Back from the mid-sem break and what we got was misery business apart from running around helter-skelter. This was most probably due to uncompleted assignments which was meant to obviously be done during the break. What was more terrorizing was that they had to be handed in pretty soon. More suppressing news that opted us to be in panic mode or stress delight was the English drama which was to be hosted 4 days from the break. We haven't practised much... or kinda haven't even gone near serious.
Luckily, after being prompted to do so, I managed to get by the assignments thanks to the guys who already did them. But it wasn't as easy as copying blindly, I had to do some checking just in case there was a miscalculation. This meant I had to spend more time looking up info from books and notes. At least I left less guilty after doing those
:PAs for the drama? We had 3 nights to practise.
-
1st night was like professionals at it's 1st work. Time duration was 9pm-11.30pm. I wasn't there to view them due to heldback for a club's meeting. But I came in late and only managed to practise 1 round only t.t It was only a warm up!
-
2nd night started later abit at 10pm-12am. This is most likely due to my unavailability in attending earlier time spans. As for the reason - my club wants me to take care of their booth in recruiting new members. When I got to the training grounds, we didn't perform very well the moment we started voicing. We were still holding on to our dear scripts and haven't even thought about positionings or emotions yet. Then after 3 rounds of practice, we were exhausted early due to the fact that the air-conditioner's external unit was turned off. The weird part was that that particular external unit wasn't releasing hot air but more like cool fanning.
That's when Yeo said,
"Come let's go V5 eat, Erfi drive" We all agreed on that. When we got into the car, Yeo said
"Woaho, Schumacher." I responded,
"I thought Schumacher retired?" "No, he's here," and pointed to Erfi. That's when he hit reverse gear and spun around the curve. Going down the vertical was a slide as we were shoved to the side by centripetal forces. Fortunately, Bui was in the front seat and got to see every edge of the curves while screaming
"WOOOI" every now and then throughout the drive. There are a number of curves in UTP. I was in the middle and got the view of a 3D simulation of a roller coaster, Yeo and Rafiq were at my sides to cushion my falls. So we made it 'safely' to V5 - Erfi tried to overtake a Kancil in a one-lane road but failed to do so. Still a close shave and made us shout
"wtf Erfi! Chill man! We're there already!" So after getting cooled down with supper and mango juice, we were forced back to our village/dorm to the common room to give out a last round of practice for the night. Reluctant we may be but we still did it, even though we were distracted by Channel V at times. There was a part Yeo was suppose to say
" This lamb chop is the bomb!" but instead he said
"This TV is the bomb!" We were pretty much down for the count then.
-
3rd night same time as 10pm but things started getting more desperate. We were more hyped in getting things done - props, makeup?, costume, slides, vocals and stuffs! This time we emphasized on character positioning, adding abit more sense into face and body expressions as well as throwing our voices since no mic was allowed. I found that part difficult as our English tutor who will be judging our perfomances was sitting a distant away from the stage. I was playing a ghoul-like-hunchedback-raspy-roughed voice character where I have to use my throat and my nose to speak. We practised a few serious rounds (still there was comedy which just couldn't be helped) and after that we hit the hay, knowing we need our rests.
Performance day - Our drama was held in the afternoon, a pretty warm one as the air-conditioning was in a terrible heated up condition. Yeo, Erfi, Jonathan were dressed decently like gentlemen. On the other hand, Bui and Hafiq had gone feminine. I had a pillow on my back and had to quiver from time to time.
Our storyline was altered from shortstory
The Landlady by Roald Dahl and my what heck of a story that was. Yeo wrote the 1st 4 scenes, Bui wrote the last scene, I compiled and edited them, adding language correction, grammar and vocab as well as sarcasm to spice things up. Our English tutor seemed to like it - she wrote
'interesting script' when we got it checked.
The story pictures 2 young gentlemen who stayed in an inn, owned by an old lady with her helper, and got murdered. Their bodies were never found and so, 2 years later a couple passed by and the wife insisted that they should stay there for a night. But then the wife was murdered and hidden away by the old lady. The helper tried to warn the husband earlier but he was ignorant. The death of the helper and the wife made the husband realise he has to end this madness. So we added in some supernatural stuffs. The spirit of the wife came back to inform her husband to be careful of the old lady's trickeries. Then the 2 young gentlemen materialized to watch the scenes. I joined in soon only after the death of the the old lady being killed by the husband. But it didn't end there, I came only too late to warn the husband that the old lady was able to possess objects beside her upon her death. So poof, the husband became evil. 5 people perished, 1 turned away from good. Bad ending like all horror stories
:/Although we practised, things always don't come perfect easily. We had technical problems with the sound system and had a delay. We also started off smoothly until some points there were miscoordinations. Like when Bui should've gone to the kitchen to prepare food, he went to the lounge and waited there. Or when I should've been out there on the scene, I was beside the stage looking at the script seeing what comes next in the scene - ironic.
There was a time when Bui was suppose to appear after a change in scene. I narrated
"After a while, the lady came back with her wallet" (It should've been
'came back with her specs' but Bui forgot to take them off earlier and he mentioned 'she' went to get 'her'
wallet before the scene change - bummer, what does an old lady at an inn got to do with forgetting her
wallet!) and we waited. Poor Jonathan was acting like an old man trying to lift a box off the ground for quite some time. Obviously Jonathan couldn't buy enough time of acting to tell the audience that we're experiencing a problem. About 1 minute later, Bui showed up and the show continued. What was his reason for the delay?
Boobs adjustment...
At some parts, we were too fast for line responses - didn't look natural but more to get it and done. And of course a part when Bui was on the brink of laughter from his habit since mimicking his voice to be a shrilled 'old'/young lady seems hardwork. That's when he was suppose to say his lines to Yeo, the husband. Desperation has enough courage for Yeo to point at Bui while repeating
"No, No, NO" under his breath, smiling and nearly breaking down into laughter after being spread from Bui. I was at the side laughing away at these slip-ups. Nearing the end, there was suppose to be a short pause when Yeo's body was to be possessed by the lady as he falls down for a moment. We all as 4 ghosts gathered around, awaiting Yeo to get up and finish his last lines so that we can make the scene an end to it all. Awkwardly,we waited with no actions or emotions, as if there was a lag phase. We were all thinking like
"Yeo, you better not be sleeping now!" Then he got up and said his lines then ran up the stairs, fell down with a
"Aiyak" attached to it.
That ended our play in the hot environment as we removed all our costumes in sweat. Hafiq managed to make some good slides and movies for the credits and intros. Erfi did well on his sarcasm and gentleman part. Yeo did some good acting as a protagonist. Bui managed well on his part as an old lady being a half witch. I just couldn't help smiling even when I was being killed by the old lady in one scene. Sounds like a quote from
Warcraft III DotA's Queen of Pain:
Die smiling :DWell that's that for this semester's English drama presentation, just hope we can fair well with grades. Got lots to talk about but time is a factor for everything.
PS: Congrats to Rol and his team on winning the 1st round in his
DotA league.
Until then,
au revoir everyone!
