ENDGAME

Frankenstein blog is up....

2006-08-29T16:16:00.000+08:00

Hey guys, the production blog for Frankenstein In Love is up and running. Its a little bare at the moment but that'll change as we get our shit together. The address is www.frankenstein-in-love.blogspot.com. See you there.

Peace.

Frankenstein cast

2006-08-25T11:44:00.001+08:00

Hello there ladies and gents, boys and girls, pals and gals. The Frankenstein in Love blog will be up in the next couple of days. Just wanted to drop a line to let you know who's going to be in it and the team behind it.

I'm happy to say that the creative team will consist of the same group of crazy lunatics who have been with me since the beginning. Jia-Wei will be designing the set and Paul Hasham will be building it and both have told me that this is the one production they've been aching to get started on. Jia-Wei has been talking to me a little about her ideas for the set and its going to be fucking awesome!

I'm particularly pleased with the cast. Once again its an odd mix of veterans and newcomers but what's great is that the extablished actors will be, for the most part, be playing completely against type so it'll be really interesting to see what they come up with. Here's the cast.

Rashid Salleh, Mary George, Melissa Maureen, Michael Chen, Rauf Fadzilla, Bharani, Patrick Teoh, Reza Zainal Abidin, Douglas Lim, Reuben Arthur, U-En Ng and Mano Maniam. Don't know about you but I'm fucking pumped!! Talk again soon.

Peace.

And so it ends.....for now.

2006-08-10T16:33:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone. Sorry its taken me a little longer than usual to wrap things up over here. Been having a bitch of a time trying to finalize the cast for 'Frankenstein In Love', which is the next play I'm directing. More on that later but now, back to Endgame. Its been interesting to take a little time to think about the run and the various responses people had towards it. We knew from the beginning that the play was bound to divide some people simply because of its very nature, the fact that it didn't conform to the more conventional structure and logic that audiences have grown accustomed to over the years. But I think we all took some weird sadistic (or masochistic, depending on how you look at it) pride in that. I remember one night during a smoke break, U-En, Alvin and I were talking about it and we really had no clue how people were gonna react to it. But then again, we had the same fears and insecurities about The Homecoming.

As for the performance.....okay, when I've got a play opening, I'm a fuckin' wreck. There's always this little voice in the back of my mind saying "Anything could happen, its live man! Fucking live! What are you gonna do if they fuck up? Nothing and you know why? Cos there really is NOTHING you can do." And the thought stays with me from the time the play opens till the day it closes, cos even if we have a kick ass opening, its not like a film. When you watch a film for a second time, its still the same film. Your perception of the film may change but the film itself, is still exactly the same film you watched before. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with live theatre. Anything can happen from night to night and its up to the actors to take everything in thier stride and just fucking do it. There are so many things that could potentially hurt a performance. The actors could be tired or sick or maybe they're just not feeling it or there's a technical fuck up or they got a difficult audience or the energy's not there or the pacing is off or the rhythms are off or the fucking weather or traffic causes us to start later than we would like and the focus is affected.......the list goes on. And being an actor myself, it causes me to be all the more aware of each of these potential problems. So yeah, I'm a stressed little bunny come opening night.

To be honest, I was completely blown away by the response we got. I thought we would probably average out at around 60-70 people a night, and even then I thought that was pushing it. Our publicity was very low key, it wasn't a easy play to describe to first time theatre go-ers and Beckett's name has a tendency to scare some people. Can't for the life of me imagine why.:) In the end, there was only one performance in which we played to less than a hundred people, and for a Beckett play, that's fucking awesome. But what was really fascinating about the run for me, was that each night, the audience's reaction would be totally different from the previous night. One night, we get a laughing audience, the next night a listening audience, and so on. It really kept the actors on their toes. There was no safe place where they could relax and go "Oh, the audience loves this bit!" because there was no such bit. Every night different audiences picked up on different things and it was amazing to see and hear how different people interpreted it. Whether they liked it or not was another matter altogether, but regardless of how they felt about it, they kept talking about it. They wanted to figure it out, they wanted to make sense of what they just saw. And as I stood there, listening to people argue about it, I couldn't help but smile. Fuckin' Beckett, man......what a trip.

A huge thank you to everyone who checked out the blog and the show. Its not entirely over yet as we'll be taking it to Penang in November after Frankenstein closes. So it looks like we'll get to fuck with a few other people's heads before hammering down the final nail in the coffin. Hehehe....should be fun. In the meantime, keep a look out for the Frankenstein In Love production blog which should be up and running once we start rehearsals at the end of August. Its a horror play by Clive Barker, the guy responsible for Hellraiser, Candyman, Nightbreed and other lovely, gory tales. There will be blood.....lots of it. Bring on Halloween.

Thanks once again.

Peace.

We've come to the end... for now

2006-08-07T01:38:00.000+08:00

The show has closed. I sit here at home. Again, it's past midnight and I can't sleep. I am sad for a number of reasons. Endgame... well, I had the best and worst times of my life. I've had the great honour and pleasure of working with a truly excellent group of people, and I will not trade that for anything, but if ever I were asked to play Hamm again in future, I think I'd refuse.

We had a decent last show. After it, we had a Q&A with the audience. Someone asked the very good question: What moral do we, as actors (i.e. as people) take away from Endgame? At the time I'm afraid I hadn't given the question much thought, having concentrated for a long time exclusively on delivering Hamm properly, rather than bringing him (or a part of him) away with me. As a result, I gave a very asinine textbook answer and stole some ideas from Nani and Kelvin. No shame, this Chinaman. I apologise for that.

Here is what I should have said:

Playing Hamm has forced me to re-examine some very basic things in my life. Love. Absence. The utterly unspeakable pain of losing something you never knew you had until you lost it. I can say this with some clarity now because a) it's 1.30am, and b) I am a still a little tipsy from the cast party.

Maybe you'll ask how can acting a character in a play screw you up so much? Maybe you'll ask if life is so pitiably shallow and inconsequential that a mere script can change the way one lives? Moreover, what's there to guarantee that, tomorrow, one won't latch on to something else and, dammit sod, one's back to being the idiot one was all along?

These are valid questions. My answer is that one never stopped being that idiot in the first place and that, having found the Truth, or whatever you want to call it, you also realise simultaneously that it's too late to do anything about it anyway.

So, the moral is this: If you ever have something important to say, say it before you turn to dust and ashes.

Someone loves you, love them back.

Well, here we are

2006-08-03T01:44:00.000+08:00

It is past midnight and I can't sleep, so here I am. The show has opened and it was, well, an opening. Nani and Kelvin performed excellently. Alvin had some problems initially, but thought quickly on his feet and devised some good saves, so all went well in my opinion. Gavin spitting nails, but that is what he normally does on opening night. Self ho-hum. I believe I did better last night. Nell was around and laughed a lot. Always a fine thing to hear The Nell Laugh. Listen to Beauty and the Beast on RedFM weekday mornings for more of the Laugh. Hah. Nell, see, I got plug your show on the blog. Me so clever.

For those of you who didn't come tonight, here is what happened:

Thor messaged me at about 7.16pm. This is what he said: "Dont let d hair grow baldy. N remember d 1st line u limp dick. I'll b listening."

It's good to know that one has friends. I wish this were a Fringe production of Endgame and he were playing Nagg. Emasculated prick. Btw, hallo Cindy. Did you enjoy the show?

Took a while to put make-up on. Foundation. What the hell is that? Never mind. Then eye-shadow. Okey-dokey. Right as rain. Then Jia-Wei says Idiot you forgot to put on the white powder. Hah? You didn't say white powder yesterday, etc etc.

