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Saturday, February 23, 2008,5:54 PM

APOLLO WINS DRAMA FESTE 2008
A special and not entirely unbiased or polite report by someone who has absolutely no background or experience in theatre or performance but wishes her views to be aired anyway

Last night on the 22nd of february 2008, Hwa Chong Institution (College Section) held its 10th drama feste competition at LT3. The event was hosted by the beautiful Olivia and ever charming Pang/Fang/PJJ/PJ, who kept us entertained the whole night with their amazing chemistry and hilarious jokes about farhmilies, math and imbas. 3 external judges were invited to judge the event. They were random chinese guy, random white guy and the spouse of random Hwa Chong HP teacher, Mrs Nicola Perry.

The night's performances was ~~kick~~jumpstarted by Athena's ripoff performance, Stranger than Fiction. Though the original movie was commendable, receiving an average rating of 7.9/10 on IMDB and a "fresh" rating of 73% on rottentomatoes.com, the stage performance was a complete waste of time. The sets were boring, and the acting was fair enough but predictable and did not manage to engage the audience. The entire performance was woefully amateurish, focusing on the (copied) storyline, with no attempt at style, stage sense or any other factor of a live, stage performance, making it highly unimpressive. Also, although this was supposed to be an adaptation, it felt more like a carbon copy, for the director did not incorporate in his/her own interpretation or vision for a staged performance of the story. Overall, the writer feels that there was no artistic merit in the play. For a school play, Stranger Than Fiction was decent, but was a disappointing competition piece, and definitely not something you wanted to watch again.

Following Stranger Than Fiction was Artemis' original play Sinned. This play follows the story of an ACSian, Dennis (played by the pseudo-ACSian Eliseus), as he wanders through hell with the seven sins, and discovers his own unforgivable faults. This performance was extremely refreshing, particularly with the unique portrayal of each of the seven sins. Every actor was decked out in relevant costumes which blended in and almost became an extension of the characters themselves. The devil, particularly, was not the typical howling-red-faced-long-tailed monster, but was sinister in his own enunciated, prowling, sarong-wearing way. There was also amazing interaction and chemistry between the actors, particularly Sloth and Greed. Each of them, while fleshing out the traits of their unique character, managed to work perfectly in tandem to lure Dennis in a most spine-chilling manner. The other sins also managed to become a cohesive whole while playing their individual roles. For their excellent performance, Artemis won best ensemble cast and best director. Special mention should also be given to Eliseus for an intense portrayal of Dennis, the lead character. From his drunken jaunt with Sloth and Greed to his racy dialogue with Lust, not once did he fall out of character and the descent of his soul was convincing and unnerving.

Ares' performance, entitled All That Jazz, was a mixture of Chicago, Wicked, and a typical Korean drama. While Athena openly admitted to their play being an adaptation, All That Jazz passed itself off as an original performance while ripping off huge chunks of dialogue and certain scenes from the acclaimed broadway musical, Wicked. However, other than this irritating lack of honesty, the play was overall a fun piece of entertainment. One half suspects that the directors were trying to make a pseudo-musical out of the play (hence the wicked lyrics?) but this was not a sustained effort and towards the end, it descended into the usual asian drama with weepy females and lying men without even an attepmt to rip off more lyrics (No One Mourns the Wicked could have been appropriate). However, the acting was credible and impressive, particularly Teng Jing Wei (Daughter of Teng Jia Shu from Longtitude-and-Latitude, bald-headed-leather-jacket-wearing fame) who walked away with one of the best actress awards (this probably was not a difficult endeavour for her since she lives her life like on loooong dramedy already). All That Jazz also won best supporting actor for the role Mr Roberto, mafia kingpin and father of Jing Wei's character. However, the writer feels that his performance was not that impressive, and the award should have gone to one of the sins from Sinned instead.

Finally, the last performance of the night was Apollo's French For Love Letters by Jian Yang, which won best actor, best actress, best script and the coveted prize of best play. Told through a series of recollections and diary entries, this was a unique take on young love in school which transcends time, space, words and silence. Perhaps the special element that set this play apart from the others was how pertinent and relevant it is to the lives of the scriptwriter, director, actors and target audience who are themselves students. This humble, unassuming realism gave the play its spark. The theme of this year's drama feste was The Game of Life. With a theme like this, it is easy to wax lyrical about life's many meanings, pitfalls or twists and turns. However, how many of us have run ins with the mafia, discover someone is narrating our lives, or descend into hell? What is important to us, and what we remember is often the simple things, our first love, first kiss, and the unbearable distance of silence. This was all excellently and tenderly portrayed by Qian Ling and Jeremy who took home the best actor and actress prizes. From Jeremy's coy, reserved, almost painfully shy affections to Qian Ling's unabashed, barely containable excitement of a young girl in love, this was a play that tugged at your heart strings and left your heart weeping for a long, long time. The library scene was especially memorable. It was plain, simple love, and yet it could live on in memories and in writing forever. Other than the acting, the sets were intentionally simplistic which did not draw the audience's attention away from the dialogue and non-verbal interaction between the actors. This was a play that focused more on the abstract than the physical, and though this left some members of the audience nonplussed, the writer was extremely impressed and wishes to say without biasness that she honestly thinks that it was the best, most mature play performed last night. If the writer may add frivolously, she feels that the best supporting actor role should have gone to Alfred Wan for his comical portrayal of Wen Jun in French For Love Letters instead of Mr Roberto. However, this may be a biased view.

After the last performance, the judges retired to their own private little enclave to tally the results while the student population was entertained by 2 not entirely sane girls armed with a guitar and microphones and a very surreal but adorable performance involving lightsticks in the dark and more insane seniors. It is to be noted at this point that throughout the filler performances, the Athena faculty ringed the whole LT and could not stop cheering much to the annoyance of the other faculties and performers. This simple, seemingly innocuous act was probably in preparation for their imminent failure and humiliation.

