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I really wish that I could do this everyday, where there are either rehearsals or just shows or auditions i could go to. It’s terribly fun but if only it will bring in the bread and butter here…sigh. Warning this post is going to be pic heavy and it will show a shorter version of the Ismail journey.. Anyway I want to say I’ve been really enjoying the Ismail rehearsals that have been going on. The musical is set to open NEXT THURSDAY people on the 7th of August at 8.30pm. This will run for a whole month everyday except for Monday.. phew tiring as it maybe but I’m really looking forward to it. We are now at the touch up sessions of Ismail. We’ve already seen the set, sang with the orchestra and been mic-up to test our levels individually. Yeah yeah I know I sound so jakun.. but this is my first time being in a musical… even if I am just an ensemble.. I’m relishing every bit of it. Here are some the pictures to entertain you guys. http://picasaweb.google.com/Aronil/IsmailJourney Thats it for now guys.

The same day I had gone to Bubba Gump to meet Nick Dorian and Min Li, was also the day I had gone to see Sybil at The Actors Studio. Synopsis of Sybil is like so:

sybil

“Set in Perak, Malaya in December 1941, Sybil Kathigasu, her husband
Dr. A.C. Kathigasu, and the Captain (her Resistance contact) listen one
evening to devastating news of the British defeat throughout the
peninsula.

Suspicion is rife, Japanese collaborators are present in every town,
and the feared Kempetai – the Japanese Military Police that is
answerable only to itself – is beginning to take an interest in the
small town.

Sybil, however, refuses the Captain’s advice to flee to the jungle,
and instead redoubles her efforts to thwart the Japanese. Before long,
Dr Kathigasu is arrested on suspicion of aiding the resistance, and
Sybil’s arrest follows soon after.

She is subjected to torture and interrogation at the hands of Sgt.
Yoshimura, the head of the district Kempetai, who is convinced Sybil is
a Resistance spy.

Starring Sukania Venugopal, Doppo Narita, Darius Taraporvala, Ashraf
Zain and Wong Wai Hoong

Directed by Dato’ Faridah Merican.

Written by U-En Ng, based on the book “No Dram of Mercy” by Sybil Kathigasu.”

Heading into the Actors Studio, we are all greeted with familiar faces in the art scene. That day we saw a number of our Ismailies buddies, Gavin Yap, Joe Hasham and of course Dato Faridah who obviously had to be there.

The set was very economically well done. It looked as rusted and worn out as it should’ve been in the days.

img_0051

With just a grill door in located towards center left of the stage and a bench, we have the cell that Sybil was once trapped in to serious torture by the Japanese soldiers. If you look on towards Stage right you will see a table and a chair where Sergeant Yoshimura would interrogate and torture his captives. Sorry I don’t have a clearer pic :( but you can check out more at kakiseni.

I did enjoy the show a lot, and I think our Japanese guest brought down by Faridah was fascinating, although his accent was a bit heavy on some areas. The story began, with Sybil (Sukania Vongopal) talking with her husband, Dr Kathigasu (Darius Taraporvala) and Another Soldier (Wong Wai Hoong). She is then arrested and taken to a torturous series of events by Sergeant Ekio Yoshimura (Doppo Narita) and his subordinate constable (Ashraf
Zain).

On one hand, I was watching it as an actor myself, which to be very honest kills the joy of watching a performance at times. Because you are constantly either thinking “oh hey, she’s acting- you can tell” or “hmm can thay be done differently” or “I see that person act in the same manner somewhere before, is that a habit?”. Yeah thoughts like that float in my head.

It was only after the intermission that I started to enjoy the show for what it was and I found that it got more interesting. As the complexity of the characters grew. Especially for the constable – the guard outside Sybil’s cell – who questions why is she fighting so much, to not even save her own skin let alone her family. He also starts to question his own reasons for siding with the Japanese – just in order for him to cari makan.

doppo-and-darius

In the process, while the play was suppose to focus more on Sybil, but
surprisingly I found myself more drawn towards the Sergeant Yoshimura
who has conflicting thoughts of his own. All this while, we’ve always
seen the Japanese sergeant as a monster for putting one through
torturous moments, such as seeing the scene where Sybil watches her
daughter dawn lowered into a bonfire or watching her husbands finger
being snipped off with pliers.

