Lotsa and lotsa things have begun and ended...


Just completed the Beckett Residency at KLPac last Saturday. Our presentation went well, after two 5 day weeks of intensive workshops from 10am-5pm with Sarahjane Scaife. I must say I was totally honoured to be given the part of May in Footfalls, a short play in about half an hour, about a mother and a daughter... well... it's a rather psychotic play about this girl who paces nine steps up and down a strip of floor, because she has to hear the sounds of her "feet, however faint they fall". And she has been doing it since young. Why she does it? That would be up to you, me or anyone else to figure out as the play goes along. And the play takes place when she is in her forties... whether she is actually living or dead is another question. And her mother comes in the form of only a disembodied voice from the dark right through the play (played by Sabera Shaik). A very surreal ghostly play. It does go under the 'ghost plays' category, in Beckett's collection. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I hope I did justice to my character. Sarah and Chris said I did well. Mr. Beckett is such a genius, I kept discovering new angles to her everytime I rehearsed. And your interpretation can be totally different from the next person, just as long as you can (and you will) find that it speaks to you in some way, in your life.

Doing Beckett takes a lot of understanding. And I am relieved that I for one do understand him and his writings better, than when I first started out with Happy Days 3 months ago. The most amazing thing happens when it suddenly dawns upon you that "Hey... I get it!!"

Yesterday was back to normal work. Not full time theatre work, but boring office work. I was relishing my so called full time actor status the past two weeks :D heheh.

Made some friends. Am glad Sarahjane came here. We got certs, each of us. Yeay!

The KL Ensemble is still taking shape slowly but surely. With all the headache some members, especially 3-5 of us, have been going through, like painting the floor in the dark (11pm) with only street lamps and an emergency lantern for light, to burning my hands with the thinner I used to wash the brushes in the dark, to buying fans and getting them in time for rehearsal, to paying the electricity bill so that we can switch on the damn fans for the rehearsal, instead of melting in the heat... I am surprised I am still walking and talking normally. The methane we inhaled that night from the lack of ventilation and overdose of paint definitely got to our heads, coz Hazlin, Derek and I were laughing right through our mamak session after that, for no particular reason. Of course the irony of our situation was enough to make any one laugh with pity. And mind you, we were also in the middle of our Beckett Residency during this time. With our rehearsals and lines to memorise and presentation the next day... sigh.

I swear I could still taste and smell the methane through my nasal passage the morning after.

We are all mad.

Gotta sleep now. Going to the space in the morning. Contractor needs to change the lock, of which I had to use my 'Italian Job' robbery skills and swipe a card through the door to open it the other day.

Later.