Watching "4.48 Psychosis"

On 16th September 2007, I had the opportunity to watch a play at the KLPac. The title of then play is “4.48 Psychosis” which was directed by Gavin Yap a young and talented actor/director. I was really excited and am looking forward to watch this play as that was my first time going to watch a play. The play was written by Sarah Kane who was a British play writer who commits suicide by hanging herself in the hospital where she was treated for severe depression. So, it was no surprised that this play is about a woman who suffered from mental anguish and psychological distress, a condition that relates closely to the playwright herself. To describe my experience watching the play, to start with, the stage doesn’t look like the typical theatre stage, like how I imagine it, with high stage located in front of the hall facing the audience. It’s rather a unique stage where it was located in the middle of the hall to which audiences sat around to. The play consists of three characters that is the woman, the patient and the doctor which were acted by Susan Lancaster, Samantha Schubert and Malik Taufiq. Before the play started, I read the synopsis of the play and it helped me a lot in understanding the play. But I kind of regretted of doing it because my understanding of the play has been set from reading the synopsis and it didn’t allow me to have my own interpretation. Even though I read the play’s synopsis before hand, I still have problems trying to figure out the meaning of some of the dialogues and monologues. I was really impressed with the actors’ acting. It was superb! Their acting was so real and honest. I was blown away by the way they project their voice. Their voice is so loud (but they’re not shouting) and clear it filled the hall and it sounds as if they’re using microphones. The use of a lot of lighting plays an important role in this play as it helps to create the intense atmosphere and it also helps audience to experience the emotion turmoil in the characters. When the play was over, I feel depressed and uneasy. The play did affect me a little. All in all, I think this play is too intense and too deep for first timers but regardless I enjoyed my first experience watching a play and are looking forward to watch another play.

King Lear, here we come!

In our Drama class on the 10th September 2007, we started to discuss a new play titled King Lear. When I saw the book for the first time I went, ‘GULP!’… Could this book be any thicker? Then I thought, this is what Dr.Jaya called a ‘high-anxiety’ text. Then I opened the book and try to read the first page of the book. My reaction… ‘DOUBLE GULP!’. Boy, aren’t we going to have a great time studying King Lear. Let’s start with the language….I have 3 words of what I think of the language. Archaic, difficult, and ‘serious need of translation’. Thank goodness, as if understanding our need, the book comes with a translation notes for each page pf the play. Like what Dr. Edwin said, this book is indeed “Shakespeare for Dummies”. I had a great laugh every time I remember that line. Today, we read the play until Act 1 Scene 3. Based on what we have read so far, I found that it wasn’t as bad as what I think. I can ‘handle’ this book. I’m not saying that this is going to be an ‘easy ride’. Yes, the language is difficult to understand but with the provided notes and Dr. Edwin’s explanation, I think we will be fine. That is if one can stay alert the whole period of class. I read the synopsis of the story and I like it. I'm looking forward to finish reading this play and do the analysis.

Comparison between Pygmalion-Shaw & Pygmalion-Ovid's Metamorphoses

It has been a while since I posted my last blog. I have pages of blogs that I have written in my journal and are just waiting to be posted. It’s been a very bussyyy week. At last, I manage to squeeze some time to post a blog today. I’m going to write my blog based on what we have been assigned to write about. So, don’t be surprised if you found the topic of my blog is so-4,5 weeks ago. They’re a little bit outdated,so what? The important thing is the intention of still wanting to write about it, right? (it’s a rhetorical question, by the way). I’d better get started before I rambling more nonsense things.
After we have finished discussing Pygmalion, Dr. Edwin told us to compare this play with the story of Pygmalion from the Greek Mythology. I found that in terms of similarities, both Pygmalion and Prof. Higgins have the same view of women and as a result they vowed not to be married. Both of them are confirmed bachelor. Pygmalion does not want to be married because he despised so many qualities in women that he could not bear the idea of marriage and as for Prof. Higgins, he thinks that ‘women upset everything’. He said “When you le them into your life, you find that woman is driving at one thing and you driving at another”. The second similarity is that both of them are involved with ‘creating something’. Prof. Higgins transforms a cockney speaking flower girl from the gutter to become a well-spoken and poised duchess of the high society. As for Pygmalion, his creation comes in the form of a sculptor of a woman that he sculpted from an ivory and which he called Galatea (means sleeping love). The difference between these two versions of story can be seen in the way both man treats their ‘creations’. Pygmalion admired his work and fell in love with it. He treats the sculpture as if it is a real woman by clothing her, buying her presents, bringing her birds and buying her flowers of all colours. He even prays to Aprodhite to give him a wife that looks like Galatea which he will later found out was granted to him. This is in contrast with Prof. Higgins treatment to his creation, Eliza. He likes to bully her and made heartless insults to her. He also likes to make fun of her never treats her with respect. Another difference that I notice in both stories is that, in the end Pygmalion get married to Galatea and lived happily ever after while Prof. Higgins remained as a bachelor but he started to admire her new character, an independent and defiance woman.

Pygmalion the Movie!

