The Preamble

I would rather disembowel myself with crusty rusty Kemahiran Hidup chisels than be caught saying this – Exercise is fun. Like actually.

How times have changed. I used to wear my gloat-ful glutton tag with glee, taking pride in every yummilicious mouthful of sin. Who cares if your waist expands? Life’s short! Carpe diem! Grow your girth and prosper! Gradually, I added kilograms to my frame and inches to my waist. Over a span of 5 years, my weight tracked bullishly while the stock markets tanked. At my peak, I just only tipped the scales at 100 kilos.

*Victory flabby belly dance*

Until I went for a compulsory health check for a new job. I entered the clinic right-as-rain, and I came out a hypertensive patient. I was only 31! And I had an artery-bursting blood pressure of 150/110! The doctor said that I must be put on medication immediately. Wha-?! Surely diet and exercise would help? Nope. Surely it’s rather mild? Nope. Surely it’s ok? Nope.

*Bloop*

That was the sound of the news sinking in. I was the quintessential remote control man. I led a life that was 10 times less active than sedentary. I sweated 4 buckets full when I walked up half a flight of stairs. My only exercise - walking to the fridge from the TV. And back.

The thought of ‘exercise’ scared me to bits. Sweaty smelly bodies with fungus friendly socks. Yuck. Only vainpots and unfairly endowed Adonis-es exercise. Definitely not me.

Or so I thought.

Stage Review: Showstoppers - Music from Broadway

An ah pek admission here – despite my obvious love for the stage, I have never ever been to the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas. Oh gawd! The travesty! You say. I agree totally.

So I’ve been bugging KG to ajak me for an MPO performance – anything at all, provided it doesn’t require me to mortgage my house. Well well well – the most opportune show appeared, and that was how I found myself, deliriously percolating, in DFP yesterday to catch Hang Tuah in person.

The hall is impressively intimate, with the obvious focal point being the orchestra. KG waxed lyrical about how canggih the acoustics is – from the wooden panels to the moveable roof. And his favourite statement du jour – Even if that fella 3 rows away punya stomach starts to growl – you can hear it! But really, the sound is amazing – trumping Istana Budaya.

The final show of the 3-performance run scored a full house.

As John Georgiadis, the affable conductor, gently led the orchestra into the first piece – Selections from My Fair Lady – I could hardly believe my ears. The piece was perfect; I could enjoy the music for what it was. In comparison, if you were to attend any other Malaysian production, the experience would be marred by technical problems or mediocre, if any, attention to detail. Here, the lush orchestra moved up and down the sound intensity scale without sounding muffled or jarring. The polite beats of the percussion, as well as the gentle notes from the harp, were as clear as day. *Wow* Is this really Malaysia?

Stephen Rahman Hughes (SRH) appeared on stage right for his first song – I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables. Looking debonair in a black suit and purple sequined shoes (!!), SRH belted out his version of the tune made popular again recently by Susan Boyle. He belted… and botched it. The song, in context, is an emotionally-charged number, while SRH treated it like a contemporary piece sans the feelings. Sorry, Suzie wins this hands down.

SRH then delivered a delightful rendition of Journey Home from AR Rahman’s Bombay Dreams, including the Indian vocalizations. His voice soared. He must have made a most outstanding Akaash. I enjoyed SRH’s Maria from West Side Story as well, and boy can he reach the upper registers. Luck Be A Lady from Guys and Dolls was fun – though SRH could’ve shown a bit more of his moves – he’s a trained dancer no?

POTO’s The Music of the Night was alright. Had to remind myself that SRH is no Michael Crawford or Ramin Karimloo – so begone unrealistic expectations! Over The Rainbow from Wizard of Oz was obviously a jazzed-up version. Definitely overdone for purists like me, but hey – you need some variety I guess. And this was the reason for the sequined shoes, which he emphatically stated was not his.

Then, my least favourite song for the show – The Impossible Dream from The Man of La Mancha. The arrangement was atrocious. Why didn’t they leave it as it beautifully was? Obviously, one cannot put on ‘showstoppers’ without another Andrew Lloyd Webber tune – and he chose Don’t Cry For Me Argentina from Evita. SRH performed 2 encore numbers – Can You Feel The Love Tonight? from The Lion King – a gorgeous piece. I felt that this song worked very well with his voice. And he did Luck Be A Lady again.

The MPO well deserved the rapturous applause they got. My musically-rudimentary ears could not find a fault. At all. This, is what it means to enjoy the performance for the content. Man, I’m proud of this orchestra.

