the secret behind the fallen curtain

Sounds familiar?-king lear

2007-10-20T01:54:00.000-07:00

When I was young, my parents like to play this game with me and my sibling-who kisses them most, would be regarded as loving them the most. So, what happen then would be, me, my younger sister and brother would rush off towards our parents and try to give as much kisses as we can. We would be trying to push off each other in hope that the other would lose some points. Those who “win”, will get to be waken up early and get to go to our primary school earlier than the other two. That day when we arrive earlier than the other two would always be the highlight of the day. Even the trip of going back home is another competition. We always race each other home.
Me and my other two younger sister and brother has always been competitive of each other. We never run out of ideas on how to compete with each other. Sometimes it is not all about winning, but it is more on being able to achieve something that meaningful no matter how ridiculous those competitions were. These are the list of things that we used to compete on or bet on:
1. Who climbs the highest? (I always lose, I’m afraid of height.)
2. Who runs the fastest? (Not me, for sure!)
3. Who wakes up the earliest? (My younger sister, me and my brother sleep like log and we’re kind of hard to be waked up.)
4. Who finish reading book the fastest? (Normally, my sister-she could get away with not helping the house chores but I’ll get pinched if I don’t.)
5. Who could catch our neighbor’s pigeons the most? (Those are homing pigeons. There is one day when we bring home the pigeons and we got scolded by grandma, because when the pigeons were called home by our neighbor, very few turn up. we were really scared because we thought they belong to no one.)
6. Who could jump off from the verandah without hurting themselves the most? (our house is the typical tall Melanau house which not built on the ground)
7. Who could withstand our parents’ strokes of rattan the most? (I could still feel the painful heat of the strokes as the rattan meets the skin of the back of my leg-normally I get more because I’m the eldest and I’m supposed to know more on what to do and not do.)
8. Who can rides bicycle first? (My brother, his wounds from falling off the bicycle to heal took months to heal.)
9. Who could carry most firewood? (My younger brother, he likes to help around back then, always ready to help.)
10. Who manage to save more money in the piggy bank? (Again, it’s not me. ;-D )

…and the list could go on forever…

I’m not sure if it’s unnatural for the siblings to compete. As far as I’m concern, my parents never disown us when we lose in our little competition of who kisses the most. Those who loses always turns to mom and mom will always make us or treat us with something a little bit special to make up for our lose.
There is no underdog or the black sheep of the family in my family. We didn’t say the word “I love you” much too each other, but we knew that we love each other so much through our actions, conversations and how we treat each other. There’s no question of who loves each most now, we knew that the answer is that, all of us love each other the most…

Perhaps…Lear should learn that there is such thing as unspoken love.

the moth-the streetcar named desire

2007-10-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

Do you know what is moth?
It belongs to the butterfly's family, but unlike butterfly, they only come out at night. Why?
Because it cannot stand strong light, especially sunlight.

But the funny things is that, it also has fatal attraction towards light and the flame that become the source of light that can harm them.

I’m not sure whether it crosses your mind that, we human also just like those moth that only came out at night. we tend to be attracted to things that we knew going to get us into trouble or harm us.

We knew that junk foods and fast foods are bad for our health, but it doesn't stop us from eating it every time we're going out. we all knew that drugs cannot be abused or else it will harm our body and we'll be punished by the law because abusing drugs is against the law. yet, take a look around us, there quite a large number of our younger generation and not to mention adults abused drugs and become drug addicts.

Even in our personal relationship, some of us just cannot help falling in love with the wrong guy or woman that doesn't suit them. Yet they still want to be in the relationship now matter how awful their relationship turn out.

There many married women out there that suffer from relationship but they do not dare to walk out of the relationship, because they thinking of the welfare of their children and afraid of the changes that they going to face after the separation. They also afraid of the negative perceptions of society on divorced women. Isn’t it sad?

As for me, I knew coffee is bad for me, but I just cannot get through a day without thinking how nice it would be to have a cup of steamy black coffee waiting for me for breakfast or after a class. I don’t know much about relationship but I do know that if the relationship only manage in making me suffer, I would rather be alone but happy than be together with someone but have to suffer…

I also realize that, if you could fall in love, you could also fall out of love… and if the love that you have now, gives you nothing but suffering and sadness, then, it is not love. If it hurts you, get out of that relationship. Learn to love yourself more.

On king lear...

