Culturally Preconditioned

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I hate Rent. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I hate it because  it has set such a high benchmark for me personally, when it comes to watching other musicals. The curse of Rent. The only one that didn’t fall into it was Jesus Christ Superstar (which was totally fabulous) because I watched that one before Rent.

So I managed to catch Grease The Musical on it’s Malaysian premiere show last night at the Plenary Hall in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center. I was psyched because I enjoyed the movie Grease (not to the extent of memorising all the numbers, but still) back from my university days, thanks to my flatmate’s incessant viewing of the video again and again. It also brought good memories of the staged play “Can I Touch Your … ?” in college where they borrowed and adapted greatly from the musical Grease.

However, my experience was marred marred marred last night over the poor event handling by the organizers. I have not seen a performance at the Convention Center prior to last night, but I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. I shouldn’t. First of all, everyone there were like lost little lambs.. everyone herding here and there with no proper direction. The ushers were not helpful. The ticket handler were too slow. The merchandise sellers just had to open their booth right smack in the middle of the pathway causing a bottleneck. Idiots, I tell you.

Secondly, and possibly what pissed me the most, the performers had a pre-show gig about 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start (8:30 pm) and gave a friendly reminder that the show will start in 10 minutes. Eventually the show did start with their opening number - “Alma Mater”, and people were STILL flocking in. No make that, DRONING in. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? They have actually started the performance and people were still rushing in to get into the hall. WHAT IN HOLY FUCK? I’m not asking the performers to hold their opening number till most of the audience have taken their seats, they NEED to keep to their schedule. It’s the fucking late-turners that what was pissing me off. I don’t think we’ve ever seen these kind of thing in Istana Budaya.

And why’s that? The Istana Budaya staff are strict when it comes to respecting their paying customers. Latecomers are let in slowly, and subtly one at a time into the hall when a show has started. Last night? People were simply walking in in big groups in the middle of the show.. and this fucking bitch in front of me, saw her friend in the audience, even had the FUCKING NERVE to start a short conversation with her friend while she was walking to her seat. I MEAN COME ON!!!! FUCK THAT SHIT I WAS JUST ABOUT READY TO SMACK HER IN THE FACE. I can (maybe) tolerate this if I was in a movie audience, but this is a RM300 per seat show for fucks sake. You’d think they are not these kind of people, but you’re wrong.

I don’t know, I have never seen such jinjang and kampung people in a theater audience before this. EVER. I’m not saying I’m one of those cultured people, (I’ve got an ultra potty mouth, I can’t even be considered as pseudo-cultured) but please lah. Everything has to do with courtesy. MY GOD. MALAYSIANS IN GENERAL JUST DOESN’T KNOW WHAT BEING COURTEOUS MEAN. Assholes.

where was I?

Oh yeah, thirdly, you know when you get into a musical theater, they’d have a section where they place all their musicians and the technicians and what nots? Usually these people would be placed in a secluded section somewhere, either in the orchestral pit, the upper section behind the projectors and the lights or in the middle bunker section hidden from view. However, last night, the technicians (for sounds and lightning I presume) were placed RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOODY HALL, EXPOSED TO EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE. Holy fuck. And they have like 7 or 8 flat screen LCDs monitoring some sort of software right there in the middle. Can you imagine 8 glaring LCDs in the middle of the hall staring at your face while you’re trying to enjoy a show on stage? I get really annoyed when someone even types or reads an SMS in a cinema (you know the distracting glare). Yeah. Imagine 8 glaring LCDs in its place. And what’s worst? They’re place right smack in the middle of the RM300 tickets seating areas. I pity those poor sods. I mean.. wow. Just wow. The setting was even worse than a high school production.

And the chaos at the end, after the performance was over when everyone wanted to exit the planery hall? Let’s just say I don’t think they have fully tested out their fire hazard exercises yet. KUALA LUMPUR CONVENTION CENTER FUCKING SUCKS. I will never ever ever set foot again in the Planery Hall for any kinds of performance again. Shite doesn’t even begin to describe my experience going to that place.

So much negativity, and I still haven’t yet started on the actual musical. Okay so here goes. Overall, it was nothing to write home about. As a musical, it was an entertaining 2+ hours despite it’s many many flaws. The actor and actresses who played the lead roles of Sandy and Danny were both good looking (although at first I had mistaken Sandy for an albino), but surprisingly they were simply below average for theater leads.

The stellar performances came from Miss Lynch/Teen Angel and Doody. Rizzo reminded me of Liza Minelli (which is not good). The rest of the cast (who had solo numbers) were terribly average. The best parts of the performances in my opinion was Summer Nights and every other songs that were sung in an ensemble. The worst part? The two leads fucking up You’re The One That I Want by singing the tunes out of tempo. Opening night jitters? That might be, but they’ve been doing this hundreds of times which makes their fuck up look even worse. It was not ALL bad. I did find myself breaking into a huge cheshire cat smile in certain parts of the show. I did enjoy myself.. to a certain miniscule extent.

Would I recommend the show to anyone? Of course, but only if you get free tickets. That’s RM275 I’ll never see again. Certainly not the best musical to reach our shores.

On my drive way back home, I popped in the Rent soundtrack to my CD player. That pretty much sums it up. Rent is the word.

Overall.. 5 out of 10 stars. No, make that 4/10.