Life is a cabaret ol' chum so come to the Cabaret....

Just watched Cabaret the musical at Esplanade theatre yesterday, and boy was it a disappointment...

I'll list the +s and the -vs below...

+:
1. Fei Xiang - the emcee
- He was marvellous as the emcee

2. Fei Xiang - the singer
- He sang beautifully

3. Fei Xiang - the dancer
- He danced gracefully, even as Hitler in a pink tutu playing around with a life-size globe ball

4. Fei Xiang - the joker
- His character provided all the essential joy and laughter in his lewd jokes and punts at sex and the male anatomy

5. Fei Xiang - the star
- He was the highlight of the show (for a lot of his matured female fans I think, as this auntie sitting beside me scampered for her binoculars whenever he appeared and put it back down when he exited, AND started CHATTING with her middle-aged daughter)

6. Other Characters - non-leads
- I don't deny that there are a few good ones here. The dancers and back-ups I mean. The leads were alright, doing their usual thing. But nothing inspiring there. But the dancers and back-ups... they were pretty daring in their costumes, dancing, moves, etc. Much in the spirit of Cabaret. Decadent. Inhibited. Sexual. Something you don't see everyday here out in the public.


-:
1. LATECOMERS
- I don' understand why they allowed latecomers to come in after the show has started. If they can forbid them from entering the concert hall when the show has started, why can't they do the same for the theatre? They can stand behind the glass window on ground level and watch the show, like they do for the concert hall. Cos it's VERY VERY DISRUPTING for them to enter and make EVERYONE in their way to their seats move and WAIT for them to SLOWLY grope their way around to their seats.
- WORSE yet, the ushers SHONE TORCHLIGHTS to help them find their seats. What could be worse than having a torchlight shone into your face when you are trying to watch a musical where the audiences are in the dark? Yes, you are temporarily BLINDED. And you cannot see anything, except for blinding white, for five minutes. Please, this is a musical. The only light displays we like to see are those from the stage, and for the stage only.

2. Plot
- I personally haven't seen the award-winning 1972 musical from UK, but from sources that have, this is TOTALLY different from what they have seen from the original. I don't know what the director Beatrice Chia was thinking, maybe she feels that Singaporeans can't take too much of the explicit content of a Cabaret, so she toned it down. But so toned down was the plot, that it practically revolved around the love lives of Kit Kat Club's Sally Bowles and the landlady (called Fraulein Schneider, I think).
- I know it's supposed to have some elements of the greyness in life during the period where the Nazis were trying to conquer the world. But I think that there was over-reliance, or over-emphasis rather, on the characters' love lives to portray the human element in the musical, or to show that it ain't all fun and sex in the Cabaret, and that there is a dark and human side to the story too.
- The result is that the parts where the Cabaret is all about are cut down to a mere 5-minuter in every 15-20mins of love stories... And the parts where the plot tries to show that the Nazis are a growing threat are not clearly portrayed, and audiences are left wondering what the brief stint meant. E.g. In one in-between-acts transition, 2 men were seen in the back alley, while another was standing on top of a building singing a song about revolution. The two seemed to be having a rendezvous, when suddenly one starts hitting the other. And eventually leaves the injured one to die on the street. In the span of less than 5 minutes it was over, and no one, I mean no one, knew what it was about. Until much later, when the crowd started to sing that same revolution song at Fraulein Schneider's engagment party, where one of the guys were exposed as a Nazi.
- This was nowhere near what they were selling it as on Arts Central. The promo was so explicitly Cabaret, but yet the real thing failed to meet up to expectations. Expected something better from Beatrice Chia, being the rebel artist she is...

3. Characters - non-leads
- Despite being a + point, it was also a -, as amongst the "girls" there were "guys" there dressed like girls to make up the numbers. And boy there was this girl that was so plump, she didn't seem to belong anywhere in the line-up. (No fat jokes here, but she really looked out of place in those skimpy outfits, along with the other skinny model-like girls)


CONCLUSION:
So my conclusion is that it was still worth watching it for the experience of watching a world-class musical lead aka Fei Xiang in the Esplanade Theatre. For my next experience it'll have to be something classical and world class like Phantom of the Opera, wouldn't it be insteresting to watch that in the Concert Hall? With all the organ pipes, etc... Wonder what kind of surprises can pop up... But the Theatre will do fine too I guess... Minus the disruptive latecomers...


Cheerio,
Same Old Brand New Moi
_____________________________________________________________
Can miles truly separate you from friends...
If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?
Richard Bach

My fabulous & not-so-fabulous Year 2006

Jan-Nov 2005:
Brand new year ahead... A series of new highs and lows... IOC Session in Singapore... My own ideas put in action - Natural Beauty and Stretch & Tone... My first shoot (in this company) alone with the army, navy and air force guys...

Dec 2005:Two wisdom teeth extracted from upper and lower left, caused major fever and unthinkable ulcers and sore gums prior to surgery... Yes my teeth problems are not like the usual...
Betrayed & left to bleed to death by one-of-a-kind matriarch boss...
Almost cheated of pro-rated leave... How can it get any worst...
Well-deserved vacation in Melbourne... Experience Australia in a new light...

Jan 2006:
It just got worst... I caught Dengue Fever... Had high fever and for a first, was shivering uncontrollably in tropical Singapore... Had to be hospitalised for 3 days due to dangerously low blood platelets level... Worst experience in my life...

Feb 2006:
Back in business... Starting new job... Sports channel branding promos... Why don't sports presenters look sporty at all???

March 2006:
Never seen so many projects involving kids in my whole life...

April 2006:
More kids projects coming my way...

May 2006:
My uneventful, relaxing birthday....
More kids projects coming my way...

June 2006:
One nagging, never-ending project.... Yes it involves kids, animals, and the great outdoors...

July 2006:
At last, my lasik consultation... Surgery to be on 7th and 8th August... Can't wait
Queer As Folk brightens up my life... Finished 4 seasons in 2 weeks... Hold it, make that LESS THAN 2 weeks... Gale Harold (Brian Kinney) is one serious hottie actor... Love him to death...
My nagging, never-ending project is seeing some light...

29th July - It's showtime!!! CABARET!!!!