As typed above, today was IHC (Inter-House Competition) Dramafeste night. The second day, in which the results came out.
Before Dramafeste, I was in chorale practice. There was not much of note, but the random singing of Earth Song once more gave me goosebumps. Songs like these are spiritual in nature. Have you ever, after hearing a song, been so associated with the words and chords that you get this indescribable feeling? The feeling that is so intangible, that weaves a little bit of magic into your life. That, to me, is my form of spirituality. This is why I love things with a hidden message, such as plays and performances. There is this quality about them that when delved into brings about a profound sense of contentment. And before you know it, you find yourself smiling and your mood gets lifted according to whatever that is being performed that affects you, the audience. Sometimes, the performers themselves may also become the audience, and they can feel that what they are creating is changing something within themselves, ever so subtly.
I was in the audience for Dramafeste. There are five houses in RJC: according to who performed first tonight;
MT(Moor Tarbet) performing Doctor, Doctor!
MR(Morrison Richardson) performing Less Than 3
HH(Hadley Hullet) performing Toys'r'us
BB(Buckle Buckley) performing Death and His Friends
BW(Bayley Waddle) performing Ferris Wheel
I tried to rank each house myself, but it was an abysmal failure after comparision with the judges' house rankings. So i will not deign to put it up.
A synopsis of each performance:
For MT's Doctor, Doctor!:
There are about five people in a asylum. A doctor comes in, and it is time for the daily session to try and cure their mental illnesses. One has a fetsh for hair. One is paranoid. One believes she is a cat. One has mood swings, and the fourth is phobic of germs, and is rather a know-it-all who likes the number 16 because it is a perfect square. After some hilarious moments and so on, the doctor becomes more insane with the accidental strangling of the 'cat' being the start of the inane acts. Eventually, he suceeds in getting the patients to hang themselves to relieve themselves from their mental conditions. The true doctor walks in soon after, and discovers that his patients have all died, save for the patient who thought that he was a doctor.
I felt that the script was quite well written, but the bogus doctor could have acted better. Simply shouting out his part was less impactful than acting in earnest.
For MR's Less Than Three (my house):
there were backgrounds consisting of typical chatroom colloquialisms, for example "zomg", "kthxbai", "click me!" etc. This is a performance about online dating. The setting is a chatroom.
A guy (Nay Myo) and a girl are typing to each other on the online chatroom. Their avatars representing them are of the correct gender. They get close to one another, but the appearance of a troll eventually leads to their breakup even though they already developed feelings for the other party. The performance ends with both parties meeting again, with different avatars but still of the correct gender, and they once more discover they click well together in this 'plastic world'.
The major drawback of this was that some speeches were delievered too quickly and unprecisely, so i failed to catch what was going on at times. However the progression of the online dating and the development of feelings was nicely done. Again, there was an underlying message, more than just a story about a failed online date.
For HH's Toys'R'us:
The play was about the trading of people with money. Two parents won a lucky draw and activated their babies, in the form of cardboard boxes. Some hint as to what might be coming up next was when the cashier threw a box representing a mute, autistic baby that was unwanted by the prospective mother across the stage, carrying the notion that people could be marketed as goods. The parents who won the twins were happy until the forgetful father lost a half of the twins. The mother then complained that her perfect family was ruined, and so they bought another baby as a replacement just so they could account to relatives that the twins were actually fraternal instead of identical as they originally were. Eventually the store the parents won/bought their children from delievered a letter that threatened to expose the fact that their children were unrelated, i.e. blackmailing. This leads to a massive argument between the parents and the two children pick up the letter and after some research, decide that they would rather buy themselves new parents, since children, too, could be bought and sold like commodities. In the meantime, an orphan wanted to buy herself a little brother but could only afford a toy, eventually picking one that had a recording function. The toy, called Aaron, was accidentally spoilt by the mother of the twins. The orphan wept and said that Aaron was family.
The performance ends with the unrelated 'twins' selecting which parents to buy: those on sale, of different sizes and height, so on and so forth.
I found this play quite good because it explored familial values.
For BB's Death and His Friends:
A teenager has just passed away because a car accidentally knocked him over after he ran away following an argument with his friends. At first, after meeting God (Death) and Karma (Death's assistant), he claims that he was happy to have died. Death and Karma are surprised because most of the people they met are unwilling to give up on life. The teenager goes on to meet a fellow dead person who was beaten to death by her drunk father one night. Time passes, and the teenager, who lived in an orphanage, sees his old friends and sister debating about what to throw away a month after his death. The abused dead person comments that the teenager is very lucky to have friends. One year later, the teenager's time for recarnation has come. He wants to see his friends and sister back at the orphanage once again. Now, they are more willing to throw away things that once belonged to him. The teenager grows anxious and begs them not to forget about him, professing that he forgives them, but it is already too late, and it is time for him to be reborn. The performance concludes with all his belongings being removed, even the sofa he was sitting on, leaving just him alone on an empty stage.
I found the performance quite good but the conclusion could not match up to the rest of the play.
For BW's Ferris Wheel:
two inspectors are investigating a murder case, where a loosening of the nut on the Ferris wheel caused the wheel to roll around the whole world, crushing many households and killing many people. The suspects are a pedophilic ice cream seller who hates Ferris wheels because they distracted young children form Santa Claus, Siamese twins, and a talking mime. The entire play is generally satirical and wacky with suspects being subjected to various censored methods of interrogation consisting of torture with the lack of sound for the mime, pinwheels, ice cubes, and marmalade. Why such bizzare interrogation methods were used is beyond me. The inspectors finally convicted the girl of the Siamese twins (supposedly same gender, but not for this play) and she was hung. They then receive a letter which states that they convicted the wrong person to death, and the plot was twenty years in the making, crafted to ensure that non-believers in Santa Claus would all be killed. One inspector asks the other if she believed in Santa Claus. Her reply was no, and the other inspector also did not believe in Santa Claus. The play closed with a sinister "ho ho ho" from the ice cream seller, aka the murderer.
Judges' house rankings:
MR: 1st. I didn't expect it, but I'm glad my house won IHC Dramafeste.
HH: second
MT: third
BB: fourth
BW: fifth
After the announcement of results, everyone had to vacate to the canteen or go home because of higher-up orders. I saw the MR crew taking a group photo, and this made me quite sad because i couldn't volunteer as i had CCA commitments. Hence as usual i became nothing more than a bystander, and quietly left them to walk to the MRT. Along the way, i realised that the sky was cloudy and really bright even though it was nighttime. The circular-shaped block in front of me looked so clear and pristine. Inadvertantly, i think that i have fallen in love with the school, its culture, its spirit. And i don't regret choosing it as my school.
Auspicium Melioris Aevi.
For the Hope of a Better Age.
Because We Are The Better Age.
It is time to work harder, so we can play hard, and maximise the short two years spent in the JC, and three years for polytechnic students, and for those working or not from Singapore as well. Because only we can discover our own untapped potential.
