Cuddle Day
2005-02-25 @ 5:52 p.m.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Mr Purvis wore a really striking shirt last night. It's the brightest colour we've seen him wear, except for salmon pink. This one was bright blue, with colourful stripes. It was one of the most eye-catching things in LT2 actually. Also forgot to mention that Tim and Zachary were not bad last night as the emcees. I think Tim is overly dramatic at times. Haha! So here's my candid take on DramaFeste 2005, as promised:

CPS: Hidden Truths
I think this play's chief flaw was its predictability. Two-timing is bad, three-timing is worse. You can see where the whole thing's headed, right from the start, which is definitely not a good thing because your audience switches off. A good moment was when the hypocrite had to answer calls from all three girls, and he ends up promising all of them that he'll attend a company function with them. Aside from that, I didn't like the play very much. Thought the use of the hypocrite's retrospectives was a nice touch though.

Arts: Saturday
To sum it all up, this was one long bitching session. Not to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy it, this being easily the most entertaining play of the evening. It's just that the play is hopelessly shallow. Then again, I'm not entirely convinced that DramaFeste plays should have a calculated message behind them. As I mentioned yesterday, the ending of the play was weak, mainly because the dialogue slowed and veered towards the sentimental, especially in one of Fanny's last lines. There were some good insults traded though, enough to make me want to get a copy of the script from Kelly. (I hope Chun Long was paying attention last night!) Clever, maybe too clever for its own good actually.

Engine: 2C1
Structurally, this play stood out for its use of parallel plots. Even though the portrayal of the central character was far too simplistic in its black and white morality, the simultaneous delivery of lines in one of the earlier scenes was impressive. This play also had the best symbolic use of the mask! Two versions of one character start out with a white mask. As the play progresses, the good character's mask is coloured blue and yellow, while the bad character's mask is coloured black and red. Leaving aside the implausibility of one person's character developing along such extremely divergent lines based on one event, I didn't mind this play.

Medicine 1: Toystory
Mr Purvis likes this play best, but I hated it. The script borrows liberally from various literature texts like Animal Farm and Julius Caesar, and even manages to incorporate religious elements. (Think Mary and the lamb.) The play went on far too long, and I couldn't stand the parts when the characters danced on stage. Nonetheless, it had a good ending. Nice costumes too, being the only play to employ non-human characters. Incidentally, I will never look at Reuben in the same light again.

Medicine 2: Distance
Promising premise, but I failed to see it manifested in the play. This play's saving grace is its casting of the teenage couple Adam and Eve, which was played by a couple who both looked good, and looked good together. Other than that, the play was more confusing than enlightening. The whole I thought the father was having an affair, he was actually talking with his sister. Now that came as a complete surprise at the end.

This afternoon, while we were waiting for our 'S' Papers to start, Mr Rollason suddenly popped his head into class, waved a ball, and asked if we wanted to play football. Picture if you will, Solomon Macey leading the people of Raveloe in a dance with his screaming fiddle. (Or for the uninitiated, the Pied Piper luring the children away from their homes.) I wonder how the game went. We left almost right after we'd arrived at the scene, because Mr Purvis doesn't take too kindly anymore to our being late for his lessons. Okay, have to run off now to attend my grandmother's birthday dinner in the VIP room of some restaurant.