The show also took on an informal ambience, with SRH sharing a witty banter with John. SRH can sing. SRH can dance. SRH can crack jokes too! These intimate revues, I thought, are non-existent in Malaysia. Well, not any more. An excellent way to spend my afternoon – and at a most reasonable price, RM 40! Despite my petty complaints on the smaller subjective matters, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

My only wish for future shows is to have newer hits on the list. Why only pander to the aunties and uncles? Showcase the diverse musicality of the stage – from Rent and Spring Awakening to Wicked and The Color Purple to Avenue Q and Monty Python’s Spamalot. Yeah, now you would have to throw in the compulsory Love Never Dies as well. Sigh. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew, will we never be free of you?

Love Never Dies

Love Never Dies is the sequel to the musical megahit The Phantom of the Opera (POTO). The great Andrew Lloyd Webber must have realized that all his musicals post-POTO collectively had a grand sum of 9 rabid fans (one if them is me, of course), save the awesome Sunset Boulevard. Can you even recall the in-between musicals? *Enthusiastically raises hand into the air* I can! I can! I can! When you have the hectic social calendar of a leprous skunk like I have, you would end up listening to Andy’s forgotten and forgettable melodies from Aspects of Love, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, By Jeeves and Woman in White. So this guy obviously has some entitlement issues. Surely, after his ATM-machine productions of POTO and Cats, his omnipotence should not be questioned?!?

Of course, we have heard of his POTO 2 ambition during his birthday bash (cum money-generating concert; moolah gushing in from CDs, DVDs, the works… no Andy action figure?): Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang The Heart Is Slow To Learn; you couldn’t really make out the words as the world-renowned soprano sang pretty much only the vowels and left out the consonants. This tune ended up in Andy’s bottom drawer, only to be given new life as Our Kind of Love in The Beautiful Game. Well, if you’re a big fan of the tune (if you listen to it often enough, it will grow on you… in a parasite taking root kind of way), you shall hear it once more as the newly titled Love Never Dies. Andy clearly needs this song to be put in its right place – hence where better than the sequel?

Never mind that we thought Christine Daae ends up happily married to the dashing, albeit boring as a kitchen sink, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. She’d probably be sipping tea, lifting her pinky, while practicing her French, which she so clearly needs to know, since she’s in France. Duh! Maybe Raoul would find more profitable pastimes than merely being the patron of haunted opera houses? We’d think about the Phantom. Ah, poor chap that. We would leave it at that. He was a freak gone wild, and too bad he died. Ho hum.

I got my closure then. Now Andy wants me to revisit the ménage-a-trois once more?

To be fair, any excuse to listen to Andy’s music is good enough for me. Will his new tune soar like his original melodies in POTO? Will they be writhing with passionate emotions like those in Evita? Will they be as opulently memorable as those in Sunset Boulevard? Despite his many many misses, I can’t help but hope that Andy will get a hit again.

There was a scathing online commentary which cruelly re-christened POTO 2 as ‘Paint Never Dries’. I say, give Andy a chance. If we do not impose our own expectations and leave our decades-long attachment with POTO, we may actually find ourselves on a magical journey instead. Perhaps one that gives us the same exhilaration as another production did many years ago, one that began with an auction. Lot 666…

The Sorry Predictability of Life

Below is an email I sent to my friends in October 2005. Never realized I reached Maslow's pinnacle of self-actualization at such a tender age. Muahaha. In retrospect, I'm a bit fearful at how prescient I sounded.

"Due to the dearth of musicals in KL lately (other than that oh-so-lame production of Oliver!), I obviously cannot continue my highly acclaimed reviews.

BUT - my friends have started to think that I have been busy with work, or (gasp!) even worse - matured! Who - me? I swore to claw my way out of the musty pit of normalcy - where gazillions of idealistic youth have slid into - degenerating into just another -yawn!- face in the 25million-strong Malaysia. Ho well, life will come and go, and so with the society-imposed bell of you-must-have-it-NOW ringing at cued intervals, we will get a car, then a house, then get married, then have children, then watch them grow up, then grow old, then regret, then wither away and die.

Ho hum. That's life, I guess. What happened to the impulsive yearning to get shipped away to Botswana on a mission trip, where basic amenities such as water is lacking? Didn't we once want to change the world, and sculpt it to a semblance of humanity as we see it?

