific, and so through deft manipulation the mime creates the space around him.

Illusory boxes; invisible walls; immovable objects; the ability to take on the material characteristics of water and air... how are these manipulations carried out in such a way that can be seen and interpreted as 'real' to a audience? The main guiding principle is Newton's Third Law of Motion which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The mime creates 'reality' by balancing his intention against the resistance of the object he is acting upon. An intractable object is moved along the mime's plane of intent when he can summon enough energy to overcome its resistance to the movement.

A classic example is the 'walking against the wind' routine in which every step forward is countered by the wind resistance acting in the opposite direction. Forward motion is only possible when the mime proves stronger than the wind blowing against him. If the wind proves too strong, the mime's every forward step results in backward movement, which is the basis of the 'Moonwalk' popularized by Michael Jackson.

Movement Analysis:
As with the spoken sentence, the mime's movement sentences need clarity of execution in order to communicate his intention effectively to the audience. The mime observes behaviour and deconstructs it into separate discreet movements, each a breath long. Depending on the focus, the mime may reconstruct the same behaviour using the minimum number of discrete movements (in order to get on with the main story); or using as many discrete movements as possible to complete the portrayal of the behaviour. It's the difference between looking at a specific movement frame-by-frame through a low frame-rate set of animation cels and through a high frame-rate HD movie. The former is efficient in carrying a narrative while the latter is more interested in the minute details involved in a single action sequence.

Once the mime is at this level of fluency in the Language of Mime -- it could take years of practice to get this far -- he might be ready to start telling some stories. Don't worry, it's a learn-on-the-job process.

Note: Sirius prompted this post because she suggested I teach the Drama kids some mime skills which could prove useful for stage awareness and presence at this year's Drama Night production. Poor kids didn't know what hit them when they showed up for the workshop this afternoon.

Briefing drama

Awaiting an important briefing at Goodman Arts Centre. Arrived an hour early so keeping company with a peach melba and an earl grey tea at Cafe Melba to pass the time. Some nice touches in the dessert: a raspberry topping, blueberries and almond shavings. However, not enough ice-cream and too much grenadine syrup made for a sour-bitter last spoonful.

At the briefing in the GAC Black Box with my esteemed colleagues representing their different institutions.

The highlight of the briefing was the announcement of some format changes to the Festival. Some people do not adapt well to change. Quite a bit of whining and moaning from a loud couple of crybabies (I'm sorry to say), as if preparing their defence in case they achieved an undesirable result this year.

A major objection was that the lighting rig will be in use by other performances throughout the run-up to the Festival. While GAC promises that the rig will be set to a standard default, there are worries that the set-up may not be in exact alignment for both our tech rehearsal and performance dates. Then they went all non sequitur about what kind of values we are teaching our kids if the performance doesn't go according to how they rehearsed it. O_o

First of all, the kids will have the opportunity to exercise their values when things don't go according to plan. Values of resilience, resourcefulness, teamwork and adaptability come into play under less-than-perfect conditions. Second, the kids are performing in an actual professional space with real-world constraints, compared to performing in what is basically a test-tube of a campus venue, luxurious as it may be. Third, get over yourselves and your egos. Set an example for your kids and deal with the problem with the resources available rather than just demand your way based on your moral high ground and shrillness of voice.

But then, we're drama instructors. We're artists. We're temperamental and passionate about our jobs. We're demanding and to a large extent, perfectionist; otherwise we wouldn't be doing what we're doing. Tantrums are par for the course and some of us are more diva than most. Gotta love us all!

From France with love

Didn't know what to expect from a performance celebrating French music by four male cast. The blurb promised "A musical revue about love and other accidents!", but it stymied the imagination as to how they would pull off the passion of French romance with no mademoiselle treading the boards with the monsieurs.

It turns out that French music embodies a lot of narrative; that each song (or chanson) is a theatrical piece in itself. Whether it's about a heartbreak, unrequited love, bawdy drunkenness, or an old man's longing for the glory days of yore, each song comes to life via stories retold in situational choreography mostly done in congruent cabaret style.

The focus is on four highly influential French singer-songwriters (male, of course) spanning between before WWII till the contemporary period. For the sake of the audience, most of the lyrics are English translations of the originals penned and sung by Gainsbourg, Brel, Trenet and Aznavour. In more or less chronological order, the cast introduced each artist briefly before presenting their most iconic songs.

