Minggu ini merupakan minggu yang agak sibuk buat saya.
Hari ini saya akan menonton West Side Story, sebuah teater broadway klasik yang diterbangkan dari New York ke Istana Budaya. Sempena Ulangtahun ke 50 pementasan tersebut, rakyat Malaysia berpeluang untuk menyaksikannya di pentas paling berprestij di sini. Pementasan bermula 12 hingga 24 Mei depan. Harga tiket menyaksikannya memang agak mahal kerana untuk duduk di Stall ianya berharga RM590! Sementara ada "kuasa" sebagai orang media ini, baiklah saya pergunakan sebaik-baiknya. Esok lusa, bila tiada lagi, hanya masa yang akan menentukan.
50th Anniversary World Tour: Music theatre history was made at the Broadway premiere of West Side Story on 26th September 1957 in theWinter Garden Theatre in New York. A unique stage work, which set new standards as far as artistic, rhythmic and lyrical expression was concerned with its superb musicality and dramatization, redefining an entire genre, was born.
West Side Story – an emotional panorama of evocative images and unforgettable rhythmic compositions, erupts in the mind’s eye like a lava-spewing volcano: the sadness of endlessly fenced in backyards in a degenerate New York neighbourhood, a dimly-lit, almost spectral nocturnal urban canyon or the interior of old Doc’s shabbily modest corner shop. Our ears are filled with the rhythmic finger-clicking of the restless “Jets”, their speech peppered with crude jargon, the wail of the police sirens and the throaty laugh of the Puerto Rican women during an auspicious flirt with much-admired America. Here, adolescent energy is rife – whether roaming through the neighbourhood like a wild cat, careering through the houses like a bolt of lightning, or brilliantly robbing us of breath during yet another intoxicating dance sequence. Mambo meets rock ‘n’ roll. And rips right into the heart of things, where love invariably blinds us to reality: hope, tenderness and happiness, while the “Sharks’” threatening stares bore deep under our skin. The future is Somewhere.
Of course, the whole show started somewhere as well, and the road from Jerome Robbins’ original idea, namely to transform Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a contemporary piece, was a long one. And a unique one at that. The genius does not merely lie in replacing a balcony with a fire escape, but in the work’s complex overall composition, which captivates the audience with its dramatically successful conflation of musical, linguistic and choreographic vocabulary, accompanied by a complementary stage set.
With its succinct dialogue, the libretto is one of the shortest scripts ever to be written in its genre. The spectator falls straight into the microcosm of New York’s Upper West Side immigrant neighbourhood from the very first bars, which set the scene dramatically, the additional emergence of the two hostile street gangs catapulting them straight into the plot without further ado. The fast-paced events are strung together in an almost filmic manner, as the spectators are credibly plunged directly into the plot, which takes place over the few short hours of two successive days. The show is romance, psycho thriller, action murder mystery and documentary social study in one. An emotional roller coaster. And Hollywood gratefully jumped at the chance.
Masih dalam minggu ini juga, saya berpeluang untuk menyaksikan ADAM The Musical di The Actors Studio, Lot 10 bersama Raja Permaisuri Agong! ADAM The Musical diklasifikasikan sebagai muzikal pertama yang akan dipentaskan sebanyak 35 pementasan yang mengenengahkan isu HIV/AIDS di Malaysia dan menjadi muzikal pertama terbitan tempatan untuk tahun ini.
Diarahkan oleh Joe Hasham OAM dan dibintangi Malik Taufik, Mark Sobels, Tria Aziz, Sandra Mannas Wolf, Mo Dee, Fairuz Tauhid, Maria Yasmin dan Faridah Merican, harga tiket bagi menyaksikan teater ADAM The Musical hanya berharga RM60, RM40 dan RM30 sahaja.
Seterusnya saya akan bergelak ketawa untuk Malaysia dengan sebuah pementasan provokatif yang bertajuk Sex Money Scandal - The Pandemic. Jika dua pementasan pertama dipentaskan di Istana Budaya dan The Actors Studio, Lot 10, pementasan Sex Money Scandal - The Pandemic akan dipentaskan di PJ Live Arts, Jaya One Petaling Jaya. Hanya dua pementasan iaitu pada 15 dan 16 Mei ini.
Diarahkan oleh Zalfian Fuzi dan dibintangi pelakon serba boleh Jo Kukathas, pementasan bersifat monolog ini akan ditunjangi Jo dengan membawakan pelbagai watak antaranya YB Deputy Minister, Ribena Berry, Puan Cannot dan Judge Mental Singh. Saya pernah menyaksikan lakonan monolog Jo dalam The Elections, dan pastinya Sex Money Scandal - The Pandemic tidak akan saya lepaskan.
Caught In The Middle Part IV juga satu pementasan yang tidak akan saya lepaskan. Berlangsung di lokasi yang sama, teater ini menampilkan Mano Maniam, Zaibo, Sandra Sodhy dan Chew Kin Wah.
Saya mahu bergelak ketawa sepuas-puasnya. Jika ada kelapangan, saya akan cuba singgah di waktu latihan mereka. Saya tahu masa saya agak terhad.
Jom saksikan pementasan teater yang berlangsung di sekitar Lembah Klang!