2007-10-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

I have never known a man that love flatteries as much as Lear whose willing to disown his most beloved and favorite daughter, Cordelia, just because she does not want to play the game of who-can-tell-me-which-one-of-you-love-me-most.
Because of that, she lose all the part of the kingdom that she will inherits after his death. since she no longer has any dowry, one of her suitor, Duke of Burgundy, refuse to marry her. So much for a gentleman! But, the King of France willing to marry despite the fact that she has no dowry and being advice by Lear not to marry her. As they say, only a true king knows a true princess...
as it turns out, the one that love him till the end is Cordelia and not the two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan whom flattered him most during that love test. Lear was foolish to succumb to false flattery by his two wicked elder daughters, and divides his kingdom between them. Do you still call a man a king when he is no longer have power to decide or rule as a king?
He was foolish to give up his power before its' time. Everyone around him treat him badly after he given up his power. Only those who are loyal and love him that stay with him despite the odds, especially, Kent-who were banished beacuse he tries to advice Lear when Lear wants to disown Cordelia, Glouscester, Edgar and the Fool.
Lear is not the only fool in King Lear. the other one is Gloucester. He was so blind of the the truth that he did not realize that his natural son, Edgar was innocent... Ironically, he realizes the truth about Edgar's innocence and Edmund's betrayal, only after he was physically blinded by the Duke of Cornwall who pulled out his eyeballs.
Perhaps the saddest and unsatisfying fact about King Lear is the ending. All the main characters are dead except for Edgar, Kent and Duke of Albany...

first play i ever watch

2007-10-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

I was staring at my empty walls, just another restless and sleepless night for me. Every now and then, it happens. I have so many things on my mind now. The next thing I knew, it brings me back to the play that I have watch a few weeks ago with my fellow course mate. The play called “Psychosis.” A young talented director and actor, Gavin Yap, directed it. Call me an ignorant, I only knew him as one of the actor in the comedy sketch show, “Buddies.” Therefore, when I saw him at KLPAC, I thought he was just coming to give support to the actors and the director of the play. Only after I the show is over and I finally bought the program book that I realize, he is the director. Well, I guess that happens in our learning process. We learn new things everyday.

Well anyway, you must be wondering, why on earth am I thinking of such a depressing play on the night, I mean, morning like this (it’s two o’clock in the morning)?

My younger sister used to tell me that I’m the “worrier” of the family and I meant it as a noun not as a verb, if there is such word as “worrier”. Looking back, it does ring some truth. As the eldest, I find many things are rather depressing sometimes. It’s not about setting the benchmark or setting a good example, to me, it’s about your conscience of what you thought people would expected from a first born.

The play “Psychosis” makes me wonders when the last time I have experienced the same kind of intensities that the actors had presented in the play. I still remember the first line spoken in that silent dark stage, “Do you have lots of friends?”. It’s rather ironic to think that this line doesn’t warm me up to the idea of having lots of friends but instead, it left me feeling cold and alone in that full rooms of people. As if I’m being stripped off of my feelings. It makes me feel somewhat nauseous because some of the things spoken are somewhat too close to heart for comfort.

And I can’t help but notice when one of the female actors pointing straight to the male actor and address him as she and her. In the beginning I thought was another common error, but later it cross my mind that it might be intentional. Could it be? After half an hour, I realize that all the conversations, the dialogues and the monologues carried out between these actors in a way that makes me feel like they are talking to the reflection of their own self and not to another two real persons in the play.

Have you ever heard of Monsieur Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis theory? The id, ego and super ego? According to Freud, these are the three parts of a mind in every human. The id designated as the repository of sexual and aggressive wishes, which Freud called "drives. The drives or id could also be conscious or unconscious, and that consciousness vs. unconsciousness was a quality of any mental operation or any mental conflict. And there is also, the subconscious state of mind. Why I go on about this theory? It’s because it occurred to me that all the characters in this play have a slight representation of each state of mind of human.

After the show was over, I learned from my friends that the playwright of the play was actually a mentally disturbed woman and she committed suicide after she finish writing this play. Hmm…no wonder she could write up something like that so well. The actors were brilliant. They play their roles so effectively.

