Literature. Play. Gulliver's Travels. Adaptation. What makes a man. 3.45 am. 12 hours. Rehearsals. Sean's house. Costumes/Props. Line Run-throughs. Action Run-throughs. Totally imba final product.
Those phrases above summarise our Lit play. We took 4, yes, FOUR, days to write the script. Pretty long, considering that we sent the final copy to Mrs. D'Cruz at 3.45am. That was after countless adding-ins, removals, twisting, changing, warping, slugging, reshearsing, positioning, blocking, etc.
I must say, we did extremely well for a group that rehearsed for 12 hours only, with hardly any sleep ( like 2 hours) within the time that we started - 9 pm Friday night- to when we were in school - 9 am Saturday morning. Not to mention the occasional frustration with bending pins as I tried in vain to make rosettes and other sorts of decoration for our cast. In case I'm sounding really really really disjointed, blame it on the lack of sleep. But, whatever the case, I shall start our ardous journey starting on Friday - 2pm.
We were sitting around in class watching Mr. Fong holding his maths remedial, and we finally decided to get our asses off our tables and move towards Little India, which supposedly had cheap sunglasses and cheap everything else. As it was, Royce went with Jon Yee to J8 to eat, while Jeremiah( a.k.a Mauji), Bor Ray, and Eugene went to take bus 13 to Potong Pasir, then take NEL to Little India. On arriving at LI station, we got off and went to Tekka Market, not to mention that we saw this really freaky mechanical baby on a shelf that was twisting and contorting it's spine to make it look like it was dancing while music played from a speaker conveniently located at the groin area.
We walked around the second floor of the Tekka Market for so long, trying to find the so called Hat Shop which many people said there was, intending to get a turban for Arun. However, we eventually found that only one shop there had turbans - the Bhavani retailer. The cheapest turban was exorbitantly priced, $28. We decided to skip it, and went round searching for sunglasses. We eventually went back down to join Bor Ray who had finished eating the plate of char kway tiao which he claimed sucked, and sat down to have tea (a cup of Teh Cino for me, 2 curry puffs for Mauji and Eugene). We were then joined by Royce who brought us to the ALLEYWAYS of little india.
Walking along, we were considering buying a garland when I suddenly spotted a bunch of sunglasses at the shopfront of a shop. Those sunglasses were meant for kids, but looking in, we saw this entire rack of sunglasses. We entered, and were treated to the sign: Sunglasses $.190 only. I found this pair of Agent-Smith looking shades, and passed them on to Mauji for him to try. Definitely the pair we wanted. We bought it, together with a polyester tablecloth at $1. We then walked on around the shops, then we came to this fabric shop where Royce rushed in to buy 3 small bolts of cloth at $3 each, and I saw this uber hax thing. A mask that looked like a japanese samurai helmet thing. I can't really explain it, it just looked so Japanese and went so well with my wooden sword that I bought it for Eugene ( aka Seow) to use during the play, and to wear with my sword.
By then, we realised that we didn't need anything else already, and walked back to the MRT station and took all the way down to Harbourfront, where Sean's house unfortunately was located. (By unfortunate, refer to today's PSI readings. It was 130 at the time we left his house, and it was at the south part of singapore [obviously worst hit by haze]). We had dinner at MacDonald's first, before taking a bus down to Sean's house. As Arun said in the play about a HUUUGEEE mansion, that described Sean's house. We took so long to get copies of the script and shower that by the time they started memorising lines, the flag, the cape, the rosette, the handkerchief and the sash was completed. That was around 9pm.
From then on, we did line run throughs, then went down to the porch (which is also disgustingly huge) and did positioning, blocking, and did action run throughs. They ended up doing all of these while I happily worked on the oral defence that we eventually didn't use, oh and chatting with someone too xD. By the time they decided it was time to take a break, it was 1.00 am. We just collapsed from exhaustion (other than me and Arun, who were playing passing at the porch). They ordered Mac's Devlivery, and we finished eating and everything by 2.00 am. We had actually intended to continue work until 4 am, but the tiredness on everyone's face showed, so we decided to wake up at 4 am instead to continue working. So it was left that Royce and I (being the two non-actors) were left to complete the tasks like completing the script, cutting the music files, and doing the oral defence.
After getting scolded, I huffed off to the sofa downstairs and accidentally fell asleep, waking up only at 4.20 am. I was so angry with myself for oversleeping, and hurried up to check the progress of everyone. Guess what? They were all still sleeping. And when I tried to wake them up, they told me to screw off. So I went to play Maple, making use of my double exp card to train. Only at 5 am, did they finally concede to waking up, and by then there was no time left for run throughs. We had to quickly bathe, pack up, and leave Sean's home for school. By the time we left, it was 6.30 am already. I had taken a bath, and so had everyone else. We caught bus 10 just as we got to the busstop, and hurried back down to school by MRT. We did run throughs on the train, and it there was a hilarious look on some of the passengers' faces as they watched our motley crew joke about with our punchlines. As said earlier, the conditions were appaling. The haze was so thick it looked like fog. Only the hurting in my throat told me otherwise.
Anyway, at 7.30am, Bishan. We were finally 'home'. We went off to get breakfast, ranging from Mac's Student meals (I ordered a Sausage McMuffin with Egg meal) to buns from 7-11. Then we hurried on to school, decidedly doing run throughs before the event started at 8.30 am. By then I was already worrying about the costumes and trying to perfect everything. We found out that we were second last group to present, so they hurried off to the band room to rehearse somemore while I sat in most of the other plays watching them, and being alert as to when our time was coming. During the interval, we had no idea that they had ordered cheeseburgers for all of us, and we just stayed in the bandroom, rehearsing while others chomped on our burgers. Ah well. You can't have the best of everything ;)
After much hurrying, worrying and a ridiculously sex-joke laden play from Auyong's group, it was finally our turn. 9th out of the 10 groups to present. I rushed about, eventually running to the projection room to get the lights and sound board ready for our music and lights. Then it began.
As I watched the play, I was glad that all of the cast could be heard clearly, especially Mauji because his character, Agent Smith, is supposed to be a very controlled and calm voice. It turned out great. We had hilarious jokes, from the "I know kung-fu. So do I, So do I, So do I, So do I, So do I"part where Jeremiah hopped backwards saying So do I imitating Smith's copies saying Me in The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions. That was the star point of our play. But we couldn't forget the war poetry, the GOJIRA, BANZAI, the sakura love letter, the thumbtacks, the gayness of Arun in that role, the Singaporean-bengness of Zach in the NCC uniform, Josh and the Texan accent, Arun and his Silence, crony! Shut up, underling! Quiet, minion! lines, and obviously, the catchlines like This is why I left Tokyo!, All your bases is be belong to us, Who set us up the bomb, I kill you to defend my family honour!!, Slave, no, I mean scribe, etc.
Lit play was such a blast. I shall seek the opinions of my groupmates before adding the script to this site. But however, it still rocks. I'll remember it for the years to come =). Oh and I'll try to get the video of our play and try to upload it somewhere, somehow.
Royce.Eugene.Zachary.Jeremiah.BorRay.Mervyn.Joshua.Arun.Sean.LitPlay06.WhatMakesAMan