Then Gavin says "everyone on stage. I have sixty-three years of tosh to spout at you" so off we go and listen. Thankfully, I don't have my glasses on, so I can't see the ugly prat. Then go back to dressing room to work out what "white powder" is. Jia-Wei has inconveniently disappeared. Then realise that I'm bald. Make up goes on the whole head, not just the face. Say a few dignified words in Old French.

Then say to Alvin: Oi cepatlah shee-shee. Or was that yesterday? Don't remember.

Then Lawrence says "Nmrvsthshte" or something like that, which roughly translates as "It is now 8.15, doors will open in ten minutes." So, blind as a bat (because no glasses), I grope my way to props table, pick up the crap I am obliged to brandish, then grope my way to chair with help of Lawrence. Sit there for quite a while.

Then play starts and everything goes upside down for about 80 minutes.

Play over. Grope way back to dressing room. Take off makeup. Appreciate the things women do. Fail to understand why they do it when they are already so beautiful anyway. Hah.

Go outside. Run into some very nice people who enjoyed the show. It was nice of them to say they liked it.

Next, run into the hyperactive FireAngel and Suanie. Do the obligatory camwhore thing, complete with back-to-front up-yours salute. You can no doubt see it on their blogs. FireAngel's hair has grown. She very pretty. Some more, her birthday. Forgot to wish her Happy Birthday, but there you are. I am a prat.

Go upstairs to Joe's Balcony, where Great Party is said to be in progress. Find pitiful desultory whimper instead. Say a few dignified words in Old French. Run into May from the embassy. Temporarily forget who she is (sorrylah May, it has been a few years) and valiantly dig self out of hole. May is quite clever. She is not fooled.

Am very exhausted at this stage.

Run into Rashid (Nani's papa) and Fati (Nani's mama). Yak for a while, but then they have to cabut.

Then want to cabut myself, but Alvin says: "Eh... err... heheh... err... can give me a lift home ah?"

I say: "Why?"

He says: "My car bungkus oready."

I say a few dignified words in Old French.

"Oklah"

Spend the next two hours driving the bugger back through a traffic jam to his house in Muar or somewhere.

Then get home. And here I am. It is past midnight and I can't sleep.

tick tock

2006-08-02T16:26:00.000+08:00

four more hours 'til we open.

i'm on the verge of throwing up.

the gav tells me to use it for the stage.

but i need a paper bag, just in case.

enjoy.

Opening Night

2006-08-02T10:38:00.000+08:00

Hello All! Tonight is opening night! I thought maybe before you head into the theatre I should give you a little clue as to what the production design is going to be, lest you walk into the theatre and go "huuuuuhh?". Most of what I'm about to write is already in my designer's notes in the programme, but isn't it much easier reading it off a brightly lit screen than squinting in the dark at 12-point American Typewriter font? On another note, please purchase the programme - unlike other programmes, we do have some juicy bits in it. (Available at the Pentas 2 merchandise counter for RM 5.)

So. Designing Beckett has been a trip, to say the least. I wasn't and still isn't, very familiar with Beckett's work. I knew he was a writer of absurdist plays, and I read the college staple - Waiting for Godot. 3 years on from my History of Modern Theatre class, I had forgotten most of what I'd learnt about Beckett. So I read Endgame like how I read every script that comes my way. Except this time around, the usual methods of dissecting a script didn't result in any aesthetic epiphanies. You see, the more I tried to interpret the text in allegorical or symbolic terms, the less it made sense to me. Hints of a Brechtian approach popped up, but feeling as unsure as I was, I just dismissed it as a whim. I sat on it for a few days, trying to put something down on paper, researching at the same time. Everything I read about Beckett just confused me even more - he was known for his distrust of any kind of exegesis and was notoriously evasive when it came to assigning any sort of definitive meaning. If that's the case, then why are there so many bloody opinions or critical definitions by the hundreds of so-called Beckett experts? What, really, is the 'Beckettian ideal'? GAH!

So, feeling extremely confused and a little disheartened, I had a chat with Gavin and asked him if he would be adverse to the idea of workshopping the set (i.e. we develop the set as rehearsals progressed...) After all, the set consists of - a chair on castors, 2 windows and 2 'ashbins. The question was how we were going to place them, how big should the windows be? etc. I didn't know a thing - all I knew was that I wanted desperately to steer away from symbolism and create a purely functional set. Of course, Gavin agreed (at which point I removed my stiletto from his crotch.) Why the aversion to symbolism, well, I guess you'll have to come and watch the play to fully understand it. When you watch Endgame being performed, its meaning is inherently contained within Beckett’s textual and physical choreography. To design something symbolic would immediately contextualize the play, which I felt, would not lend itself to the verbal imagery. My goal was that everything on stage is not there to tell you anything, but they’re to help the actors tell their stories. Everything on stage is there because the actors need it, and because it’s mentioned in the script.

When we moved into our rehearsal space, links between Beckett and Brecht began to appear. First, I started noticing lines in the dialogue that were clearly addressing an audience, and then I started noticing Beckett’s choreography of Clove’s movements and how they were never superfluous or gratuitous. Both of these, from a design perspective, complement Brecht’s philosophies of action design and the alienation effect. Funny that, how things come full circle.

Anyway, after weeks of experimentation, we’ve decided to go the route of keeping with Beckett’s original set directions while employing Brechtian methods of execution. I’ve attempted to separate the audience and the action. For once you are not invited into the world of these characters, but merely remain as the spectator, the voice of rational being who is liable to simply observe. The whole set is exposed, as with the workings of the theatre, to reiterate: This is a play, these, its actors and you, the audience.

NOW the end is nigh. Not yet... but nearly.

2006-07-31T16:13:00.000+08:00

We intended to post short audio snips of Endgame in a lame attempt at publicity. For technical reasons, however, this is not possible (blogspot does not allow non-image uploads) so there goes that blindingly brilliant plan.

As you can see from the lack of posts lately, there has been a lack of posts lately. There are many reasons for this, principal of which is the fact that I have the privilege to work with a pack of lazy, snivelling, scumsucking bastards. So it falls on me to keep the rest of you lazy, snivelling, scumsucking bastards informed.

Here are entries from my otherwise non-existent diary. You may sell any of it (or any part thereof) to Hello magazine, or whatever other intellectually-challenged rag you might find delightful to read:

Thursday 27th July, 2006
REHEARSAL

Opening lines fubar. What the hell. Do I think I am an actor? Forgot a prop, so had to improvise. The last time I improvised was on the opening night of Homecoming when I forgot my first line, in the first scene, of the first act, of the first ever stage production I ever did in which I actually said something. Anyway, that is an old story. Lots of blood under the bridge.

Somewhere along the way we managed to get some semblance of a rehearsal happening. Not good, but still a rehearsal. Then Alvin the Complete and Utter Lobotomised Worm interrupts his line thus:

Clov: Sharks? I don't know. If there are there will be... uh... eh... aiyah... heheh... sorryla... I really need to... you know... like... go." (exits, left)

Wtf. Go? Where? I play a blind person who cannot walk. I face the audience. At this point Clov stands behind me. I cannot see. I don't know what the hell he is doing. Time passes. Nothing stirs. I get up and get my missing prop. I go back to my chair. Time passes... the idiot has gone for a pee. He comes back.

Alvin: Ah... eh... heheh... sorryla.
Me: (continues rehearsal. I know he will be right royally screwed after the run and thank the kind heavens, for otherwise I'd get the right royal screwing for having forgotten my prop.)

Actually I don't remember exactly where in Endgame this takes place, but it reminds me of the time when, rehearsing Homecoming, I said to Thor before the rehearsal:

Me: Oy, old man, have you wound up your car windows? Looks like rain.
Thor: Nyeerwooorrmmd. (Somesuch sound to the like effect)
Me: I'm not joking. The storm's over Ampang. It should hit us in about an hour.
Thor: Nyeerwooorrmmd.

