It's Over - The Relief

had a good day's out shopping, walking around orchard road with dad and friends. bought a dress for someone's wedding tomorrow, so i'm feeling pretty relaxed now. will be the mc for the solemnisation, and i hope i don't mess it up!

caught the winter's tale last night. in a way i think it was madness on my part, since it was the last day of mbbs and there i was trying to concentrate and follow a -shakespeare- play. i hadn't read the play before so i spent the first half of act one getting used to the accents and old english, but was later able to sit back and enjoy the performance.

it's an interesting story, essentially about a king who throws his pregnant queen into jail because he suspects she is having an affair and conspiring to take his life. misfortune befalls him after that, as foretold by an oracle, and the king, and the life that he knew, is shattered. years later, he is reunited with the ones that he lost, and the play ends happily. yes, that's the long and short of it, and yes, like all other shakespeare plays, it lasted three hours.

this version was brought in by the singapore reporatory theatre (well done srt!!) and stars ethan hawke and is directed by sam mendes. it's part of "the bridge project" which aims to unite talents on both sides of the atlantic, so it was a bit strange hearing two different accents on stage. act one was more subdued, more "british", but the scenes in act two were festooned with balloons (red, white, blue no less!) and top hats (a la abraham lincoln) and furniture straight out of a western movie. to add to my confusion, they had these minimalist sets that seemed more appropriate for a contemporary play and hence did not help in defining the setting. i did, however, love the idea of having the musicians on stage as part of the cala fare and having those ominous cowbells chime to signal yet another dramatic scene.

what i really -could not- understand was why the audience laughed at some points. i think singaporeans have a weird sense of humour, and i'm not sure where they get it from. the best example i can think of is this scene where the statue of the dead queen comes to life (dont' ask me why!) and the king embraces her. the king has regretted his past actions every day of his life, his "sorrow was too sore laid on, which sixteen winters cannot blow away, so many summers dry", and it is a tender moment as the queen reaches out for his embrace and he feels, for the first time, forgiveness and absolution for his deeds. he exclaims, "o, she's warm!" - and that's when the audience laughed.

for the life of me, i saw nothing funny in that scene, so why the laughter? my poor mbbs bombed out brain can't remember the other examples, but this alone is enough to illustrate my point! wanted to throttle those who laughed. perhaps they were expecting a jack neo type of humour (to be read as "so warm ah?"), where such exclamations are meant to highlight a ridiculous situation or bring out the ignorance of a character without spending much time on character development. whatever the case, it kinda spoilt my enjoyment of the play.

after all my rambling, i must say that i still prefer "the seagull", which was the other srt coup two years ago. the language was easier to understand, the setting less...contradictory, and featuring a cast that appeared more at ease with each other. but i must applaud srt for bringing such fantastic productions to singapore - nothing like learning from the best, yes?