Went for this play during CNY. This was part of the Chinese Festival of Esplanade. Went to watch this play coz the lead actress is Zhang AiJia (张艾嘉) and lead actor is Zheng YuanChang (郑元畅). But when i finished watching the play, i realised the lead actor was Wang YaoQing (王耀庆). Maybe Zheng is more famous than Wang, that's why the advertisement emphasized more on Zheng.
The play was about 张威 (acted by Zhang) was a CEO of a company and she was also ex-wife of the boss (mentor of Zhang). She was having affair with her protégé, David (acted by Wang) - a guy who wanted to prove his love and capability by embezzling company's money to play shares. The whole story began with 李想 (acted by Zheng) telling the audience that he didn’t know why he was died when he just started this dream job (his dream was to work in a glamorous environment) not long ago. The story ended with telling us 李想 was accidentally dragged down by David when he jumped down the office building after the company discovered about his embezzlement. 李想 didn’t even blame David after he was died coz he knew that it was all an accident. But i was pretty sad with this kind of ending. The poor innocent guy was sacrificed by the act of David and Zhang.
Despites of the sad ending, i actually quite like this play coz of all the interesting supporting actresses and actors - the sexpot "Jialing", the married plus want affair but dun dare to do so "Shen Kai", the forever different secretary roles "Dong Mei", the capable in work but lost in love "Sophie", the newbie cum granddaughter of big boss "Qiqi", the himbo "Sun Qiang", the 2 assistants "ban ban" and "hao hao"... Though some parts of the voice-over were really unnecessary..
I attended the 1st night of the show and maybe it was the 1st night, it was really an “eventful” night. There was an announcement to say that there will be a 15mins interval break due to technical error. At 1st, i thought this was a joke but when we waited for more than 15mins, i went to check with the usher and realised there was really technical error. The programme book indicated that the intermission should be after scene 8 but that was only scene 4. After they fixed the error for quite some time, they repeated scene 4 (think this was unnecessary coz the error was at the end of scene 4) and the error appeared again at the ending. This time round, they fixed it faster without another break.
Zhang & Wang were clearly affected by the incident coz they didn’t do as good as the previous scene 4 when they repeated it.
After that, there were another intermission, maybe they really need time to swop the props etc after certain scene. This time round, esplanade apologised for the error and offered free drinks at the bar counter. But this might be too last min so the drinks at the bar counter were not enough and by the time you finished queuing, the interval was over. But luckily, i still managed to grab a champagne which was the most expensive drink from the bar counter.
After the curtain call, the director invited the esplanade staff to come out so that they can express thanks to esplanade for helping them. But the staff was so tense and upset that she didn’t realised that they were only asking her out to say thanks. She immediately read from her script that they were really apologetic for what has happened. When the audience saw her trembling look, they all started to laugh. I think she was really affected by what has happened. She looked so poor thing and she apologised again for cancelling the only post show talk as the time was really late and the casts needed to rest early for the next day matinee show. Audience was really upset even after she offered us another round of free drinks at the bar counter. Although the time was already midnight, we still hope to talk and mingle with the cast. But anyway no choice..
I can empathize with her coz I do stage management as well. I told Cat that if she was the SM, I think she would cry too. So I didn’t want to make things too difficult for that lady. If usual situation like this, I will sure write a complaint letter to Esplanade and demand for refund.
Anyway, luckily again, i managed to grab an Evian at the bar counter after show.
Oh ya, must say thanks to my bf for waited from 10pm onwards coz Esplanade got no phone reception so he cannot call me and couldn’t know what time my show ended.. So poor thing.. Waited for 2 hours coz he wanted to send me home..
Attended this dinner and dance on the 1st week of Jan 2009.. It was held at Changi Hotel.. The reason that i posted this blog is coz i got selected to be one of the best dressed candidates.. The theme was back to school..
