Performance After-thoughts: "The Teacher, The Thief" at Tampines East C.C.

I just returned from my troupe's performance at Tampines East Community Club, and am too tired to do anything. Today we performed "The Teacher, The Thief", our most well-loved show by our audience. It is actually quite unusual for us to perform this show today, because the last time we performed this show at this same community club was just less than 2 years ago. Previously, we were not allowed to repeat the same show in the same venue again, unless after a lapse of at least 5 years.

So, how do we fare in our performance today? Well, it depends whether if one's looking at the narrow perspective or wide perspective. If wide perspective, that is, the show on the whole, it was a success; our audience loved it, and were totally engrossed in our acting. However, from the narrow perspective view, our actors had hiccups here and there. So far we have not had so much hiccups in a single night before during all our previous runs of this same show. Why did we have so much hiccups? Did we have too little time to rehearse before the actual performance? Or that we had not prayed to our "Gods" before the show commence? Well I won't want to conclude anything for now, but I just can't help wondering...

My self-made beard; how do you find it? Our troupe has got no beard which I think is suitable for my role, so I had no choice but to make one on my own.

Is this a lady from the ancient world brought to modern time, or a lady from modern time brought back to ancient world?

Show me your hand only when you have got gold or diamonds!

My makeup today, in "pseudo Yueju" style; lately our troupe members started to shift from Taiwanese style of makeup to the more softer Yueju style, which is similar to what I had always put on for the past few years

A Night at Tong'an City Hokkien Opera Troupe's Performance

Yesterday's the debut performance for Tong'an City Hokkien Opera Troupe at Lor Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple. This was held in conjunction with the Spring Festival, as well as the fund-raising facilities for the temple's charity funds. I think this temple is getting "well-to-do" now, as recently they've just engaged 2 Taiwanese troupes to perform in their temple, and a few months later, it was said that Xiamen Municipality Gezi Opera Troupe is coming again; it is not cheap to engage foreign troupes to perform here!

So how do I rate the performance? Well there're good and bad aspects of the troupe. The good point is that the accent used by the troupe in general belongs to Xiamen region, which sounds more "homely" for me. The bad point is that the costumes and hairdo for the troupe is not good. I'm very particular about dans who sport very ugly wigs, as if their "hair" is totally detached from their head, and some of the costumes simply screamed "cheap" into the audience's face. Other than that, I think the troupe in general is rather average. Some of the actors could sing rather okay, but some simply sound like screaming and wailing. Musically speaking, I was rather surprised that their musical style resembled that from Longhai region, which was under Zhangzhou territory; I'd have expected their music to be more biased towards Xiamen, since Tong'an is a territory of Xiamen. Well, this was only their first performance, I shall be more lenient towards them. I shall see if things will get better as they perform!

Baddie in green: You spoil my costume and you buy me a new one!

Palace maids: Help! Someone had released toxic gas! *fainted*

Royal concubine: Put out the toxic gas! Quick!

Palace maids: We'll try... we'll try to fan the fumes away!

As a reward for your hard work, I shall give all of you $1 each!

General in white: My costume's colour is nicer!

General in green: Yeah right, but my costume is newer than yours!

General in green: You tell us; who has got the nicer costume?!

Lady in white: Forget it! Mine's more beautiful!

A Clash of Styles!

I've finished making a poster for our opera troupe's year end performance titled "The Birthday Banquet". This is the first poster in the past few months, and I supposed I've been somehow influenced by my studies in Lasalle, as I've abandoned the "traditionalism" style I've employed previously in my poster work, and had used slightly more modern approach for the design, like the usage of pseudo-Chinese photo frames. Well, not totally very modern, for I'm not sure if the troupe or our audience will be able to take it or not. Anyway, after doing the poster, I realised something interesting: the dans are very Taiwanese in feel (using Taiwanese wigs and hair accessories), the shengs are very Yueju in style (Yueju-styled headgears and costumes), while I looked very Teochew!

Performance on 10th June 2007

It's already Tuesday, 2 days after our opera troupe had a performance at Taman Jurong Community Club. As usual, Amai's the first to have it blogged up. Of course she has got the "advantage" of being the first to get her hands on photographs taken during the show. Juanjuan actually do take photographs at the backstage too, but usually she'd be too busy with other things than to blog it. As for me, I usually don't have much chance to take pictures if I had to perform, either on stage or as an accompanying percussionist. But sometimes, I'd take random video clips before and during the show, or whenever I am free!

A Cool Curtains Call Video From A Taiwanese Opera Troupe

This is a clip I've found on Youtube, featuring Zheng Xiu Ting Taiwanese Opera Troupe from Taichung in her curtains call for their show "Spring Snow".

In the beginning of the video, I just found the music arrangement of the background music ("送君别": one of Taiwanese opera's melodies) was very nice. However, by the middle of the clip, the curtains call started to become somehow different!



