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| Title : | That Was The Year - A Tale of Unrequited Love |
| Venue : | KLPac - Pentas 2 Sentul Park, Jalan Strachan (off Jalan Ipoh) Kuala Lumpur,Wilayah Persekutuan URL : http://www.klpac.com |
| Date & Time : | Thu 3 - Sun 13 May 2007 (Tue - Sat: 8.30pm, Sun: 3pm, NO show on Mon) |
| Tickets : | RM40/ RM20 (students/ senior citizens) |
| Ticket Contact : | KLPac: 03-4047 9000 |
| URL : | www.fiveartscentre.org |
| Synopsis : | Unrequited love, a child born out of wedlock, a country in turmoil... That Was The Year - A Tale of Unrequited Love is based on Beth Yahp's short story, In 1969. Set against the backdrop of that tumultuous time in our local history, the story revolves around a Chinese woman who has an affair with a married man, and who bears his child in the midst of the May riots. Under the Krishen Jit Experimental Workshop Series 2006, Chee Sek Thim presented a showcase performance based on Beth Yahp’s short story and proceeding from the positive response, Sek Thim with Five Arts Centre, has developed the experimental piece for full staging.
Starring Annette Christie, Elaine Pedley, Judimar Hernadez, Malik Taufiq, Megat Sharizal bin Mohamad Yusoff, Sue-Yenn and Zhien. The production also boasts of stunning set and lighting design by Mac Chan and sound composition by Hardesh Singh, featuring works of Shanon Shah. |
Public Rating
(Ok but not great)
( 7 ) votes
User Comments
| posted by Biggie, Sat 12.05.200713:49:48 PM |
| I had high expectations for this play after reading the previews in Kakiseni. Unfortunately I left very dissapointed and felt that I had wasted my money.What was an interesting premise was let down by horrible singing and awful choreography. The incessant singing of patriotic songs (which was meant to be tongue in cheek) was cliche and trite. Avoid this at all costs - probably the worst theatre I've been to so far this year
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| posted by failed auditioner, Sun 13.05.200716:40:05 PM |
| i loved it. i thought it was entertaining and provocative performance all around and everyone deserves a big fat pay cheque. there was so much going on, you didn't know what to do. do you watch the choreography? do you listen to the script? do you stare at the ceiling wondering if there's someone up there with a giant poking device to get the bags of water to drip? the audience's reaction was equally interesting. there were equal parts gasps, laughter, uneasiness and acknowledgements. yes, beth yap's emotional text was harder to follow than the political factoids, i guess because the love story was kind of going in reverse. But the historical drama is something we all know and never talk about. though i must admit it's nice to be reminded of our races every now and then. it's like american comedian margaret cho's routine about being asian-american. she's on a plane and they're serving lunch. the flight attendant strolls through aisle handing out "asian chicken salad", but when he gets to her he just says, "chicken salad?" did i digress? only a little. anyway, this show could have done with better singing, sure, but the acoustics in that space sucks and this ain't a musical. it's not pretending to be a music show so it can compete in the music field in next year's cammy awards to avoid facing up to other musicals in the theatre categories. these actors had passion and determination and the movements were amazing. alright, so i didn't get all the symbolisms and double meanings of the play, but that sure made for a lot of great conversation after the show. and in the end, isn't that what theatre is about? better to have some emotion or thought than be completely devoid of feeling. i mean, cheer up, luv. it might never happen.
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| posted by keegan, Mon 14.05.200716:43:01 PM |
| Like all comments, mine are subjective. I didn't agree with the genre (i'm biased towards the conventional western structure). One, after watching this play, I am more convinced than ever why there is a need for exposition (to lay the scene as Shakespeare would put it) in the first scene itself. The first half hour was spent listening to some random babbling of some unknown character. Didn't feel anything here- couldn't sense her fear nor understand her pain. Why? Because we don't know who she is, where she came from (her back-story), except that she's pregnant and hiding in the drain. Two, there were no series of events that culminate into a climax, just some random scenes here and there, and at this point I'm finding it hard to understand where this play is going, much less feel for the characters. There is a reason why an audience prefers the conventional linear plot- we can't stay too long on a story that is presented to us in fragments. We need to know where we came from and where we are going. After a
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| posted by keegan, Mon 14.05.200716:46:11 PM |
| writes for an audience- because when you subject an audience to sit for two hours, no talking, no handphones, then you write for an audience. So, why write/direct/ act in such a way that the audience cannot understand.? Take the lights for instance- was it meant to be some deep symbolism? Sure, one can ask the director and get a clever answer, but if the audience doesn't get it, the audience doesn't get it. The audience doesn't get to go to the director and ask why the lights were like that. Or take the annoying spout-act-clap routine, where the actor recites a line or two, and then move in some mysterious way, do a couple of somersaults and turns, and repeat (one of them was hanging upside down when she spoke some lines). We don't understand these deep symbolisms. The point is, arts must always affect. The audience must come out of the theatre 'affected' (not necessarily entertained, but maybe provoked or disturbed or uneasy, but the audience must be affected). I was the same person pre- TWTY and post-TWTY.
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| posted by keegan, Mon 14.05.200716:47:06 PM |
| Such a shame, coz the play tackled a very emotional issue and the potential for emotion is amazing. But, thanks Beth Yap for having the courage to say things you said in the play, and most importantly, for not rewriting history, as a politically correct playwright might.
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| posted by keegan, Mon 14.05.200716:48:54 PM |
| After a while, watching snapshots of the live of someone we know nothing about becomes tiresome. Three, I felt the use of monotonous voices was counter productive- the idea was that the drama will come from the words itself, and not from the tonality of the actors' voices. Nice avant garde technique, but failed to convey the range of emotions of the play. One of the most important thing that separates performing arts and other forms of arts is that in performing arts, an actor utilizes this powerful tool called 'voice' to convey emotion (others being the body, lighting etc). Such a shame this wonderful tool wasn't employed to its fullest. Four, I couldn't help feeling this was a very self-indulgent piece- arty farty and inaccessible. The final word on the whole debate on whether a playwright writes for himself or for an audience is that a playwright always writes for an audience.
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