《天冷就回来》 IF THERE'RE SEASONS...

The poster for the musical... 《天冷就回来》

Finally something exciting and interesting that I did during the week. Hahah... Sounds like my life is pretty mundane. Anyway, I watched a musical today! It is the musical that I could not get the tickets for... cause it was sold out! Thanks to Wendy, I managed to get a ticket for myself and my elder brother.

I would rate the musical to be 4 out of 5. Good musical arrangement, good plot, smooth flow from scene to scene, good acting, nice music, nice harmonies... etc etc. However, I would think the singing can be better. Whatever the case, I enjoyed it. Somehow the plot was something I thought I could identify with. Ha...

The story touches on love, ambitions, ideals and our roots. A good combination of everything. The story goes as A-Le, a man with musical ideals loses his girlfriend because she contracted an illness and passed away. He then embarks on his journey to New York, trying to carve a name for himself. Along the way, he meets a group of fellow Singaporeans and 2 good friends Rose who became his girlfriend and A-Qiang, both of whom share the same interest. Ultimately, they return to Singapore, the place where they belong. :)

The musical is based on Liang Wen Fu's works. His works are rather simplistic in some sense, yet, it has A LOT of feelings, emotions and a local flavour. He definitely represents the music of Singapore. And the fantastic thing about the music is how they managed to come up with a plot that moves from one scene to another smoothly, and how they integrated the songs inside. :) It was also nice to hear different arrangements of the songs. I think that is the interesting and fun part about music arrangement. A specific melody could sound different with different arrangements. However, when they used a minor-ish style on a particular song, it sounded in discord. :( Nevertheless, it was nice... Especially the jazz versions.

Lets talk about the cast. There is George Chan, the male lead; one of the judges from dance floor. I didn't know he could speak and sing in mandarin. He worked overseas for a couple of years. It is good being billingual... :( The female lead is Joanna Dong. A friend of my elder brother. I enjoyed her vocals, unique and powerful. She was in the top30 for the first season of Singapore Idol and is a resident singer at Ooosh. Would like to hear her perform again. Another male lead is (Chen Rui Biao), I only recognise him for being the winner of a singing competition on TV a long long time ago. Sadly, in the show, his role is a homosexual. Sad to say, that part was a little weird. He was singing a love song to his EX, acted by (Zheng Zhan Lun) an old time singer. In the show, his sexuality and relationship wasn't questioned. Everyone treated like it was normal. A little odd. Well, maybe because such relationships are rampant these days, it was added to reflect life. Anyway I think it is fun acting in a musical. Singing, acting, dancing... :)

Thanks again to Wendy who got the tics! The bad thing was we were late and had to stay outside for 15mins. :( The next show is in 2009. People who are interested to catch the show, do look out for it. :) Time for me to work hard if I really want "IT"...


A picture of Wendy and Liang Wen Fu, with his autograph on the book!!!
(Sorry that the pic is a little blur :( I should really bring my camera everywhere I go!)

-LeB-