(Rehearsal begins. Act 1, Sc 3.)

Thor (brandishing his walking stick as Max): We've had a lousy stinking whore under the roof all night... er... ah... oh fuck. (Drops stick, gets up and runs down stairs into the carpark because a storm has hit).

Approaching the beginning of the end

2006-07-31T15:49:00.000+08:00

Hey guys Gavin here. Yeah, there's no getting around the fact that we've all been a bunch of lazy shits the last week. For those of you that have been coming back to the blog, thanks a bunch. I'll be getting on the actor's asses about being more regular with the posts. The next few days are going to be very interesting so it'll be cool for them to share it with you (in some way or another).

We bumped in (wanky theatre term for moving out of the rehearsal space and into the theatre) Thursday last week. A blessing really to get that kind of time in the theatre. Most times, you're lucky if you can do two runs of the show in the theatre before opening. With this one, we would've had five runs come opening night, which is great cos the theatre is twice the size of the rehearsal space we've been working in. It always feels a little weird when you first go into the theatre because you've gotten so used to working the show in a certain space. Then all of a sudden you've got twice as much room, which fucks with your blocking cos now you gotta re-time your lines with your movement so the pace doesn't lag and you gotta be conscious of your volume and blah blah. So yeah, can get a little disorientating. But on the plus side, it gives the cast and me one hell of a wake up call. When you run a play over and over, night after night, its easy to get stuck in a rut. Bumping in always helps to put us back on our toes. 'Oh shit, I, like, totally forgot people are coming to this!'

We'll be having our full dress rehearsal tonight and the big man, Joe Hasham himself, will be checking it out so that should be fun. Always an education. And I gotta catch up with Mac in a mo while he tweaks the lights a little cos as it stands now, it might be a bit TOO dark haha. Anyway, be back soon. Should have some full dress pics up soon.

Peace.

Wor Chao...

2006-07-21T07:33:00.000+08:00

Hey fellas... da mole is finally out of his hole. geez... i'm actually writing this in my snoozy state right now. even the somewhat random arrangement of alphabets on da keyboard is starting to make sense. just like when it dawned on me dat Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds actually implied LSD. and i thought dat Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies were just stuff dat comes out Barney the Singing Purple Dinosaur's mouth. Oh by da way, i'm da Ah Beng playing Clov...

I'm having so much fun in this production dat when Endgame actually ends, i'll be da first to cry like a pansy ass and end up hugging anyone in sight, including da ever-ready-to-salute-machas in da KLPAC guardhouse. i tell ya, the Endgame crew looks like a bunch of radicals who would pull a guerilla on da theatre scene armed with... with... a fluffy dog, a glorified stick called gaff, talcum powder, old school alarm clock, a dude with a perpetual barret or cap and... okay not too much detail now. But Beckett's tough shit, did i spell his name right? it's very very intense. as Gavin would put it, "you'll need a great command of focus for this one..." true dat. it's mentally taxing and it doesn't get any easier with me coming from a very Chinese literate background. U En's my walking dictionary. there were a lot of stuff in da script i didn't understand. in da beginning i just performed based on sheer instinct. guessing what dat Sam dude could've meant with those tricky lines. i mean, i can't be spoutting them lines without understanding them thoroughly. Gavin's great to work with, he made da whole theatre experience feels much less intimidating for me. just like how intimidating lawn bowling is to da old folks and French people. when in doubt, head butt da fucker!

'There's something dripping in my head'.

2006-07-20T12:06:00.000+08:00

Hello people, Gavin here. Sorry for the lack of updates. I can only assume that my actors are too busy learning their lines to post anything. And poor Alvin only has time to learn his lines after 3am cos 'Mumbo Jumbo' is still pretty pumping before then. But that's just on Wednesdays......what does he get up to during the other six days of the week? Its one of those great mysteries......its right up there with the JFK assasination. A lone gunman? Yeah, right. You want the truth, talk to Oliver Stone. That guy knows things.

Wrote my director's notes for the programme yesterday. I have mixed feelings about director's notes. I love the 'idea' of director's notes, that you're given this one chance to speak your mind about the how's and why's of this and that and all the other things that you think might help the audience understand where you're coming from. I for one, enjoy reading director's notes. Sometimes, they're really funny. Especially when the notes include words like - art, artistic, artistry, artful. That always cracks me up. But anyway, I digress. I love the idea. The actual writing is another thing entirely. Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy the process of writing director's notes cos it gives me a chance to sort of reflect on the play and what we've been doing and how its effected us and all that but to try and write all this down without making it sound like a prententious wank isn't as easy as you might think. Downright impossible actually, its like trying to say 'no' to Faridah Merican. It just doesn't happen. Anyway, I guess you guys can judge for yourselves.

We'll be running the play for the first time tonight. I'm looking forward to it. Normally first runs are either really good or really bad so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Before the run, we'll be recording the play (finally), so that should warm the actors up pretty good for the run. Sorry the recording has taken so long. I've been wanting to get some sound bites on the blog for you guys to listen to, and we will, hopefully by next week. We tried to record it last week but we kept hearing the 'Broken Bridges' songs in the background cos they were rehearsing upstairs. So tonight's recording will be done in a proper sound proof recording studio......which I never knew we had, otherwise I would've used it the first time. Y'know those old 'Tom & Jerry' cartoons where a thought balloon pops up above a character's head and there's a picture of a jackass? Yeah, that's how I felt when I found out we had a recording booth.

The actors are really getting into their roles. U'En's portrayal of Hamm is gonna floor a lot of people I think. He's perfectly suited to material like this cos he just has a great apreciation for the language. Plus he's got cool sounding voice. He has the ability to sound menacing and sinister as well as scared and sympathetic. Alvin is a fuckin' riot, plain and simple. His Clov ranges from being painfully funny to frustratingly sad, and by the end of the play, you really feel as though the character has gone through an evolution of sorts. I love the relationship between Kelvin's Nagg and Nani's Nell. I've always had a soft spot for these characters because of the way their relationship addresses the issue of love and loss. There's something both inherently beautiful and heart breaking about old love, because you get the sense that these two people have only recently discovered that they live thier lives for each other, when neither one of them, has much time left to live.

So we've got, like what....thirteen days to go? Can't wait. It'll be a crazy night on August 2nd when the lights go down. I expect to be a wreck.

Peace.

line!

2006-07-17T17:29:00.000+08:00

whoa, kepanasan yang tak terhingga. you can even fry an egg on u-en's bald head.

anyways, we're going off-book starting this week. which means we're burning our scripts before the run today, and if we don't remember our lines, all we gotta do is shout out the magic word, and lawrence'll prompt us. come next week, we're burning lawrence, so if we do fuck up then, we jaga-jaga diri lah. heh. which means continuing even if lines are skipped. not panicking when lines are forgotten. knowing what to do when your arse is burning like that. and imagining the look on the gav's face- very the scary.

off to rehearsals now. let's see what happens tonight.

'are you crying again?'

2006-07-13T15:22:00.000+08:00

murmurs. conversation in the dark.
i can no longer see.
voices. in. the. dark.
i miss.
you.
in the dark.
i hear. the silence.
as loud as any scream.
it is in darkness.
i see my soul.
recognition. of. regret.
so much.
regret.
so many. useless. words.
action?
no. not me. not you.
not ever.
i must live.
so must you.
i miss.
you.
i.
you.
forever.
apart.
i.
you.
forever.