Now, I wonder what would happen if we were to use such effect for our curtains call?

"Romance of the Dragon Princess": Performance Afterthought

It has been a few days since "Romance of The Dragon Princess" has been staged at Bukit Panjang Community Club, but I have yet to blogged anything about it due to my busy time schedule.

Looking back at last Sunday's performance, this show can be considered a success, as we received a few positive feedback from the audience, and our troupe has been approached to be interviewed over radio as well. From artistic perspective, I like this show as the music was well-composed, all thanks to Mr. Yang Senlin, the composer we had invited from Zhangzhou City Xiang Opera Troupe. This is despite the script was just average, due to the fact that the original Huangmei opera show was adapted from a folk legend. However, I don't quite like this show personally, as this is one show that almost made me totally discouraged in acting.

In 2001, when our troupe announced that we would be acting this show for our bi-annual theatrical performance in 2002, I was disappointed to know that I would be taking on the roles of miscellenous characters. Not that I am ambitious to want to take on lead roles, but having been in the troupe for almost half a decade, and in terms of capability or opera knowledge I certainly do not belong to the bottom ranks. This was not all; as we started our rehearsals, I was told that the musical ensemble was short of one percussionist, and hence I had to be withdrawn from stage to help out in the musicians' pit. I initially joined the troupe because I want to perform, and now that I did not have the chance to act in our bi-annual theatrical performance was a big blow to me, and almost resulted me in quitting. However, I did not leave in the end somehow, after my leader thanked me for "sacrificing" my role. Luckily for me, I was able to get back one of my slightly more significant roles, a heavenly general, in subsequent re-runs of this show in 2004. I also took the initiative to do the projection backdrop for the performance at Tampines East Community Club, which was my first attempt, but was well-received by the audience too.

Back to our performance last Sunday. Bukit Panjang Community Club was one of our "not-so-hot" performance venues, as our previous performance experiences there only received lukewarm responses. That night, however, it was close to full-house, even though it was raining dogs and cats just before the show started. I believed the "miracle" was due to the fact that the show was fully sponsored by the Northwest CDC. Not that I'm belittling our troupe's capabilities, but this is the real world: Hokkien opera-goers in general only watch Hokkien opera if it's free! Or unless the troupe is from Taiwan. I remembered in Chong Pang, an uncle came up to me and asked if we are from Taiwan. When I told him we're all local, he gave an uninterested face and commented "I'm a Teochew, I don't understand Hokkien!" (Give me a break, please! Taiwanese opera artistes do not speak Teochew as well!). Anyway, I still feel thankful that our show were sponsored. At least it made more people willing to come and watch our show, which is good, as it makes people more aware of our existence.

We still have a few upcoming shows in conjunction with NorthWest CDC's arts festival programme, and hopefully after these shows, they will continue to support us in our future shows.

Hectic Sunday: "Butterfly Lovers" Performance

It was a hectic Sunday, as I had 2 events to attend to, one after another. The first was our opera troupe's performance of "Butterfly Lovers" at Chong Pang Community Club in the evening, and another one was Potato's live concert at Thai Disco, Golden Mile Complex at night. Luckily for me, both events do not really clash with one another, but since the concert was to start at 11pm, and I don't expect my performance to end before 10.30pm, the north-south travelling time would be a bit of a problem.

For our performance, we do not just solely put on a show like in the past. We were told by our organisers to hold a small opera exhibition as well, showcasing some props, costumes and information on our opera. Luckily for me, I had to act on stage, so I was spared of the task of introducing the various props and costumes to the member of parliament VIPs, who had been invited to host the opening ceremony to the show. Art was not acting in this show, hence she was delegated this task. She was afraid that her knowledge might not be adequate enough to give an introduction, but I thought she did a good job, as I can see that the VIPs were very pleased.

Chong Pang Community Club was our stronghold performance venue, partly due to the fact that there were alot of Hokkien opera lovers living in the area, and also because our performances there had so far been free of charge due to some generous sponsorship. The crowd yesterday was huge as usual, but it seemed larger than previous times. Perhaps "Butterfly Lovers" was an all-time favourite among opera watchers, hence they do not mind watching it again although they might have watched it years back when we performed the same show at the community club. It is always a good feeling when the turnout rate is good, because it will boost one's morale in acting. I remembered once we performed at a temple fair, and the foul weather then resulted in almost no audience, and it really made us moody.

Our performance started at 7.30pm, and ended at around 10pm, which was actually quite early, but not to the community centre's staff, as they knock off at 10pm sharp. The response from the audience was great; they applauded thunderously during the finale of the show, when 2 butterflies emerged out of Shanbo's grave after Yingtai jumped into it. This is an indication saying that our show was overall a success, despite various hiccups along the way.

The show may have ended, but my day had not come to an end; I still have to rush to catch Potato live in concert! (to be continued...)

Testing mic. time for our actors

Our show in action from the backstage