Friday, December 29, 2006

-Ghaz's experience with mama & cat-

Initially this entry was supposed to be about underwear... dun ask.
Maybe I'll talk about it on a later date...

So, I shall dedicate this entry to a new-found friend, Ming... Hey Fik, strangers do read my blog after all.

As you all might have known (or will know since I'm talking about it now), the last production that I had was with the Theatre Practise in the restaging of "mama looking for her cat" written originally by the late dramatist Kuo Pao Kun. I have heard great stories about him. It's too bad that I have never got the chance to meet him in person. However, I am glad to be acquainted with the rest of the family (Mdm Goh, Jian, Jin, Chris and the oh-so-adorable Olivia)... Always thought of them as theater royalty but I'm sure they hated to be call that. Such modest people.

Anyway, on February 2006, a young theater enthusiast by the name of Ghazali called TTP to ask a slot for an audition... This will be the first time he auditioned for anything. He has been involved in theatre before, mainly as a crew member (sweeping floors and operating light controls and such) or act as extras ("dead body/Higgs" was his first acting debut... haha... He received a good review for it. Even though it was only a line, but still...) I remember he had 3 auditions that week. One of them was for LEGEND ALIVE ONLINE...

Audition was unnerving but fun. Martina was quirky. blah blah blah and a few days later, he recieved a call for a callback. blah blah blah and forward to the future...

7 months later: Rehearsal for Mama starts. At that point, young Ghaz suddenly realized what he has got himself into. The other actors were theatre veterans who has had at least 10 yrs of experience. Ghaz on the other hand, is a relative baby struggling to pronounce "mama"... But of course, the ever-resilient Ghaz snapped out of it and focus on the task at hand.

It is always a challenge to work with a new director because you are adjusting to his/her style of directing. Frankly speaking, Ghazali had trouble understanding what Martina wanted.. at first... but he realized that all those gestures and sounds Martina made were to demonstrate the kind of energy, vibe or feeling that she want the actor or audience to get out of the scene. Any word used to describe it would be wrong.

They did a lot of improvs... ugh! how Ghaz hated improvs... but you can't blame him. He is still learning. The best improv he did (which he was so proud of) was when he acted as the missing cat. They loved it. Too bad there was no way of inserting that scene in.

And rehearsals continue as usual... Ghaz slowly getting into it. Trying to complement the rest of the actors... until showtime! and then.. everything is history.

Oh... it must be said that a lot has happened within that 7 months between the audition and the rehearsal for mama... Remember those 2 other auditions? They were for Wi!d Rice's Young n Wi!d actor training programme and Teater Artistik. He managed to nailed them. So, he has had acting training and some experience.

So there... The journey of a young aspiring actor


| ghaz says hello @ 8:11 AM|

__________