What about the impossible dream of revamping the arts scene of Malaysia? Rightfully or wrongfully, we thought we could make the public appreciate subtler nuances in dialogue, or more novel forms of lighting. Songs that were sung from the heart; not from the mind or from some senseless desire to create a megahit?

We too talked of doing work that actually means something. Not clocking in every friggin' morning, only to face the day - one not so different from the day before, or the day before that.... heck, or even the day one year ago! We are getting our hands dirty trying to follow policies we do not understand, practices we do not agree with, ethics we know no one else practices. For what? A whiff of the cash that comes in at the end of the month? Yup - only to be drained off systematically into our insurance, our car, our house, our parents, our credit card bills, our yadda yadda yadda.

Days melt into weeks that melt into months and before we know it, we'll be at the stage where the cue card goes - 'Time to wither and die'. Ouch.

I tell myself that life must hold more meaning than this. Time to read - philosophy, world history, art, literature! Time to learn - photography, music, dancing, painting! Time to travel - Redang, Vietnam, Egypt, Morocco! I guess as I type down this reminder that life is indeed something to savour, not merely to survive, I think that more importantly, I am
reminding myself.

Remind me, once in a while, and hey - when we're 60, we will look back and say -Now, that was a life well-lived!

P/S This email actually began as a review of Star Wars... But hey, dunno what came over me.... ;P So maybe Star Wars next time eh?"

One Year Later

It has been one year. Wow. And what an eventful year it has been.

1. The world is still reeling from the effects of the worst global recession in recent memory.

2. Obama is the first American President who is, well, different.

3. Malaysia's political landscape has changed. The opposition grew to strength, and is now standing precariously at the precipice; either to fall into yet another pit of stupidity, or one of great actions that will go down in history as the turning point of Malaysian democracy.

4. I'm still working at the same company. That is a record of sorts - considering how my butt itches every 18 months or so...

5. I now wear a ring on my fourth finger.

With this oh-so-brief re-intro, I'll slip right into my chatterboxical slippers soon to launch this blog to 'greater heights' - the place every Malaysian leader refers to at least 5 times in any speech.

Opinion: The Toilet Downstairs

Gy and I are currently renovating our house. It's an ancient 30-year old double-storey house, complete with damp patches on the wall, and dubious wiring that crisscrosses the ceiling. 

So after much discussion, we decided ˆnotˆ to have a washroom downstairs. 

That decision unexpectedly opened up a whole can of worms. Friends have gasped, relatives have tut-tutted, parents have painted a million possible outcomes - all deliriously dire. While opinions are free, these people have not had the decency to check with us why we chose not to have the jamban in the first place. Immediate responses have been the what-were-you-thinking? looks mostly. Even my mom predicted that I would regret this decision forever and ever. 

God, it's only a stinking toilet. I know that it may not be convenient for people who come to visit, but I totally do not see the rationale in carving out a 3' by 3' space for the convenience of people who step into my house probably less than 5% of the hours in a year. It makes no sense. And just because everyone has a bathroom downstairs does not make it the best option in the world. That is sucky reasoning, if you ask me.

That is pretty much the state of mind most of us are in. Just because it is, therefore it is good. Poppycock.

Take for example the institutions and rites society has imposed upon us. A wedding should entail a diamond ring, a pre-wedding photo shoot, a lavish dinner, a do-everything-and-anything-to-please-our-parents-and-relatives attitude and kazaam! - it's nearly perfect. How about the very basic thought that a marriage joins 2 persons who are madly in love into one. Who gives a fink about how this union should be celebrated? Would I care if picking up my bride in an Iswara will start the in-laws tongues a-wagging? I don't. Would I care if the wedding date is not predestined by the celestial charts? I don't. Would I care if all my relatives are not invited for my wedding? Screw it. I don't. I only care about 'US'. 

I used to think that weddings are a big show-off parade for the Chinese. A Malay friend recently mentioned how much is spent on building the grandest pelamin ever, as that would be the yardstick of wealth. What a sour taste in the mouth that leaves. A wedding celebrates the love of the newlyweds, and here you have parents wanting to outdo one another for apparently ill-advised reasons in the first place.

Why place such a premium on what people think? The more we try to meet society's demands, the more disappointed we will be with ourselves. Life is short. Set your own goals, set your own dreams and achieve them. 

What am I gonna do about my toilet? If my friends come a-visiting and they cannot find the will to walk 12 steps to the toilet upstairs, they are welcome to pee at the backyard. And they will probably never be invited back.

Stupid societies breed stupid people. I'd rather be the odd one out, thankyouverymuch.

