So recently, Penang Free School held a school play, featuring “The King & I” at Dewan Sri Pinang, one of Penang’s most reknown hall venue for big concerts, dramas and plays. Played by students of Free School and accompanied by the school orchestra, I could see that a lot of efforts have been put in the play to make it successful. The Cat Studio has been honored to take part in some parts of the concert itself. We arranged a couple of songs that are used for the play, supplied them with headset mics & rented some lighting equipments with a little of decor.
Okay enough of the introductions. This is meant to be a review post on the concert, where I’ve personally sat down and watched.
Read on for my reviews on the concert. - Reuben Ch’ng
First thing I noticed when I entered the halls were how tight the security was. Well planned, but not so efficient, I would say. The
seats for every guest, were numbered & audiences must, MUST, sit at the designated seats. This actually resulted in a little chaos during the initial part of the concert, when people were shifting around. What would a concert be without a good company if guests are not able to sit with their friends or family? Correct me if I am wrong.
But I must say, I like their systematic approach, where they had students ushering and handing out program books politely.
The hall was quite filled with ever enthusiastic parents, friends, etc of the casts. Though not fully filled up prior to what they have claimed, probably due to people who bought the tickets mainly for support but didn’t turn up.It then struck me again, this is the second year that the Penang Free School has held a play. If my memory serves me right, there were loads of marketing and publicity done by the students the previous year, via word-of-mouth, facebook, posters and so on. It seems that the “King & I” may have had less marketing resources, but they still managed to get their tickets sold out! A thumbs-up for Penang Free!
Concert started later than stated, most likely because of TYT. It happens in nearly every concert, so that is excused. The school orchestra started with a medley as an opening. Some of the few things to note, there were import players from other schools plus ex-students to help out in the orchestra. I felt the orchestra played well but what was missing is the absence of full microphone pickups for every instruments coupled up with good sound systems. On that day, the orchestra sounded soft and weak, when they shouldn’t be. Definitely one issue the organizers will have to look into if they plan to have a third concert.
The stage curtains were raised, and tadah!, you have a thai-like dance as the first scene on stage. With the shouts and screams of the audience, spotlight was upon the King of Siam played by Brian John Dorai standing next to the audiences on a chair, as he watched the dancers on stage, signifying that the story is based in Siam, Thailand. Free School did many “off stage appearing acts”, where cast walked down next to the audiences to the stage. They made the whole hall their place of show. Great idea, but not too many please, having the spotlights on the cast, with audience squeezing those casts, is definitely uncool. The story planning was okay and easy to understand nevertheless. =)
I must compliment Free School for putting in a big effort on the costumes for the cast and dancers. The make up & hair of the casts looked stunning, though simple. In some scenes, they really look like Thais to me! Yes, I’ve noticed the arm bands, hand drawn tattoos, accessories, hairpieces and many more. Those little things do matter. Well done for the effort and a pat at the back for the good effort!
One of the next best thing in the play were the props. With many different backdrops and props, each scene were clearly shown and made understandable. Though I personally felt that the lighting for each scene were rather mediocre. There should have been different lighting themes for each scene. Sound system wise, there are things that could have be improved on too, firstly the orchestra should have been provided with more mics, and secondly the music should be played back louder. The music on the concert day, wasn’t loud and powerful enough which in hand failed to create a mood for the audiences.
The casts of the play were really good actors and did a really good job, I might say. The each portrayed their roles respectively great as you can see the actors taking full emotions and growing into each of their characters. I had a great laugh in some funny scenes, where they had some funny conversations. And also thumbs up to the king’s et cetera, et cetera,et cetera.. He really did make it sound like from the movies, and most importantly, to entertain the crowd. Some parts where the character, Tuptim was captured was also played well. Some of the scenes moved me as they were able to capture the right emotions for the scenes.
However there were few blunders in the play which turned me off totally and could have been avoided. Firstly, there were blunders made by the backstage crew. One of which, they forgot to light up the candles which were props for a scene which resulted in a sudden rush from on of the backstage crews to light up the candles when the play was going on. But that wasn’t just it, at the end of the play, a scene of a girl singing a song, accompanied by a dance of the King and Ana. The girl came out on stage to sing two phrases of the song, before stopping abruptly and then running to the corner of the stage to whisper something to the backstage crew… or so it seems, and then coming out again to restart the song. I don’t know what happened back there but that was definitely the worst blunder I have ever seen and could have definitely been avoided.
The singing by the casts needed more practice too. Some of them were alright, but some of them were really off pitched at some voice registers. There’s always comments and critics to everything and I have given some of my thoughts about the play. I’m sorry if I have offended anyone with my comments but I really hope that they will take all the comments to consideration and to perform much better next time. It is, after all, only a school level production and they focused a lot on the literature itself. To end this, I would like to congratulate the Penang Free School for their good effort and a successful play that was planned in such a short time.
For some scoop on the play, check out these videos. ( There was a bonus ‘one malaysia dance’ during the concert’s interval!)
What do you think? Comment below!
Cheers!
Reuben Ch’ng
The Cat Studio
Pictures & Videos Courtesy of Omar Tan
* If I have indirectly offended any parties, members related to the King & I by Penang Free School, I humbly apologise. This is just a humble opinion & review. Please inform us, if you do not like to see something up here. We’ll do what we should to make things clear.
thanks for the review reuben! really appreciate those comments given. =)
No problem. I really like the concert anyhow. I hope i didn’t sound too offending. =)
Hi Reuben,
Good day to you. I am actually searching on the web where to find a company who helps people makes propes. I found your site and saw the props is really impressive. Do you mind give me the contact ? As we need to make some props for some function this end of Nov. My skpe is : verawn26 , msn : verawn26
Your help is really appreciated as I cant seems to find this info on the web.
Hi Vera,
Thanks for your inquiries. We’ll get to you by email. Thanks!