Beauty and the Beast… in KL
While I’m racking my head for a final point to stick in my political science paper so that I can make it to the minimum of the stipulated 8-10 pages, Dad emailed me to know that Beauty and the Beast will be playing in Kuala Lumpur from 24 June to 3 July. Ashley Oliver plays Belle and Matthew Cammelle’s going to play the Beast.
(Not like I really know who these people are, at any rate. I have a boot of the entire cast from some UK Tour, and I just know Matt played someone in Phantom of the Opera, which is about all there is.)
… I’m not actually sure if I want to go. I’ll certainly be in Singapore when it comes, and a car drive to KL isn’t that bad, but ugh. I don’t want to stay at my relatives’ place again (I don’t like them. My second aunt keeps harping all over the fact that I’m “pleasantly plump”, and I just hate my favourite aunt’s husband. HE STOLE HER FROM ME. It’s been 11 years and I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER IT), and I just don’t want to travel any more than I have to.
I don’t know why, but Dad has lots of things in store for me when I come back to Singapore, and one of them is TRAVELING. Maybe I haven’t told them that a 20 hour flight is probably enough to last me 6 months, but dear GOD. I’m flying back to Singapore because it’s SINGAPORE, not to go somewhere else! He’d probably go to KL for this if I said yes, he’s taking the entire family to Angkor Wat (against my mother’s will, and probably my sister’s) and in September, he’s flying off to Paris for a conference and I’ve agreed to go with him.
I’ve seen the production for this one before as well - it’s the one where gas shoots up and voila human Beast. It’s not the actual Disney production, and… I dunno. I don’t feel like it’s worth going. The parents (who haven’t actually seen anything on Broadway) are going to just get a different impression, and God knows if I try to explain to them that it’s a different company staging the same Disney show, we’d all wind up angry and confused.
The Little Mermaid on Broadway
Having watched a boot of the Little Mermaid on Broadway, I managed to catch about 10 minutes of it before the audio syncing issues really got to me and I stopped. I’m sorry, but judging from those first 10 minutes (and intermittent glimpses of other scenes) I can’t help but feel like we’ve been shortchanged by having this nonsense on stage in place of Beauty and the Beast.
The first scene that I managed to get through was, quite predictably, ‘Fathoms Below’. You have an enormous, cheesy looking ship with blue chiffon at the bottom which are supposed to be waves. It felt like watching a bunch of high school kids doing a musical with a larger than average budget. I think they tried to make Eric look handsome by giving him a baggy shirt that shows off his chest every once in a while, but not with that hair (they gave Eric long hair, and in an attempt to keep some resemblance to the animated version, they decided to curl his fringe. He just looked hilarious).
Anyway, after the song, there’s dialogue. Eric talks of wanting to meet the girl of his dreams, the princely life is not for him, etc etc. His friends dissuade him, etc etc. Ariel’s disjointed voice then echoes from the speakers.
Then Eric goes, and I quote: “Follow that voice; to the ends of the earth if you have to!”
I burst out laughing when I heard that. Yeah, face treacherous waters, get shipwrecked, and have all your men drown because of a funny sounding voice you heard 5 seconds ago? Not happening.
I remember reading an article somewhere about TLM wanting to be more Italian(?) Opera-ish in terms of design and costuming. I’m not sure when that got kicked in the head, because the costumes look awful. Everything’s a shiny mess of sequins and satin, Ariel’s tail sticks out of her butt and looks like it was constructed for the Ghost Lantern Festival, Ursula’s tentacles are wires for an oversized wedding dress, and I’m not sure what they did with poor Sebastian. I think my eyes may have tricked me, but I think they gave Sebastian a Persian hat with eyeballs sticking out of it.
As usual, the singers do a brilliant job, which isn’t surprising, seeing as this is a Broadway musical and Disney’s loaded with cash to hire said brilliant singers. What I was disappointed though, was the orchestrations for ‘Her Voice’ (the only song which I played through, next to ‘Fathoms Below’). Maybe I’ve been too used to the Concept Cast Recording, but the full orchestra took the mystic and romance away somewhat. It became just another loud, bombastic, kitschy song about love. There’s nothing ethereal about it anymore, and that aspect was something which I greatly loved about that song. I thought if they’d just keep it to that simple piano melody and throw in a couple of violins it’ll do just fine. It’s a minimalistic song, not a ‘Kiss the Girl’ remake!
Of course, take this at face value, given that I am a huge Beauty and the Beast fan, and TLM might have bittered my view somewhat. Also, I probably watched this about a month ago, so my memory will definitely play tricks on me. But whatever. I thought I should get this out.