Reviews... 'cos I'm back!

'To my people in the dark... Still out there in the dark...'

So sings Norma Desmond, the demented creature in Sunset Boulevard, stubbornly clinging on to her zaman kegemilangan yang lampau. Likewise I obstinately latch upon my (nonexistent) glory days of blogging... when my audience numbered in the ones!

Alrighty. Business first- I watched P. Ramlee - the Musical (PRTM) twice!

My initial misgivings: i) I adored Sean Ghazi as the smooth crooner in the first season, and I simply couldn't imagine another wannabe, ii) will I doze off again in the first Act this time?, iii) God, please tell me they removed the horrendous paparazzi!

Well I should have just discarded my doubts at the front door of IB as the second season of PRTM was a much better production. My misgivings all came to naught... except the irritating paparazzi. The contemporary take on musical direction breathed life into the music, making it somehow lighter and fluffier. From the get go, the Penang song itself became such a joy to watch, and to listen to.

The rhythm was set... and scene after scene whizzed by. Before I knew it, it was the end! Now this is a good musical! Making 3 hours feel like 1! The tighter plot worked miracles for the story (I have no idea what changes were made, but it sure felt 'right' this time round).

Musly rose to the occasion as P. Ramlee... though I still think Sean Ghazi had more of a stage presence. Speaking to people to whom P. Ramlee was a staple idol since young, Musly was more 'P. Ramlee' than Sean. His quirky mannerisms were very well depicted. Whatever it is, I did not not enjoy Musly's performance. Azizah was a let-down though. She could hardly carry the beautiful duet with Musly. Pity. Melissa Saila - devilishly delicious yet again! Of course the Saloma-P. Ramlee scenes remained my favourite, as the heart is really felt there. Somehow.

Another obvious improvements were the lighting (finally, some thought went into it). The one-dimensional triumvirate of Shaw, Shaw and Rajhans were less annoying this time around.

On the whole, it was the new treatment of the music and the tightening of the story that made a world of difference. It's a sincere form of enjoyment, not stuck with the qualifier '... for a Malaysian production'.

The second time round, I had the privilege of sitting next to the orchestra pit. It was a beautiful experience, seeing the musicians having so much fun, and the interaction going on among them. It makes one long for such productions to be the norm, where the people actually are passionate about the material they are working on. Simply beautiful.
Then Lady Luck smiled upon me once more, and I had complimentary tickets to Dansing Thru Broadway.

The flimsy premise was just an excuse to showcase numerous stage hits of the past. A kid (manly and testosterone-laden) wanted to get a job at the theatre, and he was taken on a whirlwind introduction to some of the most popular Broadway tunes of our time (after which the kid seemed pretty low on testosterone, but brimming with oestrogen).

First thing is the noble thought behind this production - introducing the world of musical theatre to the audience. Though the execution... er, the execution... well, it is a noble thought for a noble cause.

Main problem - why the minus one tracks? The recorded instrumental thingy doesn't give a fink of emotion to the tunes... This is especially true for stirring melodies; like The Last Night Of The World and All I Ask Of You. Tender tunes are rendered flat and lifeless. Even a live piano accompaniment would have created a more expressive complement to the singing. Terrible terrible pity.

Second problem - the technical crew seriously needs to undergo a rehabilitative course. The wanton mike-on-mike-off moments do a great injustice to the performers, and the performance. The sound system left too much to be desired. I won't even get started on the limp lighting treatment. I won't.

The performance for the night has to go to The Strongest Suit - incorporating the best elements of the musical. For most of the other songs, they were hit-and-miss. More misses than hits, unfortunately.

Thank goodness for the secret weapon - children. No matter how bad the production, dress little kids up in butter-yellow sunflowers, or suit them up in cutesy Victorian garb, the audience would give a guaranteed 'aw...'. I'm guilty too. Good on you, kids!

My personal gripe is the selection of tunes. How can a tribute to Broadway be bereft of Stephen Sondheim? Not only that, the inclusion of Carryin' The Banner (Newsies) was a blatant oversight, as it was never a stage production, only a Disney musical. I loved that song, originally as it captured a very Brooklyn-New York working class feel at the turn of the century, ingeniously choreographed. But on this stage, the magic of the original was clearly missing. But that's my personal opinion. *Sigh* Everyone has an opinion...

While I'm still swimming neck-deep in crappy work, I'm glad to be able to catch a couple of musicals. Apparently there will be more musicals on the way. That, is good news indeed!