Five Foot Way S*CKS!!! In case you're wondering, it's the annual NY Drama Night performance which totally bored me to tears. (I had no means to go, just that it is compulsory for ALL Lit. students to buy the tickets which made me $6 poorer!!! =X) And if you caught me laughing at any point of the show, it is because of the deficient and slipshod mature and convincing acting that tickled wow-ed me immensely.

Basic plot:

[Set in 1964 S'pore, where shophouses still exist.] In one of the streets, there was a Chinese tea house, a bookshop with an Indian owner and a mee-rebus stall side by side with each other. The 店小二 of the Chinese tea house, Hock, shares an unhappy relationship with the lady boss, Mrs Ang; and always confides in the son of the mee-rebus lady, Hairi, albeit to the dissatisfaction of Mrs Ang who discriminates malays. (Both guys are teens.) However, Mrs Ang is ignorant that her daughter, Geok, takes a liking for Hairi.

So here comes a day where the street bully, Seng, comes for a drink at the tea house and ends up having a slight quarrel with Hock. Afterwards, at night, they somehow met again and started a fight. In the midst of a struggle, Hock killed Seng accidentally. Petrified, he bounded; leaving Seng's body out in the open.

The morning arrived and as the respective shop owners start their business, they were appalled to find a corpse lying on the streets. The terribly shaken Mrs Ang insisted that Hairi was the murderer, while Hairi's mum denied repeatedly. Mrs Ang then calls Hock, who was shuddering away in a far corner and questioned him. He denied and everyone started firing accusations at each other; Hock got agitated and grabbed a knife (I don't know from where) and clamped on to Geok, threatening to kill her. Mrs Ang almost went hysterical and screamed that people of the same race must never kill each other. Geok, terribly upset that her mother is biased against Hairi (and all malays) and still blinded by racial issues, reproached her convulsively, which led to more clashings.

Geok managed to break free (somehow la...), and Hock, desperate not to be apprehended, stabbed Hairi accidentally. (haiz...) Scared stiff and guilty that he had injured his good friend, Hock ran away only to never return again.

A few years later, Hairi, who obviously survived, had become VERY close to Geok (not lovers yet, just BOSOM friends). Mrs Ang, who was tremendously traumatised by that incident, became grave and solemn and lived on with a 阴影.
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Really, really, cannot make it. When the transition is so god damn SLOW and the stage lighting and background setting has NO variations, plus the WHOLE story was squeezed into a 45mins time frame and the ending was so abrupt and poorly wrapped up, it was DISASTROUS!

When I asked my friend today how she find the play, she said it was nice but THE AUDIENCE REACTED WRONGLY (as in, some were laughing or dozing off). Hello~ When you garner the undesired type of response during your performance, it means that the message you are conveying is incorrect right? How can the audience be blamed? Maybe we shouldn't laugh out loud or fall alseep, but those reactions were not wrong but rather, inappropriate or impolite. There are no such things as right or wrong reactions; you react instinctively.

Still, even if we were to stifle our laughters or keep our eyes open, it doesn't mean we don't feel that the play is bad. We just happen to have more etiquette. Honestly, isn't it better that the audience reflect truthful emotions since this play will be adopted to participate in the SYF? If all of us pretend that the play is 黄豆腐 (aka Wonderful!), how will they improve? At least now they know where do problems lie =D (Must thank me for laughing =P)

Heheh...White Fish Tank is MUCH better! If any nut wants to treat me to Drama Night next year, you're condemned. (OMG, I JUST REALISED THAT I HAVE WATCH IT NEXT YEAR SINCE I'M TAKING LIT.!!!) *faints*