Yes I now know about Sybil Kathigasu, but I also felt more sympathetic towards the sergeant. It just goes to show how well Doppo Narita acted as his character. He was able to bring forth the slight human turmoil that his character felt in doing the terrible things he had to in order to be loyal to his country. Small things such as the constant wiping of his hands with the towel, was just enough to show how he wanted to wash the blood of his hands but couldn’t or. You could also see how broken he felt when the war was over, and he knew that he would be subjected to a number accusations for the way he had handles his captives. But he was doing ti for his country.. could you blame him to.

Very well done, but just a slight disappointment on the shift away from the original title which is suppose to be about Sybil. The play strikes us with how little we know about the unsung heroes in our country and allows us to see it from a different perspective. None the less, the play was still strong and worthy of applause :)

Oh yeah moving on, we took shots after the show and guess who came to watch. Dr Tunku Ismail’s son and grandson ^_^

copy-of-sybil

And how could we not get a cast picture too :)

copy-of-sybil-2

Ok Ok… I have been terribly lazy on updating with the . So now I’m going to write about it. ^_^ It’s currently a BLAST right now. It’s so much fun, even though it’s been rather physical for the past 6 rehearsal dates. The first day of Ismail’s rehearsals was a reading, where everyone just sat around and went through the script once, so that we understood what the show was about. We aren’t suppose to be looking at what the message we are suppose to convey until I think the following week, which would mean only in rehearsal day number 4 we actually discuss about the script. Discussion for the script is for us all (The ensemble mostly) to find a common ground and see if we all feel the same way about the text, about the man Ismail. Ismail the man that we are presenting, is about Tunku Dr Ismail – which unfortunately most of us only know as Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) the one near One Utama. The story revolves around his life as not a politician but rather a man who in my opinion had a mountain of things to consider at that period. This was after all during the time that Malaysia had just received her independence and after the horrendous event of May 13 – a time which not many Malaysians would not like to go back to or even remember. The play is very compelling and quite timely with the end of our elections and the countries new results. Anyways that on the side. Rehearsals Day 2,3,4,5 and 6 have been all about movement. After day 2 it was wonderful pain on the thighs… and I just realised that the ache i had for the past week is now gone! Yay! Back to normal, which means.. i can go and torture my muscles again. ^_^ Me stretching it out. Me trying to focus on the pain that is to come soon. Min Li and I cracking up.. over something which I completely forgot. Lol. All the pictures from the rehearsal are courtesy of dear Nick Dorian. ^_^ We are in pain.. all except for izham who still seems to be smiling.. sheesh :P Like I said pain in the thighs, led to me stretching my mouth like so to hide the ache. Bah! Day 5 was fun and here are the perks when you have stuff going on in KLPAC. Complimentary tickets to watch stage shows! We had warm ups for about an hour on Day 5, then Faridah gave us a surprise of distributing tickets to watch ‘Good People’. Whoopee!! Now for some pictures for us just before the show hehe. Ticks for the show. Nick, Aris Kadir (Ismail’s Dance Choreographer), Min Li, Lax (Ismail’s Dance Captain) and Me. You know how one hates being left out from a funny pic? Well i decided to be too smart. Me and Min Li were suppose to do a funny face, but I kinda felt it’ll be funnier to make sure she was making one hehe. And the dude in the middle is Dean.. Poor fell was stuck in between to nutcases haha. Me, Min Li and Lee Ching. Lee Ching is one seriously cute gurl. This girl has Tourette and while some may think this is a disorder but really i think it has made this girl really even more adorable in our company. :) Read about her on her blog here. I just love this picture. It’s so kewt! Nicole Ann Thomas, Min Li and Me. Standing in front of Pentas 2 entrance before the show started. Yeah we are all in our rehearsal workout clothes. Hahha. I love doing what I do ^_^
Yesterday was the first day of rehearsal for Ismail Woo hoo!!! Yes I’m terribly excited. By the way you can join us on our The Facebook Group.

Ismail The Last DaysPicture courtesy of the actual blog site of Ismail The Last Days.

Now on to the story. Making my way to klpac was pretty much another tense thing just like the audition, maybe not as bad but still my thoughts were just about preparing for what was to come as I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t even know what the story of the play was about. I was about 20 minutes early to rehearsal time which started at 7.30pm sharp. And when i say sharp I mean Sharp sharp sharp that you can slice your hand off and it can still be reattached to your body because it is so sharp! Ok that was way exaggerated but, punctuality is a must for this. Which will be great discipline for me and also as a person raised in a country where time is always taken for granted and on other occasions I will end up being late. So here we have it ladies and gentlemen: The Script of Ismail in my hands.. or on my table anyway.

