It was last Saturday, when some of Indonesia youngsters attacked ACJC Mrs Lee Choon Guan Theatre. Of course we attacked the Theatre for a good cause, to watch a Musical Drama Performance by Pelajar Indonesia NUS (PINUS). I set my expectation quite high this time, because the first time I watched their musical production last year, I was surprised with the kind of show they gave to me as the audiences. But too bad, this year production is not as great as last year, or at least for me, it is a bit subjective I guess.
I would say, this year production is in imbalance portion, where I have no idea who to blame for this issue and I have no right to blame them, dun I?
Well, if you watch it you can feel there is no really focus on the characters, where I cant really feel which are the leading characters during performance. They are too much important part being skipped, while some scenes being exploited too much where at some points you can feel the acts are not really well executed. I guess the actor/actress was exhausted with the scenes itself. I understand the fact that they do not really have so much big cast as usual, but what I can tell is some of supporting actresses/actors are even better in their role instead of the leading characters. After the show, one of my friend commented along this line: "Regardless how bad a script is, if the director can execute it well, it will turn out to be good". Well, I did not really give any comment when he stated about that statement, because myself only look at the end product, and I do not really know/understand about the process of the drama musical, but I know how tedious and tiring the process is (been 2 times involved back then). But luckily the leading actress has a good talent in term of voice to sing and her acts as well.
Since I touched on about the scripts earlier on, let's talk about the script and the plot as well. No idea about the script, but I do not really like the plot of the drama. Why so? Because like I said earlier, there are some important parts being skipped. To be honest, I was a bit lost with the time plot that they have. For example, one scene the leading actor and actress were not married yet, then the next scenes, both of them already got a daughter, where I have no idea how old is the daughter, then next scene is for another character, and all of it are scattered. I guess for the first half of drama musical they wanted to give overall overview about the overall characters, where at the end of the day it just screwed up the plot. That kind of style, I think is not good, because in the audience point of view, the audience feeling exhausted to capture everything and also there will be lack of characters development at the end.
The fact that the music arrangement is so beautiful but without good sound system support, it hurts my ear so much. I am really impressed with the music arrangement, where for most of part, the music arrangement was building the surrounding and filling the emptiness of drama thus the audiences can feel "the mood". But it was really upsetting me as the audiences, where suddenly I can hear the feedback from the sound system when the drama was playing. It makes it worse when the feedback is not only once, if I am not mistaken there were 3 times, or maybe even more? I did not really count it. Also, they should provide more microphone, because there are some characters who tried to do conversation, but due to they do not have microphone, so they need to project their voice loudly, can you imagine if you were an audience at the rear seats? Lucky me, I was sitting in the third row. I know it will incur more cost to the production, but if it can improve the quality of the production, why would you risk your own production? Moreover, when the characters sing, me and some of my friends can not really catch what they are singing about, no idea it is due to microphone or due to their pronunciation. If it is due to latter part, then they should have done more practices for it.
The lighting was good I think, they stage manager or lighting-personnel are really exploring the possibility that they have and utilize it really well. I was impressed from beginning of the drama, even when it just about to start with their prologue part.
On top of it, I love their stage as well, where the all of the musical instruments are located at the lower level of the stage, so visually it doesnt disturb audiences focus.
Well, you have read too much about my comments, here are some my friends who commented on the musical production as well.
Well, from those 2 screenshot pictures, actually I can give more comments about it. So let's pick one from each!
First, comment from Samiadji: 2 sissy boys? Well, no offense to the casts, but they were acting really like sissy guys. But one of them, do not really look natural. At first I thought the one looks unnatural was faking for the act for the sake of the performance, but later on I found that actually thats how he lives his life. Well said, maybe thats what Agita meant in her last phrase of comments? No idea! haha. :D
Second, Agita and Samiadji mentioned about Jap porn part, didnt they? It is really wrong when you watch some guys who tried to speak in Jap language, but what you can think of when you watched that are: "did they learn the tone from porn movies?" or at least from M18/R21 rating movies. Due to that scenes, I think next time all of musical drama production by Indonesia students should have rating i.e. M18/R21 accordingly.
Now, you might ask why the title of this post about whether I am on the stage or not, of course the answer is NO! But a lot of my friends associated me with one of the character, so I simply told them jokingly: Ya, I couched him to become like that. Like duh! =.=
