Thursday 4 December 2014

THE GREAT GASTBY THEATER UPM

Elite Production was formed by BBL 3401 students of this semester, it was formerly known as Play Production. Initially, I have registered for this course in the early semester, after considering my slow progression of final year thesis, I decided to give up taking this course. However, I do encourage my mass communication friend - Yin Fong to participate in this production since I have a great experience when I join them in LES MISERABLES 3 semester ago.

This time, BBL 3401 us has brought us THE GREAT GATSBY  by F.Scott Fitzgerald. Although I'm couldn't be a part of them, I manage to become an audience for the show, bringing another 2 friends from Lang Chao Drama Club - Yen Wei and Pei May. As usual, the show is staged at Panggung Percubaan.



Once I enter Panggung Percubaan, what I can see is a nicely built twenties yellowed car was parked right in front of the entrance,  then only I recall back it was the walking yellow car that I saw about a week ago.

THE GREAT GATSBY starts punctually at 8.30pm sharp. The show started with a party scene at the nineteen twenties. 



From the moment the curtain opens,  3 of us was truly amazed by the props and the backdrops of the show. The trees, the old-style phone, the lamp post, the chandelier and so on are a meticulous piece of them, these peoples are really talented. So, do the costume, their costume was so attractive and definitely matched the time setting of the stories, just the pinky blouse with vest by Jay Gatsby seems weird and ugly to us.






Loyal readers of my blog might curious why I didn't brief THE GREAT GATSBY stories like what I usually do every time I wrote about theater or movie I have watched. This is because I'm not sure about the storyline of the show since I couldn't get what they are saying mostly. It would be much better if all the main character has a clip microphone. Perhaps I can get what they say if I came earlier and get a seat at the front row. Besides sitting far from the stage, the seats that we get was troubled by an unknown machinery sound from the ceiling.  However, I still able to get a certain part of the stories by looking at the action of every character. Well, I will watch THE GREAT GATSBY movie later to fill up the parts that are not really understood.





The lighting also affects the quality of the show. Sometimes the character talk in the dark, sometimes the light doesn't off when that scene has ended. Obviously, the persons in charge of lighting are not alert enough. 



Overall, THE GREAT GATSBY has a lot more to improve. Perhaps I watched too many great theaters this semester, such as FOREVER 21, PTUM, PTUKMand CASA da LUA, when comes to comparison, THE GREAT GATSBY  does disappoint me. I know BBL 3401 is just a course subject, they have no budget for a complete set of lighting and sound system, however, my suggestion is made musical theater will be better compared to the normal theater, dancing and singing can cover the weakness of sound projection.

No matter what, all of these is just my humble opinion as an audience. It's not easy to prepare a theater in about 10 weeks time with limited manpower and budget, you guys have overcome all the hardship and made it! You guys are truly awesome!!! 



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