Above Full Moon

Last evening, went out with birdtan, teddy and boss'-watching-songgechan to the esplanade to watch "Above Full Moon" - the Musical. As I am no longer a student, I wasa not entitled the $3 discount. :(

The performers of the show were great, as almost all of them could act + sing extremely well. Above Full Moon protrays the life of Master Hong Yi, a lengendary figure in modern history of chinese arts, culture and religion. The entire story was about his passion for art, and eventually the letting go of this passion and his family in search for his spiritual life.

Heard from birdtan that the organisers of this play is the same as the one i watched 4 yrs ago - Sidhharta - The Musical. I was a freshman then with BS Dajie hardselling the tickets for the show.

Inevitably, I tend to compare the 2 musicals, and I couldnt help but feel the latter paled much in comparison with the former. Firstly, the life story of the Buddha, to many (including myself), would be much more signficant and meaningful than the life of Master Hongyi. Secondly, the crew strength for Moon was probably only a fraction of the former, and hence, less grand and magnificent. The dances, music, songs and backdrops seemed to be less captivating this time. I remembered I was most impressed by the super efficient and fast transition of the backdrop then, but last nite, there seemed to be much commotions and delays in the changing of the backdrop.

Towards the end of the play, 'Master Hongyi' was reflecting on his life, the diff stages he had gone through and ppl he had met in his life over the past decades. Perhaps the play was only 2-hr, tats probably I couldnt feel 'much' abt the reflections he made, on how everything in life appears and disappears again like specks of dust in the air.

Nevertheless, I felt that the crew had staged up a wonderful performance, still much better than most of the other plays I have watched (will nv forget the rather horrible play staged up at UCC 2 yrs ago, on the life of the buddha). I was reading on some online advertisements.posters of the play, and was surprised that the make-up image of Master Hongyi I saw last night seemed very different from the one featured in the posters (as in the play in malaysia). Could they have tou kong jian liao after coming to singapore??? well...

Anyway, the spending of $30++ on this rather big-scale musical play is definitely worth it, especially when its done by a Buddhist Musical play group held in the grandest durian shell of singapore. What more can i ask?