Ismail: The Last Days Official Script

Heading into the rehearsal I was delighted to see old friends and new ones that I will finally get to work with in this production. Some of them were from the past classes I took at KLPac like the Practical Aesthetics Class and The Acting for Beginners Class. It was really a joy to see them all and even some well known faces in the performing arts circle. In fact it’s a real BLESSING to even be in this. I can’t begin to even say how happy i am to be among the few to be involved with this. (Those who have been involved before, say all you want on the pain I shall be in, I’m ready!) At the same time though, there will be a number of pain, heartache, disappointment and frustration along with it. At first I was a bit nervous even scared about the first day of rehearsals and this is my friend Min Li also shares the same feelings as me. It’s expected that there will be some hard times. On my end I felt anxious about the whole thing…I don’t know maybe it’s because I want it badly. Maybe it’s because I know it’s a possible stepping stone to a better career. I’m not fully sure. But I do know that I’m going to work my butt off for this. I’ll go in for rehearsals super early just to get ready. Not for sucking up – no – as some may see. No rather, it’s to build my mentality that I need to prepare for the roles as part of the ensemble. Everyone plays a part in this show, and what I love so much was how Joe as the director gave a very deep insight for us to look at this play. Not just in the script but us as actors and how we should see ourselves worth in this production. I was very appreciative of that. The entire rehearsal process will be documented and made into a video wheeee also by my friend Alexander. So it’ll be nice to see what goes on behind the scenes of this production. Nick Dorian, Fang and I have also started a blog site for the production, which we will up date every once in a while. You can view that here: Ismail The Last Days. This is what happens when you have avid bloggers in the midst. :P
I’m back home.. a very tired me and yet extremely satisfied and happy me. Today was the final presentation of Joe Hasham’s class Acting for Beginners and I can’t tell you who thoroughly thrilled, happy and proud I am of that class, and to be in that class. We have come a long long way since the very first days of class which was in February. So we had 10 grueling weeks of learning the surface of what acting is about. Now that it has come to an end, I feel rather upset and happy, for no longer will I see these people every Saturday but at the same time happy because we managed to survive all the classes. They have been tough, even if it is a beginners class but it is tough. Todays presentation was basically showing the audience – friends and family – what we have been doing for the past 10 weeks, what we’ve learnt and what we have to show for it.

Acting for Beginners Class 2008

It started of with us standing in the ‘actor’s position’ which is just you standing perfectly still and focusing on to one point. Your feet are shoulder width apart and hands down to your side. Standing in this, you can stand apparently for hours…thank goodness we only stood for 10-15 minutes. The purpose of the exercise is for you to prepare yourself for the physical and emotional actions that are to come. If say I were asked to move in any manner I would be ready to go. If I were to feel some sort of emotion I will be focused enough to go. Followed by that we then got into the appearances, which I had blog about earlier. . Praise God for finally finally for once, we managed to get the appearances worth watching! I was so happy when I finally FINALLY FINALLY got lust done. For over the 9 weeks I had never not once, shocked or made Joe smile for that appearance, particularly because I was not brave enough. Even if my movements were sharp, it doesn’t make much of a difference because I hadn’t done it well enough to make someone in the crowd squirm. So the images I’m going to show you are the things we did had to do for appearances (but these aren’t so clear, i’ll get better ones later). In this order. Joy, Sorrow, Anger, Fear, Love, and of course Lust. Doing this exercise, gets you to feel the emotion in your belly and see how you can project it to the audience using imaginative ways with your body. Wait I take it back I’m not going to show it yet :) But I will show Anger for now. Click to see our expressions.

Anger Appearance

After appearances we had the short little skits where we were paired up into groups. Doing the scripts entitled “I am”, “The Park”, “Roses In The Rain” and “Before Now”. All done with our interpretation of the text. Followed by another teamwork effort of “I Am Me” where we in groups of 3-5 we all had to be the same person. The last thing we had to do was a piece called Chapter 6, where we all are following one script and we are seeing the same thing. Flow is key here. Finishing the class, is such an enormous accomplishment and once again I’m so terribly proud of the group because everyone gave it their all and for some of the people I know, they have grown and matured to be more disciplined in the things they want or need to do. It’s about commitment and whether or not you want to do this thing called the arts. For those who were once so incredibly shy, they are now very open and willing to give all they can to a part. No longer are they shocked by certain things or afraid but they or rather we have taken a huge step in this learning process. We got to wear specially made academy shirts and or course were given our certificate of attendance. ^_^

Certificate And Academy T-Shirt

So once again CONGRATS TO THE ENTIRE CLASS OF 2008!!!!! While the class may have ended… The show doesn’t end there of course… ^_^