Another Country

Casts of Another Country

As most of my friends do, this was my first time went for a theatrical performance.

Another Country is divided into 2 parts, the first part is Sayang Singapura performed by the Malaysian actors while the 2^nd part is Tikam-Tikam: Malaysia @ Random 2 performed by Singaporean casts. Before further writing, I heard about Tikam-Tikam from my parents. It is a childhood game of their generation. It’s like you pay and choose a sticker or whatever to see what kind of prize you get. So as for the 2^nd part, audience were required to choose the sticky notes on a board to set the sequence of the stories.

I know no about theatrical performance. The moment I entered the theatre, I was impressed by the setting on the stage. With no props placing here and there, with light spotting on the actors who spoke. This leads audience to focus on the story itself. At first, I thought the actors were using mic but no! Their voice was so well projected to the extent that it can be heard at the back of the theatre, or even every corner in the theatre. Their lungs are superb! And I actually love how they managed their facial expressions and body movements to convey the feelings and emotions. Besides, it is interesting that they acted as if there were props. Like the 2 mothers in the hdb playground, the mothers threw the tissue paper as if there really is a dustbin there! Also in Ang Tau Mui, the actress acted as if she was eating the pork. So yummy that I felt kind of hungry at that moment. Haha.

However, there are always bads behind the goods. Unexpectedly, this play consists of many stories instead of having one narrative. This was how it made me feel I’m hanging that there were no endings and it jumped to the next stories without any clues and I was like “Huh what? This story end already ah?”. But overall, this was really a great performance.

When recalling the plays that I’ve watched, I doubted my memory. I can barely remember the scenes until we discussed them on the lecture. Maybe I’m not familiar with the history or story or politic or whatsoever of Singapore, so actually quite many stories I do not understand. But one of the stories that I remember the most was the Mama looking For The Cat. As the title mentioned, the Indian lady was looking for her cat and she met an old man who speaks Hokkien. Though they are using different language to communicate and with their body language and gesture, they actually know what each other trying to tell. Despite of different skin colour and language, they were united by the same topic. We often feel uncomfortable or even refuse to communicate with others when we do not speak common language. In fact, we actually can talk to each other using body language and gestures or even without any language. It’s just the matter that we do not step forward to speak.

Another story that I feel so familiar was Forever Singlish in the Singapore part, I don’t remember exactly but there was a line like “We say sorry for 3 times because we feel really sorry”. This often happens on me when I did something wrong especially when I accidentally step on other people shoes LOL. I guess most of the Malaysian did so too? Maybe because of the neighbourhood, we are actually influencing each other in many aspects.

To conclude, this is really a nice experience exposing to the performing art. Acting live is not an easy task. It’s even harder when they have to multi-task on the stage meanwhile remember their lines. Salute to all the performers!! *applause*