My trip to see the “Short and Sweet” play-writing and performing competition three years ago really scarred my creative glands. It was genuinely terrible and the visions of boiler suit wearing space-travelers plummeting to earth and grown men talking to a tailor’s dummy have never left my head. So bad was it that I have been really cautious about watching too much contemporary Malaysian theatre.
Imagine my feelings then when I agreed to book family tickets for a part Chinese part English language play entitled “Lo Mio and Chiew Liet” an all Malaysian version of that classic by any other name. Billed as a battle of love between members of the warring families of Lo and Chiew I set my expectation level to minimum and, along with all the other members of the Lawrence Clan, joined a surprisingly large queue on Sunday afternoon. Even if it was rubbish, I thought, it can’t be as bad as that trip to Short and Sweet.
I am still reeling from how good the play was.
Staged in traverse the play started with the newly returned and Westernised English speaking Chiew family and the culture seeking Lo Mio and eunuch friend, Mandarin speakers, watching two actors playing the parts of terrible actors doing the opening exchanges in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Arguing between them about what the scene was about and littered with in jokes about what is was to be western or Chinese a fight between the two families soon ensued and the jokes kept coming thick and fast from then onwards. Lo Mio and the eunuch side-kick arrived at the Chiew family ball (pun intended) dressed as Chinese Opera actors, Lo and Liet fell in love, despite not really being able to understand each other and the nurse, deliberately played in drag and complete with excellent comic timing, passed love letters in Chinese buns between the lovers, much to the amusement of the audience. Friar Lawrence became Sifu, the wise and highly skilled swordsman, the Benvolio / Mercutio amalgamated eunuch character duly died and then came back proudly proclaiming that in heaven he had learned to speak English and “they” had grown back, and later Lo took his poison but had just enough time to push Juliet across the single bed in which she lay so that there was room for him to take his final rest. Added to all this was a delightful long-running joke about things needing more salt and we had a thoroughly enjoyable and really funny afternoon at the theatre. Well done to all who were involved, especially the director who had the courage to take lots of risks and insist on getting every detail right.
The Sunday before Lexi had booked tickets for us to go to see another play, another Shakespeare, but this time it was A Midsummer Nights Dream. This though was not just any old dream. It was being toured by Handlebards, a four man bicycle riding quartet of actors who, when in Britain, cycle from venue to venue towing and panniering all their stuff with them. While they were not cycling in Malaysia they were certainly keeping fit and active with their high speed, high energy version of the play whereby the four played all the characters between them. Except that is for two fairies. Just before the show began one bearded actor sidled up to me and began with the greeting offered to stooges in many parts of the world: “Now, Sir, you look like just the person I need to help me….” Thus at certain appointed times during the play I made my way onto the stage to play the vital role of Mustarded alongside another “volunteer” who was Peaseblossom. The Lawrence Clan had row B seats and the huge grins on the faces of three small Lawrences certainly gave the highly skilled actors a very clear sense that what they were doing was going down really well.
And there is more Drama still. Over that past few days Trixie has been hard at work practising her audition lines and songs for the year 4 to 6 play: “The Lion King.” She hurtled off for an audition on Tuesday lunchtime and then had to dash somewhere else to practice a couple of songs as part of the KS2 choir before joining Edwin in the concert that evening. She awaits the news of the cast list with eager anticipation.
Today was Trixie’s SLPC. Her what? Her Student Led Parent Conference. Oh, one of those. It is a new fangled parent-teacher event where instead of the teacher telling the parent what the child is like and how they are doing the child tells the parent what they have been doing in lessons with the teacher watching on providing a helpful prompt when necessary. Today I learned all about a computer program the Trixie had been using to answer questions about animals, some very confusing maths (where she tried to explain something complicated to me that neither she nor I appeared to get) and them came we came to English and creative matters. She had been working on facts and opinions plus various features of language. She had also been encouraged to practice these in the style of a radio programme. Immediately I saw Trixie Motson / Lyse Du Lawrence in front of me and she was away, in role with the best of them. I sat back proudly being entertained by the daughter of two Drama teachers. Splendid.