When the judges returned, the cheering intensified, and the atmosphere was thick with anticipation, particularly for Apollo as it has been winning the drama feste since its inception (the writer suspects an intricate, sinister, but altogether quite clever plot involving the humanities programme, ELDDFS and a dear Mr P but that is a different story). Some relevant comments were made by Mrs Perry and random chinese guy while random white guy tried to be funny. In other words, it was just a ploy to extend the wait and furthur aggravate the faculties which were already baying for blood. The emcees finally announced the results which to recap, are as follows: best ensemble cast - Sinned (Artemis), best actress - Stella Stellar (Teng Jing Wei, All That Jazz, Ares) and Elena (Wan Qian Ling, French For Love Letters, Apollo) (there was no best supporting actress award), best supporting actor - Mr Roberto (Joseph Tay, All That Jazz, Ares), best actor - Jonathan (Jeremy Ang, French For Love Letters, Apollo), best script - Hoh Jianyang (French For Love Letters, Apollo), best director - Magdelene Kang (Sinned, Artemis) and best play - French For Love Letters (Apollo).

The writer does not quite remember the reaction of the rest of the audience when best play was announced, but she does know that her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and she leapt out of her seat screaming when she heard the results, despite being deep in Athena and Artemis territory. The entire Apollo cast and crew including the 2 fac heads bearing the Apollo flags went on stage to collect the large trophy and the writer can safely say that she has never felt prouder to be wearing her yellow fac shirt. Of course the emcees had to throw in some useless comments about everyone being a winner but they were allowed to on the basis that both of them were from Apollo too :)

Thus, drama feste 2008 ended in a riot of tears, flowers, celebrations and the colour yellow. Based on rather inaccurate guesswork, the author suspects that Apollo is now the leading faculty in the race for the faculty shield. However, there is still more to come and to anticipate. As such, the writer shall now leave you to ponder a veracious, undeniable truth: APOLLO FOR CHAMPS.

Thursday, February 21, 2008,10:58 PM

SINGAPORE FTW
I LOVE SINGAPORE :D

Sunday, February 17, 2008,11:06 PM

i finished history essay.it's printing now.i would be happier but i spent the whole day (literally) doing it and i'm tired.

tomorrow's pe is swimming but my monthly cam just in time :) i have never been happier to experience abdominal pain.1 1/2 hours extra tomorrow to study for econs test :)

finished printing.voila.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008,8:36 PM

hwa chong cross country is the most time wasting endeavour i have ever experienced :) god.i 3 1/2 hours there only to achieve absolutely nothing.they didn't even take attendance...then again seeing as I was supposed to take the attendance...it was just really lame.florence signed me up as student official because she couldn't make it today so i arrived there at 1.20 to report for duty but there was nothing to do.no attendance taking no random running around making myself useful.nothing.so i wasted the rest of my day staring aimlessly into the alluring waters of macritchie reservoir.about 70% of my class ponned but i'm not terribly close to them anyway so it didn't make much difference.and i'm sunburnt!!! in 2 patches just below my glasses :@ pissifying.i guess the only consolation would be that APOLLO WON GIRLS' OVERALL CHAMPION but that's about it.i'm so ponning next year.

uh.tomorrow's v-day.all truth shall be revealed in the game of angels and mortals.you know that typical letter writing thing.not terribly excited seeing as the last time i wrote my angel a letter was 2 weeks before cny and my mortal is an asshole who gave the present i went out of my way to buy to someone else.but my angel was nice.i was just too busy and uninterested to reply.so i'll give her a box of ferrero rocher and i'll give my mortal a black face :D

okok.should be finishing the final dregs of my history research.i promised myself i'd start writing tonight but i don't feel ready.tomorrow i shall do battle against ineffective nationalist leaders!

Saturday, February 09, 2008,9:15 PM

seesh.cny has been so busy...all the visiting and entertaining and eating.especially the eating.gosh so much food!!! the fridge is stuffed.there are six trays of ferrero rocher 48 cans of beer and er...innumerable soft drinks.F-A-T X(

and of course there's no time for work.OMG THE HISTORY ESSAY.it's still haunting me.and mr barnard gave us a summary of what to study for the econs test.which is basically everything we've ever learnt.right...

vera and leeqi are at my house now.yay :) my first non-family visitors.they're playing bridge with my sis and her friend.they make a very amusing/amused bunch.

Sunday, February 03, 2008,11:45 PM

i'm blogging at 11.40pm 0.0 my body is going to hate me for this tomorrow.

went for stj just now :) yay.so fun :) and the dinner was good too.you can't go wrong with lasagna.

i'm kind of brain dead now.still suffering from insomnia despite my new comfy bed :(

Saturday, February 02, 2008,4:45 PM

I'm at the new house now!We've moved in :D Kind of.As in we won't be sleeping at any lousy rented apartments anymore but about 15% of our stuff is still lying at the rented place and my mum organised a mahjong game -___-||| so we have to get them later or tomorrow.Everything's still lying around haphazardly and I don't even have a study table yet :( Argh.I've had to adjust to 3 houses in 1 year.So disorientating.

Oh yeah there's STJ (senior treat junior for those not in the know) tomorrow.Which means my whole weekend is burned.Completely and spontaneously combusted.And I still have Miles' Essay!!! X( How...??? I want extension :( But everyone in class seems to be doing fine so I'm probably the only one floundering about,waiting for the inevitable 7/25.

My new bed is so comfy :) I think i'll go sleep now.Yay.