caught in a landslide (with no escape from reality)
I don't understand. how one can be so perfect and yet, so different. I'm worried though. if this continues it spells trouble, and i'm not even sure if i'm good enough.
anyway.
saw We Will Rock You today and felt like it was out of place to call it a Musical. it was more like a rock concert, and for many (me especially), it was the closest to being at a Queen concert that we could ever be. Production wise it was brilliant. Technically speaking, of course. Lights were VERY nice. Multimedia was very nice. Staging was so-so, acting was not bad, but the story was sorely lacking. not that the crowd was there for the story anyway.
in brief. MiG Ayesa plays Galileo Figaro, a clueless young man who gets song lyrics coming to his head. He has seen the sacred texts (lyrics of our time, mixed in with some fried rice paradise and Dick Lee) and is the ONE (Go figure, Matrix) who will lead a rock revolution against GlobalSoft, the company that has taken over the world, and forces MANUFACTURED packaged pop and electronic music into the mouths of young people, banning instruments altogether. in other words, the evil DIGITAL world has taken over everything that's real, and only a handful of people known as the Bohemians (with some interesting pop icon names) realise and are ready to lead the world into a rock revolution (or rather, rock revival).
I ponder on several occasions the inherent irony of the musical. It is a full-fledged packaged musical, lacking, i feel in the things that used to make musicals really matter, the story, the ideas, the concepts. It had all the lights, all the pizazz, the finesse of a well produced musical, packaged to be shown all over the world in the same fashion with little deviation. I thought it was very ironic, that steeped inherently in the values of the musical was a call to fight globalisation and its evening effect, and yet, this musical could stand up as a pinnacle of globalisation, and was being marketed and produced by an international corporation called Playbill.
ponder awhile, my friends, on that irony.
Other than that, actually, i really enjoyed myself. The music was very very very very well arranged and what i did with TWW was NOWHERE close to what music directing really means.
On another note. Pre-show found Stef and i sitting in front of these 2 young looking girls in the stalls and in between reading our programme we couldn't help but over hear snippets of their conversation.
Girl 2: " ...... *gibberish to us* .... did you see that production? it had songs like Bad Day and We will rock you."
Girl 1: ".. it was really bad .. it cheapened the chinese orchestra and english music."
Girl 2: ".... really that bad?"
Girl 1: ".... yeah. and it was expensive some more. $25 at UCC you know."
my heart didnt know if it should have sank. But i did think Granty should hear this. strangely enough, on some degree i agreed with the cheapening part. Couldn't help it. It did cheapen some of my favourite songs. I did feel though, like i had been living in a bubble thinking i did a good job for a really long time. it's not that i don't accept accolades from close friends. It's more of a reality check for me, and a sick realisation that audiences are impossible to please. Whatever Granty tried to do, i feel perhaps it was too dated, too obscure and will not be kindly looked upon in this highly "sophisticated" and differentiated world.
but honestly. I wanted to throttle those 2 Girls. Stef and I almost turned around and asked for her feedback just to see her squirm in her seat.
i suppose you just can't please everyone huh?
she's a killer queen.
I don't understand. how one can be so perfect and yet, so different. I'm worried though. if this continues it spells trouble, and i'm not even sure if i'm good enough.
anyway.
saw We Will Rock You today and felt like it was out of place to call it a Musical. it was more like a rock concert, and for many (me especially), it was the closest to being at a Queen concert that we could ever be. Production wise it was brilliant. Technically speaking, of course. Lights were VERY nice. Multimedia was very nice. Staging was so-so, acting was not bad, but the story was sorely lacking. not that the crowd was there for the story anyway.
in brief. MiG Ayesa plays Galileo Figaro, a clueless young man who gets song lyrics coming to his head. He has seen the sacred texts (lyrics of our time, mixed in with some fried rice paradise and Dick Lee) and is the ONE (Go figure, Matrix) who will lead a rock revolution against GlobalSoft, the company that has taken over the world, and forces MANUFACTURED packaged pop and electronic music into the mouths of young people, banning instruments altogether. in other words, the evil DIGITAL world has taken over everything that's real, and only a handful of people known as the Bohemians (with some interesting pop icon names) realise and are ready to lead the world into a rock revolution (or rather, rock revival).
I ponder on several occasions the inherent irony of the musical. It is a full-fledged packaged musical, lacking, i feel in the things that used to make musicals really matter, the story, the ideas, the concepts. It had all the lights, all the pizazz, the finesse of a well produced musical, packaged to be shown all over the world in the same fashion with little deviation. I thought it was very ironic, that steeped inherently in the values of the musical was a call to fight globalisation and its evening effect, and yet, this musical could stand up as a pinnacle of globalisation, and was being marketed and produced by an international corporation called Playbill.
ponder awhile, my friends, on that irony.
Other than that, actually, i really enjoyed myself. The music was very very very very well arranged and what i did with TWW was NOWHERE close to what music directing really means.
On another note. Pre-show found Stef and i sitting in front of these 2 young looking girls in the stalls and in between reading our programme we couldn't help but over hear snippets of their conversation.
Girl 2: " ...... *gibberish to us* .... did you see that production? it had songs like Bad Day and We will rock you."
Girl 1: ".. it was really bad .. it cheapened the chinese orchestra and english music."
Girl 2: ".... really that bad?"
Girl 1: ".... yeah. and it was expensive some more. $25 at UCC you know."
my heart didnt know if it should have sank. But i did think Granty should hear this. strangely enough, on some degree i agreed with the cheapening part. Couldn't help it. It did cheapen some of my favourite songs. I did feel though, like i had been living in a bubble thinking i did a good job for a really long time. it's not that i don't accept accolades from close friends. It's more of a reality check for me, and a sick realisation that audiences are impossible to please. Whatever Granty tried to do, i feel perhaps it was too dated, too obscure and will not be kindly looked upon in this highly "sophisticated" and differentiated world.
but honestly. I wanted to throttle those 2 Girls. Stef and I almost turned around and asked for her feedback just to see her squirm in her seat.
i suppose you just can't please everyone huh?
she's a killer queen.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home