Written by lainie at 01:23 AM on August 3, 2006 in Daily Life, Arty stuff.

[ Written last night, but seemed like overkill to update 3 looong entries in a day ]

Tonight was the opening night for Endgame. Not bad, didn't regret going. Would I recommend it? No - but only because I'd rather not be the one responsible for sending someone to a Beckett play and have them come out realising that "Life sucks, and then you die", might have a bit too much truth in it. You wanna go, then go. Just don't watch the play, then blame Lainie.

[ I have noticed a scary trend amongst people who read my blog to think that I am somewhat an authority on theatre / arts stuff. Mahai, don't scare me okay. I am not. ]

I went for the play with Kat, Suanie, Paultan and Fireangel (ZOMG! All these femes bloggers!). Because I have not read up anything on this play, please note I cannot guarantee anything about spoilers.

I have photos from the play - Which is a bit salah, but I saw the "Must Read" notice outside the venue after the play was over. It said no unauthorised photography allowed. Maybe they should title it "Must Read BEFORE Entering".

Well fuck, I arrived late, didn't get a chance to read that. Also, anyone who's seen me drive will know I have absolutely no natural ability to notice big obvious signs (of course, my gaydar abilities are reportedly also equally sterling).

I am not able to do my own Photoshopping so instead am harassing people with the program to do it for me over MSN - I am now known as "teh pwn" because I can recite all the keyboard shortcuts and stuff to get what I want without looking at the interface (to be fair, i wanted very basic stuff). To be honest, "teh pwn" is the most flattering of the names I got called.

One of my friends is overly familiar with foul, foul language.


U-En and Alvin. It was kinda interesting to see Alvin in a theatre production, I associate him with TV, and Wah Loi Toi channel. Took a bit of time for me to get used to the transition.


U-En. Yknow. This character somewhat reminded me of the first time I watched him in "The Homecoming". His acting was alright, I just have this to say: I hope he doesn't get typecasted, I am rather interested in seeing how he does with other type of characters.


For some reason I end up watching Happy Days thrice - With the parallels between two Beckett plays (this and Happy Days), I couldn't help comparing him to Jo Kukathas' range of expressions and voices in her monologues (a largely unfair comparison since she's been at this for way longer). U-En did alright, he has some bloody grumpy expressions, though the whole "Oooh, love me, oooh puppy" moments could have been more obvious.

In the "breaking the 4th wall" kinda sense, I'd say Happy Days did a better job. I can't say he made me uneasy, which I wanted.............Am I saying I actually wanted something to make me feel uncomfortable? I am unsure.

Then again, the star of the play is the words .


Kelvin Wong and Sharifah Amani. Amani's character has about a few words more than Willie does in "Happy Days". Kelvin had more lines and he did look humorous when he first popped out of the bin.

I appreciated that the set was minimal, served its purpose. I didn't really get the reason behind the way they opened and closed the play, though it was pretty. Also, considering U-En can't see Alvin throughout most of it, since Alvin is standing behind him, the cues were pretty timely (Kat says they missed one very obviously, but I didn't notice it, I must have been averting my eyes at that point).

Overall I thought it was.....well.....I believe I used this word quite often. It was "Alright". I probably appreciate Gavin Yap's work as a director more than I do when he's acting.

The one thing I really didn't like was the lighting.

Were the lights done in such a way to purposely create an uncomfortable atmosphere? Well, I would say that was a bit of an overkill, I ended up with a headache too, and spent a lot of time using my cap's peak to block more of the light away.

Kat had to leave the moment the curtains drew because she was incredibly nauseous from the lights (and had spent part of the play just listening instead of watching because it hurt her eyes so much). She later told me that she might have (literally) thrown up if the play had gone on any longer.

Fortunately the foremost lightbulb didn't get to her because the guy sitting in front blocked it out for her - that's the one that gave me a right headache.

So the play was done, we went out, and I looked at the niiiice buntings they had up, information on the playwright Beckett.

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When Kat drove, she made a few mistakes (missed a big turning too) because everytime a car came up behind us the lights further disorientated her. That was creepy. I think we should have waited a lil longer for her to recover from the lights after the play. We had bakuteh, which settled her down somewhat.

Then she dropped me off at Carnegies to join the other three bloggers (it plays 80s music, haha) where I refused to drink much beer (I'm an alcoholic lightweight), and I guess it was ladies night since Suanie said I could get "4 free drinks", but I really didn't feel like it. Suanie kept pushing an insanely huge mug of beer towards me -_-".

I did however watch Paultan and Fireangel drink a lot of beer, and in my inexcusable state of sobriety, maybe groped FA a lil bit out of the kind interests of keeping her warm.

Almost kidding. Yeay, birthdays! What better time to imitate an octopus around people drinking alcohol, I say. Drink and be gay merry!

No gay agenda. What gay agenda?

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Because "We Are Scientists" are coming down to KL to perform, here's a link to that lovelylovely, loverlyloverly, lovely site, You Ain't No Picasso: We Are Scientists: Hoppipolla. MP3 download available there.

Yeah you read right. The indie geekers covered Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla. What better way to start your evening than with some foreign indie-jiwangness?

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