Our Father

Walked into the act3 (theatrics) office today and it felt like I was walking into some major flea market. The place was overflowing with props, backdrops and costumes. There was barely walking room; the light trying to come in through the windows fell unsuccessfully on some black boxes and got absorbed at once, the laundry basket had been pushed right next to the shoe rack, which, by account of the weekend, was about the only place that could claim to be empty. (relatively).

The reason for the mess? Now that NAC requires all companies putting up school assembly shows to audition before they can market their plays to schools, act3theatrics now has to get all six shows for next year's school tour ready by September for the auditions, which is crazy considering the immense detail that has to go into each production, script-wise, props-wise, costumes-wise -- and who's to say the actors who are free this year will be similarly free next year? The cast who auditions may not necessarily be the cast who performs, and not to mention the company pays the actors for the audition as well.

In all, this auditions business is rather unfeasible. Yes, possibly the rationale is to do some sort of quality control, but holding auditions a year before the actual show, and at such short notice at that, will do nothing but decrease the quality of the shows. (Well, I don't think my director will allow the production standard to drop, perfectionist that he is, but suddenly having to turn into a mass show-churning company will take much joy out of the whole creative process, I think.) With this new 'policy', only the larger companies with the resources (money, talents, continuously ingenuous backstage production team) will be able to survive at least this year's audition round, and new 'entrants' into the 'market' might be forced out even before they even start.

Anyway, how can the nice folks at NAC presume to know what the students might or might not like to watch? Based on the fact that they were kids once, a fact which I suppose most of them would be more than happy to forget, or maybe never remembered in the first place? Are the censors always going to decide what is and is not desirable for public consumption? Then again, the patriachal state will more or less breed a self-policing society - even the matrons at NYG boarding school are attempting to pull out the 'Urban' section of The Straits Times due to it's supposedly undesirable content which I think is laughable. (both the content and the action.)

This is such an embarrassingly incoherent post - I would like to blame it on the sleep deprivation of the past week because of the "Street Scenes" opera, but I think it has to do more with the fact that I see that the oppressive (disguised as paternal) hand of the government is everywhere and please don't tell me

"You mean it took you this long to realise it?"

As I've said before, I'm in denial about a lot of things, selective amnesia not included.

On a happier note, Chandran and Amy are getting married three months from now!