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness

2006-07-13T11:01:00.000+08:00

Jia-Wei says there are some problems with the original audio tape. Sound levels uneven, reverb, etc. If we can, we'll re-record this evening. So all of you lazy fence-sitting bastards will have to wait a little longer. For the non-fence-sitting crowd, Gavin says tickets are out. Go and buy. Come and see. Live action theatre. Not as seen on TV. No ad breaks. No censor's snips. No mermaids. No giant two-headed alien who is actually Elvis's mother. What more can we say?

OK. Time to go to work. I still have to eat. Theatre doesn't pay. Because of you lousy stinking fence-sitting bastards.

The end is motherfuckin' nigh bitch

2006-07-11T16:42:00.000+08:00

Hey guys, Gavin here. The blog has kinda lagged lately so sorry about that. I've been busy with the Beckett Residency, which was great fun. It was a little like being back in school.....y'know, you had the fuckers that were just there because.....well, they were just there la, then you had the swots, the people who always look like their doing stuff but actually they're not doing anything at all (my category ladies and gents) and then they were the suckers who look very calm and serene but behind closed doors are actually going out of their minds cos they doing everyone else's work for them. Nah, can't tell a lie. Great bunch of people, some really talented individuals.

The Residency went on from the 27th of June till the 8th of July, this past Saturday. Thankfully it was more practical than theory. I sucked at school. Acadamia (is that how you spell it?) was never my thing. I remember back in Form 3, while everyone else's parents were telling their sons and daughters to score 8 A's or else, my dad was telling me and I quote - "Just pass! I'm not asking for much, just pass the bloody thing! Please!" I did pass. Although I must confess I remain somewhat baffled as to how.

Majority of the Residency was spent rehearsing for our final presentation which was a performance of six short Beckett plays, in Pentas 2. The plays were (just in case anyone cares to know)-
1) Act Without Words
2) Catastrophe
3) Come and Go
4) Rough for Theatre
5) Footfalls
6) Nacht und Traume

I opted not to perform in any of them and worked on the lighting instead which was very cool seeing as the last time i helped light anything was way back in college when things were still done manually. Now everything's fucking computerized and shit so you got this big fucking control board in front of you, staring you down and you can pratically hear it whispering to you in a slow, Clint Eastwood, type of voice "Go on punk.....push the wrong button......fuck up the cue, then assume the position and prepare for maximum discomfort.....bitch." But luckily Aedin (our lighting desinger who came with Sarah Jane, who conducted the Residency) was very patient with me, so I didn't have to assume the position too many times. But lemme just say.....the tech crew here at KLpac rock, and I'm not just saying that cos its KLPac, they just rock - plain and simple. A note to anyone out there who's even thinking of directing.....treat your crew good cos these people play just as vital a role in making sure your show comes alive as your cast.

But anyway, back to Endgame. We spent a fair chunk of time in the initial stages of rehearsals to really get into the language. As I think I mentioned in an earlier posting, the words are really the star of the play. It was essential that the actors really relished what they were saying because as an audience member, if you're not familiar with Beckett, it is possible to get a little turned off by it because you might find yourself trying to cling to something..... like a plot, and with Beckett, there seldom is a plot. That's not what his plays are about. Its not about sitting your ass down and saying "Okay. I'm here. I've paid for my ticket. Give me a fuckin' show.", so its up to the actors to draw the audience in with the words and to do that, they need to love what they're saying. So we paid a lot of attention to that. Endgame doesn't have a conventional linear narrative, it doesn't have a clever plot twist at the end, it doesn't have special effects, cursing, spitting, violence, sex, drugs or rock and roll. But yet.....I love it, because what it does do, if you allow it to, is it shoves in your face a very scary picture of who we are and the lives we lead. And it manages to do this without resorting to anything familiar, some visual or verbal thing that makes you go "Yeah, I recognize that, I've done that, blah blah...."

I'll give you an example of what I mean: Hamm is the master and Clov is the servant. Now although the two roles are clearly defined and you know you're watching a master/servant relationship, it can be so easily compared to any employer/employee relationship. One of my favourite bits of dialogue in the play is from a monologue that Clov has where he says

Clov : I say to myself - sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you - one day. I say to myself - sometimes, Clov, you must be there better than that if you want them to let you go - one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits.

That monologue kills me every time I hear it because I've so been there before, and I know so many people who know what that feels like......that feeling of being stuck in a rut, knowing you're in a rut and yet not doing anything about it because you feel too far in the game too switch gears, or too tired or too old to start over. This never-ending fear of the future and all the possibilities of failure that it holds. The whole play is filled with amazing moments like this, where you're basically sitting there in shock because of the mirror that is constantly being held to your face the more you you begin to think about what you're watching. Like I said.....I really love this play.

So yeah, once we spent sufficient time exploring the language, next we had to start exploring the relationships and the rhythms of the dialogue. Beckett's dialogue is all about finding the rhythms. He wrote almost as if he were composing a piece of music. You take it up, then down, stay there for a while, let the audience enjoy it, the bring it up again, then down, half way, then back up again........as you can probably tell from my complex use of musical jargon, I'm an accomplshed musical theorist. I'm currently working on my latest opera tentatively titled "What I'm going to do to Michael Bay if he fucks up the Transformers live action movie"

That's all for now. Its going good so far so knock on wood, it'll be an awesome mind-fuck time come August 2nd. BTW, tickets are now on sale......shameless, I know.

Peace.

Interviews & Rehearsals

2006-07-11T12:45:00.001+08:00

Prior to the recording as mentioned by U-en below, the cast was interviewed by Sarah Jane Scaife, who was in town from Ireland to conduct the Beckett Workshop at KLPac. Here are some pictures from the interview. Basically the idea of recording Endgame as a radio play came from this interview. As part of the interview, she requested the cast read an excerpt, which went so well that everyone was in agreement that we should record the play in its entirety. As soon as we're done converting it from its orignal DAT format,we'll post a little audio preview.

The radio show

2006-07-08T15:33:00.000+08:00

No one has updated this blog for a while. Gavin is busy during the day with the Beckett Residency, where, no doubt, he is behaving like the lobotomised ape we have come to know and despise. Nani has her stuff to do, whatever that may be; Kelvin has classes (he is a student; we had to order him milk at the pub the other day); Alvin is being perpetually shot. I have been trying, without success, to earn a living; and, for reasons best known to himself, Lawrence has been sweeping the rehearsal room floor.

Anyway, last night the four of us sat around a microphone and recorded all of Endgame, reading it as if it were a radio play. Gavin was gimping around at the back providing the necessary sound effects (by dropping things on the floor, pretending to be an alarm clock, and miming masturbation. You will have to ask him about that last one yourself). Jia-Wei wasn't around, so I'm sorry but there are no pictures. Maybe later I shall try to provide you some chicken scratchings, but to be honest this is rather embarrassing and I'd much rather be playing with my playstation. So there.

Anyway, our friends from Ireland (who are here conducting the aforesaid Beckett Residency) interviewed us one evening for their friends at home, so now the Irish will know what a pack of talentless hacks we really are. I'm secretly hoping that the Taoiseach will declare us Outlaws. It will make my CV look good compared to the crap that's there. Anyway, at some point during the interview we hit on the idea of recording the play. It's an analogue recording, and Gavin has promised to get a digital conversion done. After we do that, we'll post some mp3s here so you lousy lazy stinking fence-sitting Malaysian gits will have a better idea if this is a play you want to see.

Rehearsing in the Technical Training Studio...

2006-07-03T16:53:00.000+08:00

We've been rehearsing in the technical training studio for about a week now. It's the only workable space other than Pentas 1 & Pentas 2 where we can get a blackout. It was a good time for Mac and myself to gauge how the lights were going to work in relation to the actors and the set. We've been pretty happy with what we see at the moment, which will make the transition into the theatre very exciting.