Today we watched the movie Pygmalion that was adapted from the play Pygmalion written by George Bernard Shaw. At first, I thought we were going to watch a colour movie so I was a bit disappointed when it’s actually a black and white movie. But then I realized, actually watching a black and white movie was not that bad at all. In fact, I should be grateful and appreciate that I had the opportunity to watch the first movie version of the play. I understand that George Bernard Shaw was also the director of the movie directing together with Leslie Howard the actor/director who also plays the main character, Prof. Henry Higgins in the movie. I found that the movie followed closely to the play. Well, there’s no surprise there because I read somewhere that Shaw was someone who is quite particular on maintaining the originality of his work especially if it’s going to be adapted into movies. If I’m not mistaken he would only give permission for his play to be adapted into movies or performed in theatre if the movie/theatre follows closely to the original work. Anyway, even though the movie was exactly like how the play was written, the only thing that was not similar in the play was the choice of actors and characters. I feel that the actor who plays Prof. Higgins is too young for the character and the thing with the actress who plays Eliza Dolittle whom I feel is too old to play the character. While the actors and actresses who played the rest of characters, Colonel Pickering, Mrs. Pearce, Mrs. Higgins, Mr. Doolittle is well-chosen. I like the ending of movie compared to the play. The ending suggest that Eliza will come back to Prof. Higgins and who knows they probably end up falling in love with each other.

Pygmalion's Ending-That's it!!!

Finally, I have finished reading the play, Pygmalion, last Saturday (18th August 2007). On one hand, I was happy because I finally got to know what happened in the end but on the other hand I was quite disappointed with the ending of the play. I really didn’t expect that coming. My heart itches wanting the play to be ended in a proper way, by finishing it through the dialogues. I expected that in the end, Eliza and Prof. Higgins will finally be together but as we know, that didn’t happen in the play. It makes me feel frustrated but at the same time it also brings notice to me of Shaw’s unique style of writing. When I read back the ending of the play, I was impressed by the way Shaw had written the epilogue of the play. Instead of completing it in the customary way (that is through dialogues) he gave a narration of what happen in the end. At first I feel like the play was left hanging but actually Shaw didn’t left it hanging. He did gave us some idea of what happened later in the story, only we have to imagine ourselves how it would be looked like. I was also impressed by Shaw’s refusal to follow the audience/reader expectation in the way of how the play should be ended. Having given the impression that Eliza and Prof. Higgins might actually had some mutual attraction (seen during the arguing scenes and also the understated complimentary Eliza and Higgins gave to each other), readers starts to think that they might end up being together. I guess that’s exactly what Shaw wanted to do, to end the play in an unforeseen and unexpected way. But, in overall, I love the play. It's funny, it's sweet and its definitely got 'style'. And most importantly, I really enjoyed reading it while I'm having my 'cuppa-tay'!

"Fate" as One of Antigone's theme

During our last lesson on Antigone last Wednesday(08/08/07), we were discussing about the theme of the play. I remember Dr.Edwin had asked us how can we relate "fate" to the theme of Antigone. He waited but nobody gave any answer then he moved on discussing about "Pygmalion". Actually, I had an answer but was not confident enough to speak it out as I thought it was not a good answer. Anyway, I feel that I need to tell it and hopefully will get some opinion about my answer from those who read this blog. The theme that I can think of, that can relate to "fate" in this play is, "Fate is unevitable" or "Fate is unchangable". In this play, "fate" refers to the prophecy that was told to Creon by Tiresias. Tiresias warns Creon about the downfall of him and Thebes if he ignores the prophecy and that was exactly what Creon did. He proceed to do whatever he did in the play, Later, he realized that Tiresias was right, he was wrong and tried to fix things but it was too late because "fate" had already started taking its course and nothing can stop it. No matter what the characters do to change or to avoid fate from happening was useless. There, that's it. I wished that I can do better than this but this is the best I can do to explain my answer. I just hope that when people read this, they will get my point. Even if they do not understand the elaboration, at least they understand what "Fate is unevitable/unchangable" meant. So if you have something to say about this topic, feel free to write your comment. I really would like to know what do you think about my point or about "fate" as Antigone's theme itself. Thank you.

Welcome "Pygmalion"!

Today, we start to read and discuss a new play by George Bernard Shaw titled “Pygmalion”. I managed to read Act 1 a few days prior to our class today and I had the impression that this is an interesting play. The idea of ‘transforming a low-class flower girl into a duchess of the high-society’ by an impatient, insensitive, inconsiderate, to sum it up, by a pain–in-the-neck professor really appeals to me. I was excited to know what will happen in the end. Reading the play (Act 1) was fun because of the humour in the dialogues is really funny. I was also impressed by the way Shaw was able to write such informative and detailed conversation between the characters especially Prof. Higgins’ character and his (Higgins) knowledge of phonetics. Reading this play has also enlightened me many new information about language studies. I had no idea that one can actually make a living by becoming a phonetician. Their ability is really amazing; being able to tell people where they’re from by just listening to the way they speaks. Then I realized that this is only a play. Do these things really exist in real world? I guess I’m going to do a little research about this on the net. Anyway, real or not real, I still think that phonetician can be “cool” people! I’m looking forward to read the rest of the play and can’t wait to get back to it!