ETA: Apparently the NY Times didn’t like it either.
I’M BACK!
(For about 5 days now. I would’ve posted this earlier but I realized I have nothing to post.)
Singapore Singapore Singapore~
I hadn’t realized how humid the weather has always been until now. My skin is damp all the time!
It feels so awesome to be back with family and friends. My family went out for dinner last night (JAPANESE, OMGYAY) and just before we left, Julia caught a brief clip of the NDP parade. She recounted the scene to me and she and I have concluded that it must have either been thought up by very uncreative persons or people on crack.
It’s really nice to have lived for a while beyond Singapore and getting a larger perspective on things.
Some time away from Mom and Dad also did me good. I think I’ve become more patient with them - although that might vanish soon after a few weeks, but no one is ever going to top senile!grandma - and I don’t find myself answering in short and curt sentences. I did feel some resentment towards my father remarking that ‘I should have’ taken photos of family and my cousins, despite that fact that I bought home 300 pictures for him to see. I suppose you wind up accepting who they are, and just don’t let these things bother you anymore. I’m Zen’ed.
I lost 5kg while in America. 5kg in 5 months! ^___^ Not too bad.
AND! I managed to get my Beauty and the Beast boot burned! Hurrah! Now all I have to do is wait for lefemmedarla to finish splitting the matinee audio and I’ll release them all at once. Wheeeeeee!
In New York, You Hit Cars.
Just got back from my trip to Washington DC and NYC. I loved Washington… New York, not so much. I think it’s partly because my uncle was with me, and the other is because I hate crowds.
Washington DC was GREAT. I walked and walked and walked, visited Ford’s Theatre (where Lincoln was assassinated) the Washington Monument (the greatest phallic symbol ever), the Holocaust Museum (spent 5 hours there!) among other beautiful, beautiful museums. All the museums were free, and it was absolutely fascinating. I thought I didn’t like museums, but apparently I do, especially when they have to do with WWII.
My uncle lives in DC, so he was working, and I roamed around on my own. I do like the freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want… I don’t have to get pestered by others asking me if I want to go somewhere else, whether I want to have lunch, whether I want to visit Chinatown (of all places).
I was very annoyed with his attachment to people of his own race. He kept dragging me to Chinatown (both in DC and NYC), and continuously pointed out things in shops that had an ‘oriental chinese’ flavour to it. He also felt the need to tell me that ‘oh, that restaurant sells American food’. Honestly, I can’t be bothered if it’s Chinese or Western food, as long as it tastes good. As the days went by, my annoyance increased tenfold. We were taking a bus from DC to NYC, but I had no idea that he chose the bus service located in Chinatown.
Because, y’know, when you see a guy in a singlet saying ‘I don’t give a fuck about her’ when alerted to his wife’s need to call her back right in front of a customer, you know this neighbourhood is seedy. I was very uncomfortable in DC’s Chinatown… because that was the first time I saw how bad their English was. Most of these Chinese people migrated from China and were forced to learn English, and they speak it very badly… and I didn’t like it at all. The China-style customs/habits also reared its ugly head - whatever negative memories I held during my trips to China I saw it here. Chinese people are impolite, they push, they don’t speak English, they are only interested in themselves and money.
NYC’s Chinatown was a thousand times worse. The pavements were narrow as hell, and it was so crowded. I asked for directions from someone, and she screamed at me in response: “If you’re not a customer, then can you stop annoying me?” I had a lot more negative encounters from Asians in NYC (one of them swearing in Cantonese when another customer was tardy in procuring his ticket). The buildings are run down and old; there are potholes on the roads, construction’s going on everywhere; smoke and dirt and people jabbering away in various dialects while they’re pushing against you to cross the road… it was not a fun experience in both Chinatowns, and if not for my uncle, I wouldn’t have been in the district in the first place.
In DC, the place was spacious. All the buildings were spaced out neatly, the museums were centered on a couple of major streets, so you could spend all your time on that street. I thought the tall buildings and congestion in NYC might remind me a little of Singapore, but I was wrong. There were so many people you just couldn’t move along the street at all. I hate crowds - I don’t know why, but everytime when I’m walking in a crowd, my mood goes bad. Maybe it’s transferrence from my father or something, but it’s an unconditioned response whenever I’m surrounded by a lot of people. Needless to say, whenever I stepped out of my hotel room, I would be in a very angry mood for the rest of the day. Accompanied with the fact my uncle keeps repeating ‘3 TIMES? MY GOD’ and ‘do you want to go to [insert place here]?’, my mood went sour rather quickly.
