Serene will tell me its part of my character - Virgos are perfectionist people. But is it just me or was the show today too amateur? Are my standards really that high? Coz I certainly don't think so. What I expect of shows (whether I have to pay to watch or not) is that of industry professional standard.
Sadly, this show I watched today, dealing with clever monkeys wasn't all of that. Granted, the music and the dancing by the female lead was great. Excellent in fact. However what didn't work for me was the acting by the musicians (who really tried their best given their untrained circumstances), bad miming, and a skeleton script that wasn't fleshed out enough. Bad blocking by the cast added to the confusion - at times there was so much unsubstantial stuff happening on stage that I didn't know who to look at or what to understand, or whether it was improvised and therefore not important to the flow of the story.
Scenes were chop-chop done and gotten over with and all too soon, we're presented with the final act. One doesn't really know how it got from the monkey to there. And was the issue ever resolved? How did they do it? Hmm... I really don't know.
I'm disappointed. Because firstly, this show was put up by my gamelan company of which I'm affiliated to and if it is not a great show, its affecting all those in the company. Secondly, because my friends worked so hard for this show, which in the end didn't turn out so good in my opinion. Ok, so fine, you can say, that is my opinion right? But what about other people like me? Who pay money and expect to see something put up which is not just passable but good, interesting and of standard.
What's wrong with setting your standards high? People don't care if you say, hey but what we are doing is already a step up, a level up than our previous shows. These people weren't with us throughout our growing process and they wouldn't know anyway. So in they go...expecting what is only natural. Something of standard.
But of course some people won't understand. I'm so tired of hitting brick walls and making people understand what it takes to become a
PROFESSIONAL PERFORMING ENSEMBLE.
Maybe its time to give up? Seeing as some people are blinded as to a certain ang moh's abilities. You wouldn't have given JT that support if she were in the same shoes so why are you now? Just 'fess up. You ARE partial. And it IS UNFAIR to all of us who also slog it out and have been slogging it out for years with you.