The overall programme was a well-chosen melange of narrative themes, some heavy and regretful, others light and comedic, while a few others had hilariously lascivious overtones. Leong, Goh, Chan and Furnell look like the're having a ball telling these stories. The choreography is slick and their voices blend well together. Overall presentation: delightful.

Staging-wise, quick and simple costume changes facilitated some of the storytelling effectively. The lighting rig at SOTA Drama Theatre is to be envied. Such a variety of gobos create illusions of so many different surfaces and textures stories could be told upon. There were a couple of hiccups with sound at the performance I watched, but quickly resolved with minimal impact on the presentation.

"A French Kiss in Singapore" really is a lot of fun. An evening of song, dance, storytelling, and a brief history of French music by Sing'theatre turned out to be a lot more entertaining than I had initially expected. The Drama kids chose well for their enrichment outing this year.

AFKS runs at the SOTA Drama Theatre till 7 December 2013.

Imperfections 2013

Because I was performing in a play for Drama Night 2013, I have precious few production stills; and not for all six, either. This is one of the best from a tiny collection of stills culled from the video camera I was using to shoot the performances on both nights.

6 10-minute plays, a mixture of dramatic moments and absurd comedy in a performance we called 'Imperfections' because of the flawed nature of the relationships and situations our characters found themselves in.

Tickets were a hard sell this year. Our publicity engine was definitely not running at full steam and not being very imaginative either. The poster-ticket booth campaign is so last century, but we stuck with tradition, resulting in a lukewarm box -office response. Fortunately, we didn't incur too much cost, so we should at least break even.

As usual, what audience we had was supportive and generous with their cheers and applause, which is always nice.

Most gratifying for me was the fact that most of our cast and crew were no members of NYeDC but a mixture of kids from a variety of other CCAs who were interested in theatre and wanted a go at it... without the investment of too much time and energy, of which they already have so little.

My own little cast and crew (mine was the only ensemble piece) was no less enthusiastic, though they, like everybody else, had so many other commitments to juggle. Green like anything, yet recruited so close to curtain, I had to resort to mainly tableaux set-ups, sacrificing movement and comedy for clarity of intent. If only I had even just one more week...! Oh, well.

I was also fortunate to have Sirius as my Director-in-chief again. She is so dedicated to the show and worked like mad behind the scenes. She was good for costuming and blocking advice; stagecraft training; and most memorably jumping in wholeheartedly with a crazy, unreasonable request of mine: get every single cast and crew member made up like a zombie as soon as they were done with their piece. The closing zombie onslaught would last only seconds in real-time, but she did everything she could to make as many as possible look truly horrific.

Drama Night 2013 is now officially over and I can sleep again. At least until PUS prods me back into action all too soon. Bleh.

PS: I'd like to post the video of the finale night's performance, but my licence agreements forbid me to do so. Yes, we do things legally at NYeDC. Darn it all.

Director's reservations

I've never been so freaked out over a performance this close to curtain. My little 10-minute offering is still in pieces and I've been adding to it until there's far too little time to rehearse all the ideas I have. While the core cast have been quite committed, they're still very inexperienced and I estimate we need at least another week to get it up to satisfactory. There are peripheral cast purely for gags as well, but I've decided to cut them as they need even more time before they are ready to perform the kind of physical comedy called for. Instead of milking the script for laughs, my new objective is just go minimalist and impress the audience with precision delivery instead. It'll have to do.

Perhaps it was a mistake to be director and cast member at the same time. As Producer I should be looking after the overall show, but my focus is too tight and narrow and I've let a lot of other things slip. Fortunately LL's there to pick up the slack. But some things are too little, too late.

Curtain up on Friday. Yikes!

Untweakable

Just rehearsed with the footage we shot on Wednesday. I now realize why we try to avoid such multimedia effects. The projection is fixed. I can't tell it to do anything else apart from being what it is, whereas with 'live' performers I can still say, "try this" or "try that..." It's the ability to continue tweaking scenes and characters that keeps the eventual quality on the upswing. Now I just have to work around what I have. Not that it's bad, or anything, it's just untweakable.

Now, why don't I just trash the footage idea and just bring everybody back onstage? Because Mags and her crew, who helped me shoot the video and are currently doing post-production on it, will kill me for wasting her time and effort, especially on a public holiday morning. She is apt to drown me in a flood of tears -- she was already about to go there when I suggested that a scene might have to be re-shot.

Next time I want to shoot, it'll be a short film format or something. No more mixing media.