I mentioned before that I liked doing things on my own time, and how I want it to. So I got very angry whenever we had to make a decision to take the subway. When we arrived in NYC Chinatown, I wanted to take the R line, because it would put us just 2 streets away from our hotel in Times Square. My uncle wound up pushing me onto the number 6 train, which placed us 6 blocks away. The walk was NOT FUN, especially when you’re wearing a backpack that gets progressively heavier as you walk. This always became a problem whenever my uncle and I had to take the subway. He would want to walk 6 blocks to catch a train that (possibly) arrived more frequently, while I wanted to take the closest train possible and deposit us right on the street we were at, but waiting a little longer at the train station.
Not like the train station was very desirable to wait in, anyway. There was no air conditioning, and the trains were so loud one could burst an eardrum. Rats were prevalent, the ditches filled with muddy water - and once again - the platforms were narrow.
The people are also awful in NYC. Customer service is ‘point and grunt’, and occasionally a bit of biting sarcasm, which I didn’t quite enjoy. These people have functioned for so long in NYC they know everything inside and out, and I suppose sometimes they can’t put themselves in the tourists’ shoes, so they wind up rolling their eyes when a family of four walks up to them and asks where so-and-so is. I don’t like the people in NYC. I thought Singapore was bad, but in NYC, it’s like they’re going out of their way to make you feel miserable.
Driving in NYC is a nightmare. Traffic is awful on Broadway, and I noticed a couple of things.
1. When in doubt, horn.
Consider: A person standing in the middle of a street, unknowingly blocking a car’s path.
Driver: BEEEEEEEP.
2. When in doubt to respond, swear.
Consider:
Driver: BEEEEEEP.
Person: WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? THIS ISN’T FUCKING IRAQ! MORON!
3. When in doubt to respond to swearing, gesticulate.
Consider:
Person: FUCK YOU, I’M WALKING HERE!
Driver: (flips the bird, gestures wildly towards you, clearly indicating you’re an idiot).
4. When driving a vehicle and in doubt, hit the car in front of you.
Consider: A car in the middle of a right turn, and he’s a little slow about it.
Driver: (gestures, and attempts to overtake the car RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING TURN, bumping him in the process. I should mention this guy was a taxi driver.)
Because traffic’s so awful and drivers so crazy, they’ll run past red lights and wind up stopping in front of a pedestrian crossing. As people cross, you can feel the collective word forming in everyone’s head: idiot. Driver then has the audacity to horn at you when you cross in front of his car.
In New York, you hit cars, not the other way around.
Of course, the only saving grace in New York was Broadway. Beauty and the Beast was AMAZING. I loved every single minute of it. I taped Friday’s evening show and did audio boots for the Saturday matinee and evening shows. More detailed info under the cut.
Exams over!
For some reason, the feeling of elation isn’t as strong as previous exams. Oh right, I didn’t put much effort anyway.
I’m listening to ‘Wicked: The Musical’. The song ‘Defying Gravity’ gives me chills.
Disney Dreams is down! ARGH.
Update on OSU: They mixed my application up with an international applicant, and the deadline for changing it closed. I was extremely angry, called OSU directly, wasted money, etc. So I renewed my application for Spring. I’ll probably be here until February. If it screws up again, I’ll finish my studies here, and do postgraduate studies overseas.
It’s hard to see something that you’ve expected, and planned for, completely and suddenly disintergrate because the other side mixed up your citizenship. I got my wish, at any rate. I thought it was too soon.
New layout!
I absolutely love Disney. Lovelovelove. Well, anyway, here it is. Tarzan.
Tidied up the navigation a little as well. Hosting section is a little more prominent, and most of the links are now direct, so you don’t have to go through more and more links. Deleted the ‘Brothers’ layout… it was a little ugly, in my opinion. Was on the verge of deleting the Kangta and Vanness one as well, seeing as the little craze is over, but hey, I have space on my blog, so why not keep it?
I’m thinking of creating a whole slew of Disney layouts. Perhaps I’ll resurrect the Beauty and the Beast one… The colour just looks gorgeous. Coming up next… I dunno. Little Mermaid? Aladdin? Atlantis? Ahahaha.
And in the process of doing this layout, I found out that they have a Broadway version of Tarzan!!! I WANT TO GO TO NEW YORK RIGHT NOW. I’ll just go on a musical watching spree. Not shopping spree, musical watching spree!
Ok, there’re a bunch of musicals I want to watch right now:
1. Tarzan
2. Beauty and the Beast
3. Phantom of the Opera (duh)
4. Les Miserables
5. The Lady in White (I think it’s only showing in London)
6. CATS
7. The Lion King (watched it before, wouldn’t hurt to watch again)
Waaaah, Broadway!