Here are some pictures from the very first rehearsal in our new space.

Nagg

2006-07-02T21:54:00.000+08:00

pitstop

2006-07-01T00:59:00.000+08:00

late friday night. me and me script. me and nagg. me getting into nagg. nagg getting into me.

you buncha perverts. i know what you're thinking.

or not? sorry. at this age one still does assume a lot.

i've always thought having a character live within you's easy. no wonder me actors gave me the finger(s) when i directed them a coupla months ago. the idea of opening up (and i mean it in the cleanest way), doing your thing, doing what you wanna do, being as silly as you can possibly be (and you know you can, you wanna), isn't the easiest thing to do either. there's just too much fucking things going on in me head, it's damn hard to concentrate during rehearsals sometimes. you get too fucking conscious of yourself, your head asks a mill and one questions, and this is in a room with three, four people. on august it'd be like, in fronta 100, 200 orang? haaa. someone gimme a paper bag.

but i've been trying to get me groove back. dah lamer tak ber-acting, one somehow crawls back into the shell of comfort, safety. the gav and the bunch, they been encouraging. more time, more rehearsals, the more i get outa me cave, the more i get into me character, the play. two weeks into rehearsals now, and it's gettin there, albeit slowly.

nagg has been, well, challenging. it's not like i can dig up something of me past on being someone's dad; i've been an annoying son to me dad, that i know. the gav suggest i talk to people who's got kids, who's expecting, who's got kids who are grown up. been approaching a few, and it's been enlightening. i mean, i'm usually with me buncha hoots and they're no where as experienced (har har) as these people. and so talking to them, i bring home a thing or two every time, and it isn't just for this production. faham faham la.

how do you think it's like being parents, to have kids, more so when they're all grown up? hm. a toughie.

neways, posters are up, postcards are everywhere, so look out of them.

g'nite.

More happy snapshots

2006-06-29T09:47:00.000+08:00

P/S we're about to hit our 300MB image quota... I think. So fast one meh?

Poster is out

2006-06-28T10:42:00.000+08:00

As you can see in the sidebar, the production poster is out. Done by Mr Isma Yusoff. It should soon start cropping up in the usual places. Seedy bars, nice family-oriented bars, Irish bars maybe, public toilets etc. Not very sure where to put Beckett's mug now.

Monday night's rehearsal was a fancy thing. We moved to the technical studio at the rear of the building. It has no windows. Walls all painted black. The move was intended to help establish Brechtian design methods (recommended by Jia-Wei and Mac) in which director, actors, and designers work in close partnership throughout the entire rehearsal process. Gavin has said somewhere in this blog that this effectively takes theatre back to its roots.

We began Monday's rehearsal in total darkness, with very little to suggest a scene except whatever we had in our heads. We had props per stage directions (e.g. Hamm's chair, Clov's ladder, and a few other things) but that was it. The idea is this: We begin with nothing. If, halfway through the rehearsal, we find that we need to pluck a pheasant, then we wouldn't pretend to pluck a pheasant, or mime plucking, or do one of the hundred things we would normally do. We'd go and get a bloody pheasant and pluck it.

Brecht had very political ideas about how this is supposed to work, and I'll leave the design aspects to Jia-Wei, but the effect of this approach -- and the rehearsal made this made clear on Monday night -- was to focus our attention exclusively on Beckett's words and their delivery. The word "prop" can mean "support", which in turn implies "crutch". Take away the crutch and the actor is forced to find some other way to do his or her thing.

The blackout set a very sinister atmosphere entirely absent in our previous readings. Speaking for myself, I found in our early readings that Endgame came over as a very pathetic play -- i.e. in the original sense of pathos, pity -- despite Beckett's intention to communicate the bleak annihilation of meaning and what happens when words survive that annihilation. More of this later, if ever.

The early readings, which took place in full light, always had the sense of "readings". I.e. say what you will about Method and various theoretical codswallop (uh, I mean "ideas") about "being in the scene" etc., we were ultimately just actors reading lines. I believe that, however hard you work towards erasing your own personality and replacing it with your character's, some trace of you remains. This has to do with light. I'm about to start talking our of my arse now.

I read somewhere that Da Vinci always began a portrait with a black canvas because he believed that the human soul was ultimately a dark creature. Removal of light from the rehearsals put in my head the idea of the destruction of that aspect of personality. Eradication of Jedi, say, and rise of the Sith. On Monday night, everything became instantly creepy -- not so much in the sense that a hantu was about to pounce on us from the dark corners of the studio (though I admit there was a bit of this) -- but more in the sense that the people I had been working with weren't really people after all. They weren't actors either. What they were I can't imagine, but whatever they were they didn't mean me well.

"Hah," you say, "this is a pack of lies designed to boost interest in the bugger's play."

Well, suck my thumb. But there is something very odd about this whole business.

When there are no more cameras...

2006-06-27T10:02:00.000+08:00

...we take pictures like these.

'what is it, my pet? Time for love?

2006-06-25T23:53:00.000+08:00

Assalammualiakum, selamat sejahtera, hello, vanaakam, sastrikal, nie how... It is I Sharifah Amani binti Syed Zainal Rashid Al Yahya here, or better known in this production as Nell... When Gavin called to ask me to do this play I really didn't know what I was getting myself into... "Abenda Samuel Beckett? Siape tu?" I wondered. Gavin had said something about it being absurd and from then I knew I wanted to do it. Hehehe... so I met up with the mat salleh/cina at Bangsar Shopping Center. We talked kejap then he pulled out a part from the script. It was about three pages I think. Then dia suruh saya baca. So saya baca. The text macam mana sikit I baca pun straight away you can rasa the lawak and sedih. I enjoyed the words so much I told Mr. Yap that I wanted in. The next day it was Borders to the rescue. Gua lompat dalam tempat tu asking for anything and everything they had to do with Samuel Becket. Dah jumpe gua lepak kat cafe jap nak baca lah the whole play because I had only read three pages of it. I wanted to know more about my charector Nell and what else she has to say or what else she does... What I found out was very, very shocking. It turns out those three pages that I had read with Gavin at BSC were.... well interesting.... "Bangang Punya Gavin Yap!! Cepat betul!" I terjerit kat the cafe. Hehehe... But as I read on I fell more in love with the words. The man's a genius. I will never get a chance to deliver lines like this in a movie. Not in a milion years. This play is something so far away from what I know. It's going to be a challenge and I love it! Bring it on, Beckett!

End of part

2006-06-24T00:15:00.000+08:00

We have just finished the first round of blocking Endgame. I am dying, having had to run Hamm's last soliloquy about five times tonight. If Gavin had said: "Let's to that again" I'd have used his own focus exercises to summon just enough energy to strangle the bastard. More of this later. But just to satisfy you buggers, I sit here at 1am telling you a story you probably won't read anyway.

Most early critics of Endgame seem to agree that the play is meaningless, and that its point is meaninglessness. Many admirers of Beckett say that he systematically, ruthlessly and heartlessly goes around dynamiting whatever sacred cow dung we worship in order to show the thing for what it really is: cow dung. In other words, Beckett's worshippers believe that to appreciate Beckett as much as they would like, you'd need a DPhil in critical theory, aesthetics, and collective wanking. Mostly, I don't disagree, except for the last bit. (Before you Beckett worshippers sue me, read that sentence again. The devil's in the syntax.)

My problem is this: Endgame breaks my goddamn heart. How can a meaningless play about meaninglessness do that?

What the hell. Am I doing something wrong? Am I reading my own narrative into a play which purpose is to destroy narrative? Or has our understanding of the world changed so much in the last 50 or so years that what was intended to make no sense at all now makes not only perfect sense, but hits us where it hurts?

