An ASM?

You mean an Assault Space Marine, what with chainswords bolt pistols jet packs and all? YOU?!?
That'd be cool, for the whole Warhammer 40k reality shit, but I honestly cannot, in my most wildly geekiest fantasies, think that being one of those right here right now is cool any way whatsoever. Really, what the hell can I do with all that funky shit? Be the resident superhero is it (Sayangi Kuala Lumpur... OR ELSE!!!) ? Kick the asses of terrorists worldwide? Be the test target for new weapons? Be the ultimate carpenter? Be an immediate usher-in as Darth Vader in Star Wars VII: I Am Your Father Too?

What I mean is that I have just signed a contract taking on the role of Assistant Stage Manager for The Odd Couple, showing at KLPAC from Nov 6th to Nov 12th. Just experienced the first night - meeting the cast (minus one) and meeting the script. The script is awesome - it's bloody hilarious. The cast are great too - they've worked on this before (except one) so the chemistry and energy is already there, which makes it fun. Explains why there are only 3 weeks of rehearsals.

I'm really excited about taking this job on. It'll be a great experience, and I'll learn so much about what goes on in a production. I think I'll have it easy, too (relatively anyway) - this play has been done before, it's practically the same people, it's funny and it's over a short span of time. Perfect for a newbie.


The endless allure of the stage

I meet up for mamak with a crew consisting of my current mentor, a Jed Madela fanatic, a musical fanatic, a navigationally-impaired salesman and a woman who wants to be the next Jean-Luc Picard. And I get asked a question that I never thought I'd ever hear - "How would you like to be a Producer?" Isn't that the least glamourous role in all of theatre? Where will I put my ego?? You mean I can't even put my bowing practice to any use?!?

But that IS an interesting question. Just chatting and throwing out ideas, we've come up with some really interesting ones which I'd love to see realised on stage. Which is the job of the producer, closing the circle. What really excites me is that we might be drawing inspiration from Rent. A rock musical? Absolute coolness!! Anyway more info as it comes.


I've decided that I wanted to perform The World's Smelliest Durian again, so I've signed up for The Actors' Studio's Free Flow to perform it on Thursday night (19th). See how the script stands on it's own in a stand-up comedy setting, and see how I stand on my own in a stand-up comedy setting. Experience is experience, no?


Broken Bridges

Showing in Ipoh! From Nov 24th to Nov 26th. Exciting? Yes. Cool? Yes. I think the writers (and members of the cast from Ipoh) are the most excited lah. I'm just looking forward to singing and performing again. And hanging out with the crew. And a road trip! Full of makan!

Finally, here's the CD cover for all who are anal about their entries in their iPods (ie my bosom buddies).



Miscellany

BTW if you're wondering, yes I DO have Indonesian friends.

Dear Indonesia...

... effective immediately after Hari Raya Puasa, please consider the island of Sumatra a property of Malaysia. We, the Malaysian Government, have spent the Holy Month of Ramadhan in deep contemplation over the various issues plaguing our nations and our region, and have decided that it would be to the benefit of all involved that we take over the management of abovementioned island. Here follows the reasons:

1. The Haze. Obviously, your government is ill-equipped to handle this issue (not from lack of ability, of course). We are unfortunately bearing the brunt of this problem, and currently are unable to view the various prides of the nation (ie KL Tower, Twin Towers, Sometime-Tallest Flagpole-in -the-World). This is highly damaging for our morale (even though we teach it in schools) and patriotism. Our attempts to cleanse our air by cloud-seeding have been futile.

So we thought, why not fight the problem directly? Why waste water in the sky when we can pour it over the fires ourselves? We only wish to save you the hassle of negotiations for airspace.


2. Illegal Immigrants. Since your government is unable to control their flow from Medan and the many ports of Sumatra, we shall patriate them instead. They will no longer be illegal and as loyal citizens of Malaysia, they will be free to visit their brethren on the peninsular as freely as they like. Both countries will mutually benefit from this, as we will save on enforcement and deportation costs.


