Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Girl From Ipoh

Last Thursday, I went to watch 'The Girl From Ipoh' at KL PAC with my B, my sisters and some friends. It was a musical play directed by a friend of B's. The acting was applaudable. Heard of Carmen Soo? So familiar, siapa ba dia ni? Anyways, she was the lead.

The plot was predicatable and a bit draggy. It is about a Chinese girl from Ipoh who comes from a typical Chinese family. Father sells 'Hor Hee' mee. She is ashamed of her roots and refuses to speak Chinese. Her dream is to be Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's) and marry a wealthy non-Chinese man, preferably foreign. The play is set in Wong Mei Lin (I am thinking this is her name but can't recall); the girl from Ipoh's brain; her thoughts. Her thoughts are represented by a choir of 'butch' women. In her mind, she is Holly Golightly aka Audrey Hepburn. Super gorgeous. But in reality she is 4'9" and weighs over 200lbs. Mei Lin longs to be worldly and sophisticated and creates this image to fool everyone around her. After completing her studies 'overseas' and adopting a foreign accent, she begins work in KL. Soon she falls in love with a 'sophisticated' local man who whadyya know, turns out to be a superjerk. Suddenly, she finds herself all alone and carrying an illegitimate child. Then, bla bla bla... you can pretty much figure out the rest. Several scenes were in Chinese which I do not understand but by the audience's reaction, I'm guessing these were the funny scenes. Interested in learning more about upcoming shows from The Actors Studio? Visit the official site:
http://www.theactorsstudio.com.my/home.phtml

Albeit slightly draggy and predictable, the performance has strengthened my faith in Malaysian acting/directing talent. You will definitely hear more about future local theatricals from me. The Malaysian performing arts scene is definitely progressing. One last thing, the crowd was pretty interesting, trendy and artsy-fartsy. Quite refreshing compared to the 'clones' I see cramming up Megamall on Saturday's. As for myself, I try not to be a 'clone', always trying to keep my sense of uniqueness (ahem!) in a city of vanishing individuality. Everyone looks the same. But that is a whole different story all together. Anyway, I will be watching "Why You Still Fat?" this week. It stars Afdlin Shauki.

1 comment:

sel said...

bloody spammers!