Endgame, the way I see it, isn't an intellectual play that appeals merely to the mind -- although it once might have been just that. Tonight's reading hit at least one of us in the heart. It damn well hit me too.

And I was reading the bloody thing.

Nearing the second round......

2006-06-23T16:20:00.000+08:00

Hey there, Gavin here. Just trying to sort myself out before tonight's rehearsal. If all goes according to plan, we will have completed the rough blocking for the play by tonight. It'll be a late one cos we've had to combine tomorrow's rehearsal with tonight's cos Alvin dumbass Wong waited till yesterday to tell me he's got a shoot going on tomorrow. (just so you know Alvin, if you're reading this, feel free to talk shit back at me.....of course that's means you might actually have to post something here.....) After that, we'll be moving rehearsals into our tech training room so we can start experimenting with different kinds of lights.(I expect some really cool pics to come out of it) As Jia wei mentioned in an earlier post, we're attempting to do something a little different, in regards to the set and lighting design. I'll leave it to her and Mac to to explain the details (they're better at it, you see) but in a nutshell, our goal is to keep everything as practical as possible.

Whatever set or props are on stage will be there because the actors need them and no other reason. And similiarly with the lighting design, although I think I'll wait till next week before I go into that. Who knows, we may discover half way into next week that nothing works, our ideas suck and we need to change everything. So yeah, like I said, I'll wait. I love this approach though cos it kinda feels like we're taking theatre back to its basic roots, back to the old idea that all you really need to put on a show is an empty space and a couple of actors. It rare that you get the chance to do a show this way nowadays so we're all very excited about it. We hope you guys will feel the same way.

Rehearsals so far have been interesting, some good, some....not so good. But as I tell my actors, that's what rehearsals are for. Good to get all the crap out of the way now, so we can start focusing on the good stuff. Probably one of the most fun aspects, for me, in doing a play like this, is that it really feels like we're all discovering and figuring the play out together. We all kind of jumped in together at the deep end with this one. None of us was what you might call a 'Beckett expert' prior to embarking on this journey so to see these guys take to it and not allow themselves to be discouraged by it has been a major source of inspiration for me. Then again, it is early days.....

But I'm looking forward to tonight. Tonight, we'll be covering some of my favourite lines in the play. Take a look at these lines and tell me it doesn't make you go "What the fuck...." (just so you know, these lines are all from different sections)

Hamm : I'll tell you how it goes. He comes crawling on his belly -
Clov : Who?
Hamm : What?
Clov : Who do you mean, he?
Hamm : Who do I mean! Yet another.
Clov : Ah him! I wasn't sure.

and

Hamm : I want to hear the sea.
Clov : You wouldn't hear it.
Hamm : Even if you opened the window?
Clov : No.
Hamm : (violently) Then open it!

and

Clov : If I don't kill that rat he'll die.

and

Hamm : You weep, and weep, for nothing, so not to laugh, and little by little.....you begin to grieve.

What do you think? Pretty fucking trippy, eh? One of the things I love most about the approach we're taking with this play is that Beckett's dialogue is the star of the play. Like with the set and lights, the actors are only there because they need to be. (I mean, they have to be good also la but you know la what I'm trying to say)

Peace.

Nell and Nagg Rehearse for the Camera.

2006-06-22T15:28:00.000+08:00

So, I've been dropping in on rehearsals, usually with my camera to document the rehearsal process for this blog and for design reference purposes. For Endgame, Mac, our lighting designer and myself have decided to take a very different approach. In keeping with the Beckett spirit (I use this term very loosely...) we have decided that the design of the set and lights will be one that develops along with rehearsals. In other words, the blocking will decide where things go. This is based on the desire to create a set that facilitates Beckett's spoken imagery. Everything on the set will be effectively what the actors need to help them tell their story. Why we've decided to do this, I shall leave it for another post.

The wonderful thing about watching rehearsals through a lens is that more often than not I catch the actors with a certain twinkle their eye. Sometimes contemplative, sometimes tickled. I think they are enjoying his words very much.

the gav, the beck, the nagg

2006-06-22T12:30:00.000+08:00

am hoping it's still not too late.

so, um, hullow. i'm kelvin, and i'll be playing nagg, hamm's father. the gav called me a couple of weeks ago, said he wanted to try me out for a part in beckett's. i remember reading 'bout him (the beck, not the gav) back then in my theatre history module, but that was about it. then i found out that pinter (who wrote the homecoming which the gav directed also) was a friend of the beck. i caught it, and liked it. then the gav called me back for a second read. and i got the part.

the gav kept on stressing that this particular beckett play isn't easy to do. i couldn't agree more. on the night when he handed us our scripts, i skimmed through it, didn't understand a thing. then when we read it together in klpac the day after, i still didn't get it. so what did i do? panic la! i knew i could google the play and have it entirely explained to me online, but somehow it defeats the purpose. no syok that way.

we've been in rehearsals for almost a week now. am finding bits and pieces here and there. things are adding up slowly. i doubt i'll get all the answers by the time the production ends, and i think that's kinda the point. that's precisely why plays are written, no? so we'd keep on asking and inquiring and finding answers. ha, you guys are gonna have one helluva time. tickets on sale already ah?

will talk about my character later. have a good one.

.....already the sun was sinking.....

2006-06-21T17:20:00.000+08:00

I sit and wait, for what, I'm not sure. All around exists nothing but darkness. I can't see. I can't remember the last time I could see anything. I struggle to remember what the sun looks like, or the moon even. I remember being given a toy car as a child. I remember dropping it from a ninth storey window, wishing that I was behind the wheel as it plummetted down to the cold, hard earth. I remember wishing for death, or at the very least, a horrible day. The kind of day that beats you down and leaves you for dead, leaving you no choice but to step outside yourself and take apart everything that is wrong with you, until nothing else is left but the useless shell that once looked a little like you, or someone like you. Was it ever you? Who's to say? Who knows who they really are anyway?

In my mind, I see myself burning. I'm tied to a chair. I can't move or scream. I just burn. Over and over again. Two feet away from me lies a fire extinguisher. I can't reach it. I don't even try. What would be the point? I close my eyes and wait. I wait for the flames to do their job. I wait for death. But it doesn't come. Just pain. Nothing but pain.

As the last breath leaves me, God grants me my wish and I remember the sun. Its beautiful. A beautiful memory. Only a memory.

Welcome to The End.

First Rehearsal..

2006-06-20T16:22:00.000+08:00

Blocking, Day One

2006-06-20T13:56:00.000+08:00

First blocking rehearsal last night. Good rehearsal, although it was somewhat amusing to find myself remembering first blocking rehearsals from previous productions thinking "Why the hell is he always looking down? Doesn't he know that.....what the hell....oh, I see. He's looking at his fucking script!" One good or bad habit (depending on how you look at it) I have as a director is that I'm constantly visualising stuff in my head and in my head nobody's holding their fucking scripts!! Ah, what joy! What fantasy! (Firstly, I just want to make it very clear that I only have these thoughts when I'm directing and, when acting, I am guilty of exactly the same shit. But c'mon, you know what I'm talking about, right? The thought of going clubbing is always more fun than the actual going......ok, I think I may be in the minority there.)

Where was I? Oh yes, rehearsal. There is nothing in a Beckett play that doesn't have a reason for being there. His stage directions are incredibly specific. There was some discussion as to how faithful we should be with the stage directions. Should we follow it as closely as possible? Say fuck it and do it our way? Find a middle ground perhaps?