3. Subsistence Farmers. The identified cause of #1 above, will, as Malaysian citizens, now automatically be enrolled into our Felda programmes. They will be educated and transported to suitable areas of farming, very far from Sumatra (for example Sabah). We will be able to call in WWF to see the good both our countries have done for the world's rainforests.


4. The Straits of Malacca. As you may be aware, we have been blaming you for the horrible state the Straits are in. However, upon annexing Sumatra, the Straits will completely belong to us, absolving you from all further blame. We will now be able to categorically deny all instances of piracy, oil slicks and environmental degradation, absolving us from all further blame.


As you can see, this arrangement is highly mutually beneficial. After all, what is one island in 17 508? We believe that one less island to administer is a great load off your shoulders. No need for thanks, we believe it is in the spirit of brotherhood.

With love,

Kementerian Peperangan
Lebuh Keris
off Jalan Silat
Putrajaya


PS - Note that should you have any objection to this latest ruling of the Malaysian Government, we will have to heed the words of the world's greatest leader and assume that as you are not with us, you are against us. Samples of our methodology of Shock & Awe:

• the largest slingshot in the world - a massive rubber band stretched between the Twin Towers. It will be used to launch our oversupply of Protons (due to overimporting of foreign cars from cloned APs) to further jam your streets.
  
• we will blow the haze onto Jakarta by orienting all the air-conditioning units in the country to your general direction. To increase the effectiveness of this airborne threat, we will encourage our populace to smoke by halving our funding on the 'Tak Nak' campaign so it will be a 'Nak' campaign.
• our bombers with be filled with used satay sticks and toothpicks to terrify your population into submission.

You have been warned.

You

You are
inadequacy.
My world
bleakens.

You are
pain.
My dreams
plunge.

You are
stupidity.
My aim
wavers.

You are
worthlessness.
My hopes
flounder.

You are
pointlessness.
My spirit
ebbs.

You are
flesh and blood.
My own.


How dare you.

Rabbit's Mango Overheat

Album cover

My Mind MTV

(YouTube link)

Rabbit speaks:

"Hi guys, Just wanted to announce the release of my new and long awaited album "Mango Overheat" under my own label Starrabbit Productions Sdn Bhd. It features the song "My Mind" this album is set to make waves with a fresh new style and sound with styles ranging from Electronica/Rock/Dance & New Wave.

You can get a copy of "Mango Overheat" at all Rock Corner all outlets 1 Utama, Mid Valley Megamall, Bangsar Village, Subang Parade, the Curve and GE Mall.

For those of you outside Malaysia my album is available at: www.cdbaby.com/cd/starrabbit for online purchase.

You may also download individual songs at:

www.bandspace.com/rabbit OR www.myspace.com/starrabbitproductions

Also look out for my music video for the single "My Mind" at your fav music channel."


Alternatively, you can look for your nearest Maybel to purchase your CD.

Butterfly loving

Went to watch Butterfly Lovers. No, not this guy.
These guys.

Performed by the Dama Orchestra. Now let me begin by reminding you of my banana (bananic?) soul. Yes it's a Chinese musical, yes it's an old Chinese folklore, yes it's all in Mandarin. I am certain that there are nuances and concepts and lotsa-other-stuff that I do not get. I am also sure that I may have missed stuff in the fact that I had to keep on reading subtitles. The short of it all is, yes I enjoyed myself - I was entertained. And no, I do not think it was worth the RM92 I paid. The why, and the long of it all? Read on...

The story? Well, it is THE Chinese Romeo & Juliet, so really you can't go wrong. Go to the website for a lowdown. The music? Not bad, generally listenable even though I don't understand. Something I really didn't like was what I'll call the rhythm of the whole performance. You know how there's a general pace of a scene? Action packed = usually fast, melodramatic = usually slow, that kinda thing. Everyone sticks to it, and there's congruence. Slow actions in a fast scene draws attention because of the counterpoint there, and vice versa for a slow scene.

