What A Play....

I asked my friend, 'Should you go to sleep during the show, just sleep. I promise I won't wake you up.' She nodded. It's her first time to watch a play before. I wouldn't push my luck. Her saying 'yes' to accompany my lust for this theater's play is more than just a 'blessing' for me. ;-)

It turned out that she'd found her own favorite character. of the play. It's Professor Carusso, a knowledge-for-days-thirsty middle-aged man. He would guess the name of day of a certain date in the long future like April 15 in 3060 is going to be a Saturday. What a hobby! I have to say, with his loud, harsh voice singing all the excerpts and ballads, he has quite a stamina because he had to do that for the most time in that 4-hour play. And, he's funny too. So funny that even before the professor sang, my friend already giggled.



The first set was entertaining. It's some patients, two doctors and a nurse in an asylum. Many laughters here and there. After all, we were watching some mentally-ill patients with each unique character. Laughters were needed during the segment since there were many recitals of Shakespeare plays incorporated within the dialogs. An ambitious and confident doctor wanted to make a patient as her subject of research by using samples and memorization. She then was successful in changing that patient into a robot-like human who is very smart but had no feelings.

A short break, and then the heavier segment. Some more Shakespeare and the dialogs themselves became more serious and more difficult to comprehend especially because they led to the climax. Too bad. Tragedy must end the story.



I must give a salute to the artists. It seems that they must have gotten an A for subjects that need some kind of strong memory. Most scenes were fast and there's little time for them to peek at the script backstage during a scene. A central character (Martin, Budi Ros) only rarely went backstage (perhaps only for a sip or two sips of water) and he must either stand with an 'empty' face or say his lines or recite Shakespeare's excerpts most of the time. It's tiring physically and mentally, I'm sure.

Another character had a certain muscular disability, some early signs of Parkinson: she cannot control her body movement. Literally, the artist couldn't stop moving. And in between, she must tell jokes because she liked the attention. That's complicated. I have to give credit to Sari Madjid, my favorite.



It seems that without music, the play this time was very quiet. So serious and quiet that I could hear my friend's stomach sounds. ;-) The lines from Shakespeare were not my cup of tea. Not to mention the long and complex sentences. Hard to memorize by the artists, boring to be heard sometimes. And the setting? An asylum is a setting that is the least I'd look in choosing a play.

But, I liked it. Not 'like' as in 'entertainment' but 'like' as in 'enjoyment'. It's not as entertaining as their previous plays, but still I enjoyed it.

Does that make any sense to you?