PINK LABEL : Malaysia 's Most Picturesque Blog !: On-Set

Be it Shakespeare or contemporary theater, performance art has to be immediate and 'alive'. A good show is when audiences get to see themselves in the art piece, or manage to connect emotionally with the characters in a play. After all, theater is fictional. It is about seeing.

In theater, there's the playwright, the drama conventions and language used, actors, director, producer, designers, and not to forget, the critics or viewpoints they give. In order to come around, it goes around first.

When I was at HangZhou, I watched a magnificent play gracefully entitled The Romance of The Song Dynasty.

Cast and Crew.

The plot of this melodrama doesn't flow smoothly. Granted the director knows what he's doing, but the playwright seems to be too greedy by incorporating everything he knows about experimental theater into his piece.

He focuses more on lighting design, and relies too much on the colors and patterns of lights to lead or trigger a change of scene. A good play should rely on the script itself and not moved by lights or music.

We have lanterns coming down above our heads.

Ritual and theater.

Religion, ritual, and theater.

Dancers / performers emerging from the ~~back~~ front stage.

Very royal.

Costumes are magnificently done.

There's even Lumiere (the candlestick from Beauty & the Beast) showing off HER acrobatic moves.

Just as I wonder what has all that gotta do with Emperor Song, the story emerges.

There is real fire burning inside the theater.

A fuckin' real galloping horse on stage!!! I think I hear everyone's eyeballs fall out.

And so he dies and here comes his wife bathing him in her priceless tears.

And now he has the energy to continue the battle. @@"

The story should end here, but I think the team came to a conclusion earlier that they were reluctant about ending the play so soon.

The history of Ying Long Cha (Tea) plantation.

Human size pixie and elf.

Hujan atas pentas.

There's even waterfall in the theater! Can you imagine how they manage this? No one gets wet during the show and it IS real waterfall~!

WTF something is being sent from heaven.

There's a butterfly dance.

Spinning lovers. How to have sex liddat? Tipu lah!

Sailing on air.

I can't remember what are these women for.

Bollywood dance. I'm SERIOUS.

Korean dance also got.

Audiences participation. All for the sake of pleasing each and every individual tourists from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

It says, "Give me a day and I'll give you back 10000 years."

How many out of 5 stars do you think you would give this performance? I mean, certainly the terribly elaborated costumes and lighting techs deserve some credits..... =P