Now the general flow of the performance is slow. Slow as in, yesteryear slow. Very little actually happens. Act 1 is: she goes to school, meets him, and leaves school. Act 2 is: he goes to see her, sees her, dies, then she goes to join him at his grave. This is over 2 hours. There are LOTS of moments where nothing actually happens. Now I don't have a problem with all that - I GET it that it's slow, and I'm very okay with that. What I really didn't like was that the actors weren't getting it. There was no congruence, and that 'bo ngam-ness' of it annoyed me. I'll explain: you are waiting for someone in your living room. You're concerned. You'll pace up and down. You'll sigh. You'll shake your head in irritation, or resignation, or whatever. You'll wring your hands, maybe. But you'll do all this over a LONG period of time. I would liked the person to have picked one or two of these things, done it slowly, and that was that. But no - they would do all of them. The number and speed of actions performed did not match the timing that represented it.

I will again raise the fact that I'm a banana, and that I'm not (yet) big on Chinese drama. I do know that it's common to (what I'd call) overact to represent something. Whatever the reason is, to me it just looks like you're trying to hard to get your point across.

Aside from that, the direction was dodgy in some other parts. I generally didn't like what the cast were doing when they weren't speaking - most especially the ensemble. See below for my rant on their performance. The choreography was... dead dodgy. There were 2 memorable moments of dancing where I went "WTF are they doing?!? Fuck off and let me hear that woman sing dammit!" And the timing of the moves were horrendous. Argh bloody ensemble. Costumes were wonderful though. Everyone looked great, though the wonderful big sleeves proved to be too distracting in the hands of this crew.

The subtitling was generally good. I was wowed by some of the words (courtesy of Edwin Sumun, I believe) - they conveyed the meaning well, if not the poetry. There were a few moments of the subtitling guy falling asleep or the computer falling asleep, and there's the questionable translation of "Ah..." Oh THAT'S what they're saying! But what does it REALLY mean?

The lead, Tan Soo Suan, is spectacular. Awesome voice, even when speaking, and even when contorted in strange positions. Wonderful. I believe that she carried the whole performance. I'd give my balls to sing like her. Oh wait, I might have to.

Edwin Sumun has, as always, such awesome stage presence. He spoke English, which by default made him my best buddy in the performance. He was meant to be the Western influence in the play, I think. His narration provided nice breaks from all the singing and overacting, though his could have been a more interesting characer script-wise.

Jason Lai was the lead male's sidekick, and is apparently the assistant stage manager. Funny thing to do, I would've thought that with such a massive crew they didn't need anyone to double-up jobs. He was one of the more notable actors on stage, where the term "trying too hard" applied more to his character (appropriately) than to the actor. Interesting how sidekicks the world over have the same archetype - quiet, unassuming, smart, knows when not to show it, reliable, hardworking, knows what's going on, funny, knows the right thing to say at the right time, AND gets along well with other sidekicks!

The rest of the lead cast were generally okay, nothing exceptional one way or another. Hated the mother's "worrying hands" though. See 'rhythm & pacing' above and 'sleeves & arms' below.

The ensemble, however, drove me absolutely mad. Stark raving bonkers. I vacillated between running down there with a pair of scissors to cut off all their damned sleeves, and running down there with a bloody big axe to lop off all their damned arms. Mr Stairs-Must-Be-Just-So, Mr Sleeve-Twirler, Mr I'm-Now-Centre-Stage-So-I'm-Superstar, and the various Misters / Missuses who spent forever moving the damn set, thank you for being a most annoying and yet entertaining (after the fact) distraction. I never realised how ridiculous 'trying to look busy' looked until these guys showed me. They could really have done with MUCH more practice, and tighter direction.

I liked the ending scene best. She visits his grave, it's dark and stormy, and after a song or two of lost love and longing, there's images of a butterfly going into the grave and kazam! There's a silhouette of him in there. Mildly eerie, but visually poignant. Unfortunately, after she joins him in, two MONSTROUS butterflies fly out of the grave. You'd expect something light and fluttery and cute, but no... these two mutations of nature slowly float out, ponderously flapping their gigantic wings and terrifying this member of the audience. Jaysus, it's alive! Run for the hills!!!

