Date: 27 March 10
Time: 8:00
Location: Drama Theatre
Kaki: SyncoID
Rating: 3.5 stars
Language: Chinese (with English & Chinese Subtitles)
Synopsis:
The latest creation by The Theatre Practice – Liao Zhai Rocks!, a spanking new Mandarin period rock musical takes the stage in March 2010!
Inspired by the colourful folk stories of Qing dynasty classic ‘The Strange Tales of Liao Zhai’, Liao Zhai Rocks! vamps up all things period and brings you into a fantastical world of captivating characters. The scholar, Sang Xiao, wins the affections of Ying Ning, a vixen spirit, only to fall for the ploy of a duplicitous ghost. But when he is poisoned and cast into the underworld, it is the vixen spirit who, driven by true love, embarks on a perilous journey to save him…Liao Zhai Rocks! brings together the prolific talents from the hit musical If There’re Seasons… and creative sensations – composer Eric Ng and lyricist Xiaohan. This medley of arts and entertainment promises to jolt you out of your seats!The latest creation by The Theatre Practice – Liao Zhai Rocks!, a spanking new Mandarin period rock musical takes the stage in March 2010!
Inspired by the colourful folk stories of Qing dynasty classic ‘The Strange Tales of Liao Zhai’, Liao Zhai Rocks! vamps up all things period and brings you into a fantastical world of captivating characters. The scholar, Sang Xiao, wins the affections of Ying Ning, a vixen spirit, only to fall for the ploy of a duplicitous ghost. But when he is poisoned and cast into the underworld, it is the vixen spirit who, driven by true love, embarks on a perilous journey to save him…
Liao Zhai Rocks! brings together the prolific talents from the hit musical If There’re Seasons… and creative sensations – composer Eric Ng and lyricist Xiaohan. This medley of arts and entertainment promises to jolt you out of your seats!
Review:
And so... to be truly upfront about this, this was originally a 3 star performance. However, the stage set and props was truly well done, to the point that it added a 0.5 star to the performance.
So what was good? The acting was pretty good, the singing was good for some, medicocre for others. The stage set was excellent and the time taken for set change was phenomenal, truly an F1 performance if you ask me.
What was bad? The lead actress unfortunately. She acts well, she speaks well, she just can't sing well... most of the time, I could feel that she was shouting out the song... maybe that is her way of expressing angst? But it just sounded too forced, to the point that she would go out of tune at parts possibly due to shouting too much the stanza before.
On the other hand, there was this character who was a water spirit, San Niang, who sang much better. Alas, based on her physique, I could imagine why she was not selected to be the lead actress... a true shame.
The guy was forgetable, and as Synco rightly pointed out, there were gaps in the plot. Like how did the vixen fall in love with a guy whose main purpose was to get her into bed? Where was the courtship? Hmm... then we jump straight to her declaring her love for him... but... there wasn't any scene showing/symbolising their love for each other? weird.
Synco's point was that the plot jumped along too quickly... something I disagree with.. but I do agree that there were gaps...
Overall, it was an enjoyable show. I was entertained throughout... there were some tunes that I thought was overused, and the lyrics were a little mismatched. No fault of the lyricist.. but more that this play could have done better with an original track. Tough for me to concentrate on the song, when all I can think of at the moment was, what was the original lyric to this song? And "feeling" that it is a modern tune... being forcefed into an "ancient" performance.
All in all.. as I said, enjoyable. Fairly worth the money, go catch it if you can. Believe it is still showing.
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