The setting of the stage was minimalist and there is no intermission. When I was watching it, I do wish that they do have intermission, because I’m feeling kind of psychosis myself, like I’m being brainwashed or something. I remember how felt when the play was over and curtains opened, I have never felt that depressed, alone and completely stripped off. I think the play is good, maybe too good that it affect me too much. But, I don’t think I watch enough play to give a fair judgments of this play. All the same, I’m glad I take my time and watch it.

mirror, mirror

2007-10-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, I’m reading back all the play that I we study for our drama class just for the fun of it. The first play that I read was Anike, a play wrote by Malaysian playwright, Wong Pui Nam. He is actually quite famous poet.
As I read the play, I cannot help but notice how similar the play is with the other play that we learn which is, Antigone written by Sophocles. Even though the settings are according to local setting, but the storyline is the same. It’s a about a sister who was willing to against the law of the ruler, in order to do her responsibility as a family member to a person who was considered as betrayer of the kingdom.
By not abiding the rulers’ law, she abides the law of gods’. Her action caused her, the death of her fiancée, and the mother of her fiancée who was devastated at her son’s sudden death. Even though, those famous local names in the history of Malaya such as, Nadim and Tuah are used. It’s quite easy to relate the characters that we can find in Antigone. Maybe the one of the differences is that, in the Antigone, it was the two brothers in blood that fight and killed each other. But in Anike, it was between two close friends that have relationship that almost like brother. And the other difference is the reason of the fight between Sirat and Tuah-that part is like the exact copy of the fights between Hang Jebat and Hang Tuah during the period of Sultanate of Malacca.
In my opinion as reader and with not so much knowledge on the play, Anike is basically, a reflection of the play Antigone. Nevertheless, the playwright was able to integrate it into the local setting in a very interesting way that, the reader might assume it as an original play without any adaptation from other play, if they never read or heard of the Antigone.

the classic and the contemporary Pygmalion

2007-08-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

what do you think of a guy who thought that he could build a statue of what he thought of a perfect woman to replace a real woman?

Hmmm... sounds rather pathetic if you ask me... but then again, nothing is impossible...

If we thought the men nowadays are rather weird and kind of eccentric, well, how ab0ut this? A few hundreds years ago, a Roman poet called Ovid, wrote about a man who fells in love with the statue that he carved from the ivory... Ironically, the man whose name was Pygmalion, actually a self-confessed bachelor who admit that he is "not interested in women" after he saw daughters of Propoetus, prostituting themselves.

So, he decides to carved a statue that he envisioned as the perfect image of a woman. The statue looks so real that he fell in love with it and treat it with love and care, as if it was a real woman. He even pray to Venus, so that he could have a woman that look like his statue to spend his life with. His wish was granted and they get married and even got two children. It makes me wonder, if the mother was stone, as beautiful as she might be, how does the children look like?

as for the comtemporary Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw, the creation that change is not from stone to a woman, instead it is a poor young woman, Eliza, created or transform into a young lady of a high class society. Instead of using carving tool to transform her, Professor Higgins uses his knowledge on linguistic to carve her speeches and the way she talks to other people and the way she dresses.

Bear in though, he does not treat her like a lady, he himself does not even act like a real gentleman. He continously, bully her to make her do things that she does not like. Professor Higgins do not care of her feelings at all, all he cares is that she was able to produce correct sound of a word or speak like a proper lady and ask her to mimic other people's dialects.

He does not love her but she does have some affection towards him. The play does not end with a happy ending. It ends with a bit of chance that Higgins might have some affection for her too... The question of what going to happen between Eliza and Higgins, is open for interpretation.

How Deep Is Your Love?

2007-08-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

There are only thousands of ways to describe how deep your love towards your love ones is. I spare you all the clichés of examples. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before.

I just want to ask you this, how deep is your love towards your family? How long do you think your love for your family will last? Will you stop loving them when they die? How long would you be willing to sacrifice for them?

If, you are Antigone, a character from Sophocles’s Antigone, then I’ll believe all your words about sacrificing and all....

Antigone is a woman who sacrifices her life in order to make sure that her brother, Polyneices have a proper burial even though it means that, it is going against the king’s law. That’s why, I asked you all just now, how long would you be willing to sacrifice for your family…

Even after the death of her brother, she is still willing to sacrifice for her brother, Polyneices. She even lost her fiancée, Haemon, who is also the son of the King Creon. He killed himself because is enraged over the fact that his father is too arrogant to listen to other people’s advice and suggestions regarding the punishment of Antigone and Ismene.

When Antigone finds out about Haemon’s death, she was so heartbroken…that she commits suicide… Hmmm…don’t you think it’s just like a little reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet?

So, I ask you again. How deep is your love? Do you really meant what are you going to answer?

changes through time...

