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| Yeah. I'm not a paid promoter. So? |
Salam (I refuse to add '1Malaysia' because I don't support that crap).
I really think the night before 11/11/11 was way more awesome than the night I just said. Why you ask? It's because I felt as if my senior and his gang kinda knew that I didn't have the time to watch the original edition of Teater Juta-Juta due to the dates of the play being exactly the days where I have loads of assignment that cling on my shoulders during my last weeks of my last diploma semester. I was like "Damn! I wanna go see it! It's already bad enough that I didn't get to watch my roommate's own showcase! Do I have to miss this one too? Argh!" Then, appearing out of the wilderness, the team decided to stage the play in Putrajaya, my current temporary abode. It is then I knew what my short term goal would be: TO GO AND CATCH THE PLAY! Plus, I also happened to know which bus that could take me to the venue. Also, the best part was... it was the FIRST night of the play!
Whoa. That's a long introduction! Okay, let's cut to the chase. So, that's how my eagerness to go there came to be. Now, let's talk about the highly cynical Teater Juta-Juta itself. Its original edition was first staged at Stor DBP last September. But, due to the positive response, the team decided to perform the play this time in Putrajaya. According to the team, this is the FIRST ever play to set its foot in Putrajaya. Daaaayumm... I can't believe this place is a loser all these times!
I guess you guys are not kids anymore, so you can totally read all of the info on the promotional poster of Teater Juta-Juta ke Putrajaya; there are the actors' names (I think you can totally guess who's who), the director's name, the play's venue, date of the venue, time when the play starts... all of it.
Whoa. That's a long introduction! Okay, let's cut to the chase. So, that's how my eagerness to go there came to be. Now, let's talk about the highly cynical Teater Juta-Juta itself. Its original edition was first staged at Stor DBP last September. But, due to the positive response, the team decided to perform the play this time in Putrajaya. According to the team, this is the FIRST ever play to set its foot in Putrajaya. Daaaayumm... I can't believe this place is a loser all these times!
I guess you guys are not kids anymore, so you can totally read all of the info on the promotional poster of Teater Juta-Juta ke Putrajaya; there are the actors' names (I think you can totally guess who's who), the director's name, the play's venue, date of the venue, time when the play starts... all of it.
Aight. The premise is pretty easy. It's about a group of three FANTASTIK graduate (a blatant parody of my 'racist' former faculty) that dream of staging a play that could get the attention of big corporations to sponsor their future endeavours. But the problem here is that those big guns just don't see the future of the untypical concept that was sold by the trio. That is where the drama takes off; from the behind-the-scenes of the pitching session, after and during the pitch of those new ideas in front of the sponsors which are supplemented by flashbacks, flash-forwards, and lots of breaking the fourth wall elements to advance the plot.
Roughly speaking, in terms of showmanship, from what was written by one of the actors of this play, Aloy Paradoks, in his blog, this was what Teater Juta-Juta's director Fasyali Fadzly had to say on its style:
"I wanna do a show that's rough in terms of its look and acting... If he wants to change clothes, I purposely want it to look raw and messy, character transitions looks unclean, and all that."
And that is exactly what was delivered in the play from my observation. Fasyali indeed gave his word for his vision in Teater Juta-Juta. The set was rather too simple; most of the costumes were just hung there and maybe thrown at a whim if need be. The stage was also built to be flexible so that scenes can be changed fairly easily. Due to the fact that the play was centered around a pitching session, there was a large screen dangling above the actors as well to further supplement the story progression of the play. The character transition? Gosh... they really didn't give any mind if their costume was not properly worn or stuff like that, prolly because they were also talking while changing! But the audience played along with it, since they were already came to the understanding that this was part of the show. Acting wise? Pretty laid-back, devoid of awkwardness, and fucked-up (in a good way). It's exactly how Fasyali pictured it; rawness. These would be the proofs:
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| This is the set when it's empty. It's pretty small, really. |
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| While transforming into another character. Look at Anas; he was still wearing his clothes DURING his lines! |
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| Transitioning the set while still spewing their lines. No need for darkness for this to happen. Cool, right? |
In terms of storytelling? Hmm... Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ring any bells? It's about six 'characters' in need of a director to complete their story. Seriously? Nothing? Whatevs. I can't tell you the exact story anyway. Just go and find it yourself. On how things are moving time-wise, it used the non-linear approach: the middle is at the beginning, the ending is in the middle, the beginning is at the end. Thing is, even if the scene transitions were raw, audiences can easily tell which scene goes where. I guess the whole rawness of the scene transitions worked well for this play's favour.
On the issues they touched upon, this play is a blatant criticism on not just the theater world, but also the showbiz as a whole; it's capitalists who assume power over a work's integrity, not the creator himself... up to a point where the creator had to include unnecessary elements that is not needed all in the name of opening people's views on the authentic theatrical arts, even when they had to convince the public that what they are viewing is the real deal when its clearly not. Just like Six Characters in Search of an Author, this play is also a play-within-a-play; in order to remind the audience that this play is indeed about theater, they had to include the theatrical element within this play itself so that people are informed that this is indeed about that. Dang it, I don't even know what I'm saying, but I think you get my point. It may seem like a complex play, but it isn't. Other than that, this play also criticized a myriad of social issues such as the SYSTEM and HUMAN CIVILIZATION! That cracked me up!
On the issues they touched upon, this play is a blatant criticism on not just the theater world, but also the showbiz as a whole; it's capitalists who assume power over a work's integrity, not the creator himself... up to a point where the creator had to include unnecessary elements that is not needed all in the name of opening people's views on the authentic theatrical arts, even when they had to convince the public that what they are viewing is the real deal when its clearly not. Just like Six Characters in Search of an Author, this play is also a play-within-a-play; in order to remind the audience that this play is indeed about theater, they had to include the theatrical element within this play itself so that people are informed that this is indeed about that. Dang it, I don't even know what I'm saying, but I think you get my point. It may seem like a complex play, but it isn't. Other than that, this play also criticized a myriad of social issues such as the SYSTEM and HUMAN CIVILIZATION! That cracked me up!
In a nutshell, just go and watch this play. If you're bored of the cricket sounds on most nights, just go ahead and watch the play to hear the sound of people's laughter. I really think it's a doozy to laugh at the capitalists whom, for no reason at all, created 'guidelines' for artists to follow. At the time of writing this review, it was already Saturday (I started this shit as soon as the opening night ended), so you guys have like TWO more days to catch Teater Juta-Juta. The RM20 ticket may seem a bit too much for a play of this scale that consist of underwhelming sets, but trust me, its content actually worth more than the RM20 admission price. This play is a proof that we don't really need complex sets to make a story very engaging; all that matters is that it has to have a top-notch quality and this play really has that. What'chall waitin' fo'?
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| From the left: Fazleena Hishamudin (who is prettier in real life!, me, Aloy Paradoks, Anas Ridzuan |
If you guys feel like taking a picture with these awesome actors (sadly, the director was taking a dump as this picture was taken), get your ass over there, got it? Till then.
