It’s My Life!

It’s My Life! is a local musical about teens, for teens, by teens. I first heard about it through Ning’s blog, and Pam’s blog. Having not watched anything remotely local for a long time, i thought it was time to support local productions. Besides, the play was directed and produced by local thespians, Lim Yu Beng, Tan Kheng Hua and Valerie Lim – people whom i’ve always quite admired. The date was just ‘nice’ too – exactly after my exams. So yesterday, after my short understudying stint at Arena, i headed down to NUS Cultural Centre to meet Pam, Fong Fun (all of whom i met at the now-defunct Vanilla) and the others (Vanilla’s cover girls) to catch the play.

The venue was very nice, i must say. Compared to the old long long time ago Kallang and the ‘i-can’t-rmbr-where-except-near-ROM’ place, it was really awesome. Kind of designed like the esplanade, it was definitely a cosy theatre. With 300 seating (i gauged), it was big enough to ‘contain’ everyone and not be ’squeezy’, small enough to be cosy and comfortable.

The casts for the play are very talented, i must say i particularly enjoyed Sarah Cheng and Tok Xue Yi’s (who somehow reminds me of the lady playing Gary Coleman in Avenue Q) parts, amongst the others. I like the way the voiceover goes and threads things up a little. The story was definitely what teens would relate to. I could find part of what used to be me here and there in different characters in the play, and that really made me quite absorbed in it.

However, there are some slight grudges too. Perhaps, i’m not so used to the way the story is told, certain points i was a little lost as too where the characters were. Music at certain points were a little too loud, covering over the audio part, which resulted in me straining particularly hard to hear what they were singing. I also found it extremely distracting that i could see the shadow of the conductor at certain points in time in the play. The last bummer was the recording machine behind me ala the repeat voices of the kids. Perhaps it is a little unkind of me to say that, afterall these kids don’t really know what was going on. They were only Primary 2 (i think), but i thought the parent(s) could have taught them to restrain themselves until after the show.

Another thing that i discovered, was the Singaporeans, especially the teens, need to be educated about theatre etiquette. Seriously, it is not funny to be laughing at some parts that were unintended and cheering in the theatre is NOT something that should be done, however often you have done it in school. Even if your friend is in the main cast. Please, reserve the cheer for school occassions. You may give your friend a standing ovation, but not cheers please. Coming from a school whose tradition is proudly a cheering tradition (we scream our voices out too), i still maintain that cheers do not stand a place in the theatre!

Overall, still a memorable experience, and definitely something i would say to a teen: Go catch it if you have the dollars.

PS. I just love it when my mum and dad comes to pick me up and we go for supper together. It’s been a while since we did that, after i swore off supper.