Nightly rehearsals of The Swamp Dwellers

So do you all know that we have another project up our sleeves? No not another 24 hour theatre project..boo hoo...but a full play to be staged at the Panggung Bandaraya from May 7 to 11th. It stars Ahmad Yatim, Lim Soon Heng, Tania Zainal, Zaifri Husin and Lim Kien Lee. The story? Huh so relevant to our times you won't beleive it! No I didn't write it..it's by Nobel Laureate for Literature, Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka.
Some nights rehearsals are really great..actors come in with fresh ideas and two nights ago Yatim who is always afraid of not remembering his lines just was so wonderful it was a treat to watch. He and Soon Heng could not get a connection as Soon Heng plays the blind beggar..so they did some exercises that brought some nice, subtleties that were not there before. We have quite some time before the show so actors are encouraged to do just about anything to help them get their characterisation right.
Last night Kien Lee and Soon Heng rehearsed.. a long scene they have together. Again the same exercise was done and if an actor does not feed off the other's energy it becomes hard going for the audience. Making Kien Lee laugh is hard enough but when he got going...wow! the scene came alive and a once dreary scene which I swore I would kill myself if it became so was a delight to watch. Tonight we shall have Zaifri and Yatim too and I am looking forward to 3 hours of fun as Zaifri can be a clown and works his body really well. Tell you all about it tomorrow!
S