Cinderel-LAH! Performance - Reflections (By Eunice)

Overview of the show

Poor Cindy lives in a crowded HDB flat with her Evil Casino-Obsessed Step-Mother and two Ugly Step-Sisters, Precious and Treasure.  All she dreams about is going to The Grand Fish Ball where Prince Char Mee will choose a bride.  Fairy God Makcik appears, and Cindy is transformed from “no taste” to “fashion ace” and off to The Ball she goes!  But will the Prince recognise her?  Will the shoe fit?  And will true love find a way?


Reflection

After watching the show, I feel that they have done a great performance, and that we, as a Drama Club, can learn from its good parts and the parts that are not as good, so that we can try to have the good parts and be more aware of the not-so-good parts to not commit the same ‘mistakes’ during our performances.


The Good Parts

The actors were really aware of the demographics of the audience, and they know which age group they are targeting at, such that the show really suited them, and everyone enjoyed it.

I think this is because the show was created to promote theatre to families and young children, such that not only can the kids learn to appreciate such performing arts, but also have some quality time with their families. So, the performance had very clear diction, even in the singing parts, such that everyone knows what the actors are saying/singing, and the actors made the audience participate in the performance as well, such that everyone is very engaged in the show. Such things attract their audience of young children, knowing that they do not have a long attention span and eventually get bored if they just watch the show.

We can learn from this point by being more aware of our audience and create our performance such that it suits them better. For example, for the SYF, because our audience is the judges, we need to impress them by doing a performance that they can relate to better, which is what we did (cars and parking, as there is a high chance that they drive.) Also, because the SYF is a competition, I think that we need to put in a lot of effort and creativity to give the performance that ‘extra something’ to make it different and outstanding from the others, in order to do well.


The Not-so-good Parts

There are some minor slips in their speech (the loss of accents at some points, leaving the audience wondering if that was on purpose and how it is part of the story, such that they might not engage with the following parts of the show that well).

I think this is because the whole act was 3 hours’ long (I think), and that to continue acting in an accent that you do not usually speak in would be really tiring and distracts them from being the character they were supposed to be. However, I think they did a great job catching themselves before it was too late and immediately changed back into their accents again.

We can learn from this by making sure we are always acting in character - and not who we really are - onstage. Our performances are definitely shorter than this show, so we should be able to be in our character throughout the whole piece and if we rehearse enough, we should not have any slip-ups.


Conclusion

All in all, I think that Cinderel-LAH! was a great performance, and that it was an eye-opener for me as I seldom have such theatre experiences. Hooray to all the actors - you were great! And to the playwright that wrote such a good piece! And definitely to all the musicians and all the people helping out to put this piece together! It was a success :D

Cinderel-LAH! Reflection (by Pasakorn)

Based on the play that we saw, there are a few key points that I could gather from the show...

Co-ordination

Everything worked so well together to create the perfect play. The music, cast, storyline, comedy acts... All were merged together in such an unforgettable way. I think that is something we should work for, co-ordinating everything to leave a good impression.

Never Boring

The various jokes they made that relate to Singapore's local context and even other things made this play unforgettable. If possible, we can work in the route that include a lot of good jokes.

"Yah lor, Treasure, I got to go to the gym leh!"

"Jang, jang, jang!"

"Diamonds and pearls, not the bubble tea kind."

"Guard this rope with all your life or I'll pull something until it drops off!"

"Oh, F... (Point, point...) Foreign workers!"

"MRT - Makcik Rock Train"

(Push Cheng & Heng, Long sound effect of falling)

Music & Lights

While watching the play, I observed the lights and realised that good lighting is very important for an appealing play. They combined several different colours at one go. What's more, certain patterns were used in the Grand Fish Ball.

After listening to the music complementing the play, I was so stuck to it that I wanted to listen to it again and again. (Thank goodness I bought the CD) The music was apparent in almost every part of the performance. Something that works well to the senses.

Combining So Many Things

The play even went out of Singapore context with so many things. Here are 2 examples:

1. Masquerade

Remember Poker Face's appearance in the play? If you had noticed, the cast actually dressed up as various princesses during the ball. Those were famous relations with popular things everyone knows about. Loved it! There were stuff like:

• Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland
• The Little Mermaid, The Little Mermaid
• Snow White, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Princess Fiona, Shrek

2. Around the World

When searching for Cinderella, the prince took the cast around the world to China, Egypt and India. The sound effects made it seem so real, which brings me to another point.

Costume Changing Abilities

I think the fastest they did was when Cinderella's pitiful dress was changed to the ball dress. It happened in a matter of seconds, just like magic! I still don't know how they did it, but it was great!

That's it for my reflection!

Cinderel-Lah! reflection- Arthur Lee

Hi guys, here is my reflection on the theatre experience. It is gonna be split into 3 key parts, how it caught my attention, pros of the play, cons of the play.

-How it caught my attention
What caught my attention was its funny sense of humor that only Singaporeans or people who live very long here, will understand. It uses a lot of strong Singaporean aspects, like its strong Singlish influence, and its jokes like how you expect a car when the original story had a pumpkin carriage, but it was the MRT.

-Pros
They have a very talented crew of actors, and a good band. The actors are believable as crazy as the situation may be, and the band was spot on, the music was clear, crisp and well coordinated.
The twisted tale was twisted in such a way that all of us can relate to it because it really is Singaporean.
The Singlish and the strong accents of the various races were very funny, and it was really interactive with the audience.

-Cons
It was targeted to more of a childish audience, except for some of the scenes and dialogue.
That is all I can think of, it was really good.

Drama Theatre Experience - Autographs (By Eunice)