Personally, I feel there's isn't much point tackling writers like Pinter or Beckett unless you're going to adhere to the genius of their work. Their plays are considered masterpieces for a reason. With The Homecoming, we strayed from the stage directions quite a bit but as that was a familiar, living room environment, it was easier because although the play itself might have been a tad off center, it was grounded in a reality that we could all recognize. Endgame, on the other hand, exits in a different reality. Beckett's reality. I know that sounds wanky, I'm flogging myself mercilessly as I write it, but I don't know how else to put it. Beckett's plays depict the world in a way only he saw it. So to do Beckett, you have to leave any preconceived ideas you may have at the door. Otherwise you'll hate him and hate yourself and not understand why and hate everything else because of it. And then you'll die a slow, miserable death courtesy of Kakiseni.:) (A joke people. Please put the phone down. Its not worth calling your lawyer.)

So what we've decided to do is remain faithful to the broad strokes of Beckett's directions (we'll be faithful to the big stuff and play around with the small stuff, if the opportunity presents itself.....oh, who am I kidding, we'll probably change all of it, kidding) and to put our creative mark on the characters and the relationships between them. When it comes to stage presentation and movement of characters, Beckett is pretty clear about what he wanted. What he has left open for us to play with is everything in between. The relationship between Hamm(U-En) and Clov(Alvin Wong) for example. Yes, we know they are master and servant. We know they are stuck together in this room. We know they have been together for some time. But the complexities and subtleties of their relationship are more or less fair game. Imagine, if you can, being stuck in an enclosed room with someone, outside exists nothing but death. Imagine the bond that you might share with someone in such a situation. You may hate them and love them somtimes, but wouldn't you also grow to need this person more and more with each passing day? Don't you think, in many ways, you might come to see this person as the only real thing you have left? These are a fraction of the questions we have to ask ourselves to in order to create a believable relationship between these two men. I'll be working with Nagg(Kelvin) and Nell(Nani) tonight so I'll wait till tomorrow to talk about their characters.

So yeah....blocking......I didn't really say very much about it, did I? Oh well, never mind, you're getting off light. It would would have been dull as fuck if I had made a post saying '.....and then I had Alvin move two inches to the right. I told him to stay there until U-En had finished his line. After that, I told U-En to smile here because I liked the look of it, after that I asked Alving to walk seventeen steps to the left while picking his nose......' Asleep yet?

Talk again.

Peace.

...

2006-06-20T01:15:00.000+08:00

You know what gives me the absobloominlutely bleedin shivers? That little kid Clov sees out of the window towards the end of the play. Hamm can’t see a damn, so he doesn’t matter. But what does Clov see? Remember Mammon from Constantine? Well, kid Mammon. Skin scorched grey, black. Peeling off in places. Hanging like a rag in others. But enough remains for you to know that it was a kid. Is a kid.

Head slightly tilted, hungry eyes. Dragging a leg. Eyeball bulging. About to burst. Right arm extended, hand curled in a twisted gesture of possession, supplication. A long-nailed, stumpy fingered paw. Tongue wrenched out. Single sharp simple tooth. Unspeakable, unspeaking.

You do not know what it is about to do. But it is about to do something. It wants to say something. You cannot hear it. But you know it is trying to say something. To you. You loathe it, fear it, but can’t take your eyes from it. It has seen you. You are hidden behind your window, but it has seen you.

It is coming.

Pictures!

2006-06-17T10:21:00.000+08:00

Here are some pictures from our photoshoot on Thursday. Some of them were taken by U-En when I was busy dumping talcum powder down Alvin's back. (I'm sure he will explain in due course.) The shoot went smoothly and I think the poster is going to turn out really well!

Casting Endgame and some other nonsense

2006-06-16T14:36:00.000+08:00

And a big thank you to Mr U-En for that little bit of insight into Beckett. Yeah, Pinter and Beckett were buddies. If memory serves, while I was reading up on Pinter during The Homecoming, I found out that they used to send each other their works in progress and give each other notes. Apparently, there was one play that Pinter sent to Beckett. The play had already been finished and I think was about to go into rehearsal. Anyway, Harry and Sam were gabbing on the phone when Harry asked Sam.....

Harry : So, what you think of that play I sent you?
Sam : Its alright, its alright.....but...
Harry : But what?
Sam : Well, there's this one speech......it just doesn't work for me.
Harry : It doesn't work for you?
Sam : It doesn't work for me.
Harry : What do you mean, it doesn't work for you?
Sam : I mean it doesn't work.
Harry : Well, I don't have to listen to you.
Sam : That's right. You don't.
Harry : So....so, maybe I won't.
Sam : Then don't.
Harry : I won't.
Sam : Fine.
Harry : Fine

* This conversation actually took place, although as you might have guessed I'm totally making up some extra bits because.....well, because I feel like it. Natch.

Anyway, Sam gave Harry his two cents worth and that was that. Then a couple of weeks into rehearsal, Harry called up the director of the production and said....

Harry : How's everything coming?
Director : Everything's coming along fine....except....
Harry : Except what?
Director : Well, there's this one speech.....
Harry : Dump it.
Director : What?
Harry : Dump it. Get rid of it.

And that, as they say, was that. True story. Pinter never mentioned which play it was and the speech was never seen or heard by an audience. I don't know about you guys but I've been really curious about which play it was. But anyway, our man Sam hit the nail right on old Harry's head so rest assured....we're in good hands. Oh yeah, quick change of topic - we had our photo shoot for the Endgame poster and postcard last night and I gotta say, this is going to be a kick ass poster. Jia-wei (who is back at set designer and yes, will be talking to you guys about that) took some pictures of the shoot which should be posted up here within the day.

So...yeah, I was gonna talk about the cast. U'En's already given himself an adequate introduction so I shan't waste too much time on him. I wasn't thinking of casting U-En initially, not because I didn't feel he could do the role justice or anything like that, quite the contrary actually, but because I always start out with the intention of working with a fresh cast. I didn't want to re-use anyone from the Double Bill or The Homecoming. But what can I say? When someone's right for a role, there's no point being an asshole about it, so I bit the bullet and brought U-En onboard. He was the first actor to be cast, not in Endgame but 4:48 Psychosis. We were at a seedy bar, drinking beers, talking about the more important things in life like how Marvel better not fuck up the Silver Surfer movie.

Me : Hey fucker.
U-En : Ah.
Me : You busy in August?

Drunk U-En shakes head.

Me : So you're free in August?

Drunk U-En nods head.

Me : Okay, cool. Wanna do another play?

Drunk U-En nods head.

Me : Its about depression and suicide.

Drunk U-En smiles.

To make a long story short, as you know 4:48 got shelved, and Endgame became a priority. It just so happened, (whether the gods were involved, who knows) that Endgame also had a role that U-En was perfect for, Hamm the master, so we were off and running.

Alvin Wong is an actor that I've wanted to do a play with for a long time now. We've done some TV work together but nothing in theatre. Everytime I ask the guy to do theatre, he say he not free, too busy whoring himself out to Astro. FYI, if you don't know who Alvin Wong is, aside from his notable work in TV shows like 'each other', 'Table for Two' and (get this) 'Homecoming' (the chinese drama), he's also the guy from the Astro ad.....y'know the one with the guy sitting between his mom and girlfriend and he's all upset cos the chicks are hogging the remote? Well, that's him. As an actor, I've always found his work impressive. He has the ability to play both larger than life as well as subtle, which is a skill not all actors have. Whether he's playing comedy or drama, he always plays for the truth. And in my mind, I just knew that he and U-En would be a great combo, a salt and pepper combo any mental patient could love. I got the two of them together for a reading (at a bar of course) and the chemistry was just there. We talked a little about scheduling (because with Alvin, you always gotta fucking talk about scheduling) and in the end, I basically told him I wasn't going to take no for an answer so he didn't bother trying. Two days later, Alvin was in. We had our Clov, Hamm's servant.