2007-08-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

The classic version of Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw is Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

In the contemporary Pygmalion, the transformation is done o a flower girl, Eliza who are poor and unable to speak the proper English. As a man of linguistic, Professor Higgins was intrigued by the way she talks in her local dialects. But, unlike Pygmalion who treats Galatea with attentive care and kind words, Professor Higgins talks to Eliza rudely and treats her with indifference and didn’t care for her feelings. A bit ironic for a man who is considered as a gentleman.

Professor Higgins transforms Eliza by dressing her up like an upper class woman. He also taught her the proper way to talk until people could mistaken her for an aristocrat or a princess. But, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there is transformations, first one is when Pygmalion transforms an ivory by carving it into a statue of a woman. The second one is when the goddess of Venus grant his wish for a lover by giving life the statue of woman that he carved.

Kuda Kepang

2007-08-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I mentioned bout Mak Yong in my last blog. This time around, I want to talk about the other form of dance that also has spiritual value just like what they in Mak Yong. In Johore, another state in Malaysia, they have this dance called ' Kuda Kepang '. 'Kuda' means horse in English.

In this dance the choreography of the dance are of the actions of the rider of a horse. This sounds straight foward, isn't it? But, it isn't. The dancers of this dance have to be the mentally strong one. it's because, if they are not, they could be easily possesed by the spirit of the rider of the horse.

I heard from my Johorian friends that, when this dancers are possesed, their eyes glint just a little bit more than usual and the way they handle the mock horse is just like the way a horse rider gallop a real horse. Wicked isn't it?

In Indonesia, they are also a indigenous community that have this dance which called the tiger dance. Mind you, this tiger dance is not the exotic tiger dance. This dance is performed to worship the spirit of the tiger that considered as powerful animal and the strongest one in the jungle. The choreography of the dance resembles the actions of a tiger and including their facial expressions.

Hmmm...talking about these dance make me realize why the western use to describe the east as mysterious.

Mak Yong - The Forbidden Dance

2007-08-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

Basically, I didn’t know much about this royal dance but I learn that this dance is very unique and considered quite controversial in the state of east coast of Malaysia from which it comes from, Kelantan. During our last class, our lecturer discusses with us a scene from a play called In The Name Of Love by Ramli Ibrahim. That scene was about an elderly woman sharing her view and her first hand experience as a former dancer of Mak Yong.
I am intrigued by her local Malay dialect; it is just like a fresh breath of air that I really welcome after our discussion over a scene from two plays by two major playwrights, Macbeth by William Shakespeare and A Night Out by Harold Pinter. It’s really nice to study on the local play that is culturally familiar to you and could easily relate to.
The dance is actually some kind of traditional musical theatre. in the past the dance can only be watch by the royals and the aristocrats. but nowadays, the dance can be watch by anyone who are interested in the dance.

These actors and actresses of this dance recite their lines in Kelantanese. i used to think that mak yong is just an ordinary dance but my Kelantanese friends told me otherwise. They told me that the dance contains some old rituals that idolizing the spirits... in other words, the dancers are worshipping the spirits but at the same time, their faith is Islam.

Therefore, you can see that something is not quite right... I think this is the main reason why the state's government of Kelantan banned the mak yong dance, and totally can understand that... under Islamic rule, it is wrong to worship anything other than Allah...

As the saying goes...there must be a reason behind every actions that we made...

the entrance

2007-07-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Hello TESLians!
It's been a long holiday indeed for all of us. I'm sure you all having a good time and wish it could be prolonged just a little while more.
Anyway, this holiday i've been reading the play that we are assigned to by Dr. Edwin. The play called Antigone. When I saw that it's a Greek play, I was quite reserved about reading it because I thought the play would be winding and a lot of characters involve. But as they say, don't judge the books by it's cover. when I read the play, i find out that my opinion was totally misguided by my lack of knowledge on this area.
The play turned out to be very nice, easy to understand, the message in that play is quite direct to the point and there aren't many characters involve. But I was quite dissapointed because I always have some kind of fascination about Greek's gods and goddess but in the play, they don't really bring that subject up.
I learnt that Greek's plays are rarely made based on their gods or goddess because it's not encouraged at that period of time. I wish I know more about Greek history before I take this course. It's not helping at all when I realize that fact that I never went to any play at all before.
But now, i'm planning to attend some plays and experience the joy of watching it myself.
I hope by taking the teaching of language of drama this semester will help me in gaining more knowledge on plays and the playwrights because I have never been exposed to any of it before. let just say, it's not my common ground but I intend to change that.