A final reminder of my bananic-ness. I looked around at the end, and there were many a teary eye. A mostly (if not completely) Chinese crowd, of which about half gave a standing ovation. They absolutely loved it, and felt it, and really connected with it. Sigh... yes, I do need to truly discover my roots. Given that some of my roots comprise of pirates, thugs and gang leaders, how can I go wrong?


Miscellany

The government has decided to reduce the speed limit by 10km/h for the Hari Raya holidays. I should show Pak Lah this video to make him reconsider.

Any U2 lovers out there? The new U2 iPod.

Graduate women more likely to orgasm. Now THERE'S a damned good reason to study hard! Why don't parents tell their kids important things like these? How to motivate lah?

Apparently, you can tell everything (75% of the time) from a person's voice. Height and weight included. Crazy, and interesting. So girls, if he sounds like Tweety Bird on the phone... expect to be disappointed, yah?

One durian finishes

There ends another production for me. Even though it's only 9 minutes of performance a night, I find myself quite exhausted every day - preparations, warmups, rehearsing lines, rehearsing blocking, the works. Because fiftynine minutes is composed of 7 plays, mine being second-last, I wait another 40-odd minutes after the show starts before I go on.

"So what, you've done Joe's acting class, can stand still for 1 hour also right?"

Yalah, can lah. But no need to lah, I have the whole of Happy Mansion Apartments-vicinity to wander, and smog-filled (damn you, Indonesia!) air to breathe. So what do I do? I convince myself that I can be Javert (Stars) or Jean Valjean (Bring Him Home) should Les Miserables ever do a casting on our shores. Both at the same time also can (The Confrontation). I'm also working on being the Phantom of the Opera but my Music of the Night a bit teruk lah. Nevermind, keep the vocals warmed up and have a little fun while waiting.

Man, what a feeling. I love it. It sucks in that in the end, you NEED that applause, that appreciation, that validation.But once you get it, wooh! What a rush! Yes, I'm a clap-whore. Great way to meet people too... the number of random people I've met surprises me. Loving the whole experience.

Reviews:
Behind The Wheel
Fireangel
KYspeaks
Broken Shield and Sword
A New Day Has Come
Kopi O Satu
: memories of a lost sheep :
Jesus!
VIP - Very Important Princess
Monster blog
Maine Stage
iLLusioNist's ArticLe
~:+:PurpleyPure:+:~

Kakiseni

Okay so it might be a bit generous calling some of them reviews - but hey, lots of them say nice things about me and damned if I don't keep some record of them!

Doing the above formed my first time using Google's BlogSearch - for myself. And the term "smelliest durian". So I thought, why not check out how I do in Google?


The Doppelganger

And that is how I came across my archnemesis (which means the very first nemesis, if you're wondering). He's on Friendster. Steals bikes, then sells them online. Lucky enough to win prizes, the bastard. Apparently does media advertising. But wants to be on a fucking oil rig.

So yes, he's a complete nutjob. And is my bane of useful usernames on web accounts - I'd bet he's taken all the johannlims so I'd have to use shit like dungu-1 and pariahfler. And he's got more hits on Google. How upsetting. At least I'm winning in Google Blogsearch, hah. Have at you, knave.


Malaysian Night 2002?!?

And I also discover my name, correctly attributed to the abovementioned event at my university, but placed as a first year student. In modern dance and ballroom dance. Google's amazing shit, huh. At least it has reminded me of the various university productions I've been involved in... guess I'm more of a stage-whore than I care to admit.


What's next?

Alas and alack, the Broken Bridges re-staging in December has been called off. As tight as that schedule might've been, I was really looking forward to that. It'd be so much fun. I believe that they'll have some mid-year 2007 re-staging instead, which makes more sense. Ipoh is still on though, so tell your homies in Yee-Poh to come: it's on the last weekend of November, ie 24th-26th. Now THAT will be hell-fun. Road trip!

Anyone have any good ideas on how I can make money while still having lots of time to contribute to my theatre-superstar dreams?