For the roles of Nagg and Nell, Hamm's parents, I had decided very early on that I wanted to cast the parents younger than the children. The main reason for this was because when I read the play, I couldn't help but feel that that's how they were treated and in many ways, how they talked and behaved. So I thought 'Fuck it, why not.' It'll probably piss off a couple of purists but so what? U-En put it best one night when he said "Beckett would call you a pussy if you followed it to a tee." And I was like "Fuckin'A right bro!"

Kelvin Wong first came to my attention a couple of years ago when he reviewed 'Wish I Was There', a play I had written, for Kakiseni. I remember this because we met a short while after and talked about the review a little. He told why he wrote what he wrote and blah blah blah and then I didn't see him again until he was, along with The Oral Stage (a ensemble theatre group Kelvin put together along with other like-minded students) getting ready to stage 'Rojak!' After that, he came to see The Homecoming, we talked a little after that and after The Homecoming closed, I went to see Rojak! and chatted with him again. I told Kelvin what I thought of the show,so no need to get into that here. He didn't act in Rojak!(he co-directed with Patricia Low) but Faridah mentioned to me that she had seen him act and that she thought I should consider auditioning him. I did and found my Nagg.

Last but not least, Sharifah Amani, who is playing Nell. Watching Kelvin and Nani as Nagg and Nell last night......if we do our jobs right, their relationship should melt and break a lot of hearts. They both bring a sense of innocence to the roles in such a way that you can't help but feel for them. I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this cast. I think. Nani really only needed one thing to be casted and that was she needed to be available, and she was, so there. There were a couple of other young atresses that I was considering but Nani just felt right. She's just an amazingly gifted actress. I loved her performance in 'Sepet'. It made the film for me. She brings so much honesty and truth to the roles she plays and I needed someone like that to play Nell. Also, I had great fun throwing her about as Hamlet and wanted to abuse her somemore so this was perfect.:)

That's all for now. Should have some pics up before the day is out.

Peace.

Me to play

2006-06-15T23:00:00.000+08:00

Hello. This is U-En. If you remember me from the Homecoming blog, you'll remember that I sometimes get a little tipsy and then I ramble on and on and on. Anyway, I play Hamm in Endgame. I'm not about to wait for the long-haired weedy git (i.e. Gavin) to give us all proper introductions, so I'll tell you a story. (The rest of the cast will join us soon and I shall duly shut up.)

This year is the centenary of Beckett's birth. A contemporary of Joyce's he was an Irishman who lived most of his life in France. He won the Nobel in '69 and died twenty years later. That much I got from some articles I have lying around.

Now for the human-interest story.

I first came across him at University, where, to impress a very beautiful woman, I went to see a straightforward production of Godot with her at the Union. The woman was partly Irish and partly Goth. She had big, um, eyes. She was quite passionate about things in general. Actually, I am a bit unclear about whether or not she was the woman in question. Anyway, to make it short, I went, I saw, and then I went home. I thought the two fellas in Godot, Vladimir and Estragon, could go on waiting for all I cared.

What I learnt subsequently was that Beckett wrote stories as well. I llked these. Partly because I felt that reading Joyce was the literary equivalent of being covered in soft fuzzy crap, and partly because Beckett plays with language the way a cat plays with a mouse--not to show how clever he is (like Joyce) but simply because he's a cruel bastard who wants to kill you slowly.

Very well. The first and last play I did was with Gavin (chronologically speaking, that is. You work out the grammar for yourselves); namely, Harold Pinter's Homecoming. This is what Pinter says about Beckett:

The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him.

He’s not fucking me about, he’s not leading me up any garden path, he’s not slipping me a wink, he’s not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, he’s not selling me anything I don’t want to buy — he doesn’t give a bollock whether I buy or not — he hasn’t got his hand over his heart. Well, I’ll buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty.

His work is beautiful.

I like the bit about leaving no maggot lonely. I am a lonely maggot. I like being a lonely maggot so fuckoffandleavemealone. But lonely maggots have unmaggoty hearts, in case you didn't know and

Where was I?

Tonight we had our second reading of Endgame. Of course, it's early days and we're still trying to figure out how the play goes but I have good maggoty feelings about this. I'll leave it to the others to say more. Assuming they get round to sending me their email addresses so I can sort out this blogger account business.

Ah. How the hell do we get one of those hit-counters here?

... hit counter thinggie is there, but there is an ad thing. We will have to live with it. Now... let's see how embarrassing this proves.

Discovering Endgame

2006-06-15T16:24:00.000+08:00

Unlike The Homecoming, I'm afraid I don't have a humourous tale to tell about how I stumbled on it out of nowhere like a fart in the wind while pinching off my daily loaf.......y'know, I have no idea why anyone would ever call me crude.....anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, no funny story.

Originally, I had planned to direct '4:48 Psychosis' by Sarah Kane, a beautiful piece of theatre about clinical depression and suicide. It was gonna be all experimental and hardcore, I was really excited about doing it. Then Joe and Faridah approached me and asked if I would consider doing a Beckett play. Now, prior to this the only Beckett play I had read was 'Waiting for Godot', which I liked but not enough to wanna stress myself out directing it. So I pretended to all agreeable and said that I would look through the other plays and see if there was any other Beckett play I liked.

I went through the complete works and frankly, just wasn't into it. I mean, they were good plays but I just couldn't connect with them. Maybe it was the fact that I already had other plans, or maybe I felt like I didn't know enough about Beckett to really take the search seriously. Maybe I said yes to stall from ultimately saying no. Yeah, maybe.

I talked to Joe and basically told him that I hadn't made my mind up yet but that I really wasn't feeling it. He nodded, told me to go with my gut and that was that. A couple of hours later, I started thumbing through the Beckett works again and started re-reading Endgame. And for whatever dumbass reason, I shit you not, the second time round, it totally cracked me up. I left it for a day, then went through it again, and this time it made me cry. In the office. True story. No one saw. Thank Christ.

The more I read it, the more I related to it on a personal level, very similar to how 4:48 Psychosis affected me the first time. It hit home on a lot of feelings I have towards life, love, family, the fucking world. Another thing that really attracted me to the idea of doing it was that I had no idea how I was gonna do it which totally freaked me out and turned me on at the same time. And it also happens to be Beckett year this year so what the hell! That's how it happened, and so here we all are, back at the deep end once again, where the water's warm, and the sharks are waiting.....they're waiting.

Be back in a bit with stuff about the cast.

Peace.

The beginning of the end...

2006-06-14T17:03:00.000+08:00

Good evening people, Gavin here. I'm sitting at my pop-culture whore of a desk at KLPac mere hours away from my first rehearsal for Samuel Beckett's Endgame, the next play I'm directing. So yeah, right now I'm just sitting here......just sitting....wondering what the hell I think I'm doing trying to tackle Beckett but that's normal.

Anyway, here we are with another production blog. I've decided that I'm gonna do this for every production I direct cos its just such a great way to connect with the audience, to give them an insight into what we're doing and the why's and the how's and all that other arty crap that some people find interesting.:) For those of you who enjoyed The Homecoming production blog, you can look forward to more of the same with this one. Only this time, its a whole new show with a new cast (except for U-En, c'mon I hadda bring Lenny back!). Rounding out the rest of the cast is Alvin Wong, Kelvin Wong and Sharifah Amani. I'm pumped about this show and I expect it to be another funny, trippy fucked up experience for all involved, especially the audience.

That's it for now. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about how the first reading with the cast went, how I came to discover the play and how the actors got cast.

Peace.