Review of breaking and lagi lah

For the past week, RA has been talking about a few plays. 2 of which had its last show on Sunday afternoon. I caught Break-ing on Thursday with theatre analyst Niki. On Sunday, to Lagi Lah with Jennie, Nawar and Linda.

Yes. All these people have only names and you’ll find no pictures of them, or me, here. Only an idiot would make himself look bad in his own column.

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Three plays by three directors

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I’ve to admit I didn’t quite get Silence, Please, by Jo Kukathas. The storyline that is. I got the gist of it. Certain parts what the story evolved around, showed the maturity (I suppose that’s the word) of the writer. The sub-messages as well was brilliant. As a matter of taste, it was a little slow for me and it did make me feel lost watching this as I had to keep on trying to piece it together in my head.

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Directed by Loh Kok Man, Repot?[Mind+Mine] was a play that had 95% of the script in Mandarin (or was it Cantonese). With subtitles of course. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. There was defintely an almost equillibrium between the element of humour and message/theme. One of the things it seeked to determine and pose to the audience was, what is the national language, first language and mother tongue of a person. A conundrum namely with non-Malays who live in Malaysia.

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The last one, WIP did good but prolonged pauses turned me off a little. On top of the idea of promoting the freedom of thought, it also made close reference to the ISA which I’ve been researching about of late. This one was directed by Nam Ron and I was waiting for that X element from him in this one because of his previous work. Just as when I was beginning to feel disappointed, that element came in towards the end of the play. And it came well.

*Part 2 of the ISA series that I’m writing for RA will be out this coming Monday.

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I’ve always insisted on not saying things like, ‘for Malaysian standards, this was good.’ But that is indeed the case sometimes. That description is apt no matter how politically correct you wish to appear. Worse still if you grew up hearing and watching West End musicals and then you start watching local productions that is at most, considered to be post infant or perhaps pre adolescence.

What this one did was that, it would take a song from a famous musical or movie, alter the lyrics and theme to suit the Malaysian context. It did not help that my ears could not catch on as fast as Jennie’s in spotting the origins of half of the parodies they were doing.

But to break it down simply, at least 60% of the songs performed was brilliant. Definitely.

Some were off simply I believe because of two things. Some songs needed more,

• movement and/or people on stage. This was especially so with the somewhat barren stage they had. To compensate with more props and decor would be an alternative, but an expensive one indeed as the context (although all Malaysian), was a revolving one.
• singing by more people. Not just the one or three that they had on stage. But perhaps the whole cast if need be, for the sake of ‘delivering’ the song. Some just needed that grand effect with stronger melody.

That said, the parody of Tomorrow (from Annie The Musical) regarding how a Dato’ Hu must wait till ‘tomorrow’ for his cheque, perfomed solo by Mia Palencia was simply super.

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