so many things happened during the 'broken bridges' tour to ipoh.. let me see if i can remember all..
nov 21 - first batch of the production team left for ipoh (jia-wei, maria, paul, tora, yo, sandee & hanif) they started with the bump-in of set and light.. early in the morning, a 40-footer trailer came to transport all the parts of set and lights and big props to ipoh.. one hell of an experience ! it gave me a goose bump to see and to think tht i'd be one of the most important person in the production.. i was telling mike (the sound engineer) that it was an honour for me to be involved in a klpac's outside production after only 8 months working with klpac..
meanwhile in kl, we still have one last day of rehearsal and for the very first time we have attendance of full cast and it was really a good run play.. after the rehearsal, we had a small kenduri with joe's famous chicken soup (thx nicole for asking him to cook).. then rasul (my assistant) and i started packing the costumes and hand props to be dumped in my car..
nov 22 - second batch of the production team left for ipoh (joe, faridah, pui see, mike, wah, rasul & me).. i left my house at 7am and reach tmn budaya ipoh at 8.20am.. fast huh ??! well at least i trust the way rasul drive so i really didnt mind when he speed at 150km/hr.. hmmm.. i won't mind until if i get the speed trap summon babe !
anyway, reach tmn budaya, checked out the place.. i dunno if i should be doing this in a blog who will be read by the public but tmn budaya ipoh sucks man ! place is not well maintained, personnel are not helpful, dirty and unorganized.. gotta make do with whatever we had right.. rasul and i tidy up the place, organized all our props and costumes, made space for the wardrobe asst, the casts and ourselves.. we cant do much with the set still building up so we went back to the hotel room to rest.. hmm, hotel was another case.. also not helpful, sombong and nasib baik my room are bareable enuf to stay in.. (mike and wah had to change room coz their initial roomwas full of fungus due to leakage)..
the rest of the day til midnite we continue our bumping in at tmn budaya..
back to room after hours - my room has turn out to be the casino and bar for the production team.. we hang around til about 4am.. sorry mate for not letting you all leave early, i talk a lot when am drunk.. this time rasul was lucky that he do not have to carry me up to the apartment when am drunk, he'd just let me sleep wherever i switched off, be it in the toilet !.. the suffering was felt most by mike who had to listen to my blabbering the whole nite long.. half of the suffering felt by wah, hanif, tora & yo who slowly walk out the room hoping i'd didnt see.. well, dude ! i saw but like i said, i talk a lot when am drunk so even if no one left in the room i'd probably still be talking !
nov 23 - the cast left for ipoh. i got up late coz was talking til 5am.. anyway, got up straight away went out for durian hunting.. can you believe it ? drove all over ipoh, even went up to kuala kangsar but couldnt find satu biji durian pun ! finally, i decided to buy durian belanda instead.. sama la tu kan.. same species.. better pun coz no annoying smells.. we started a tech run at 3pm, lastest for 4 hrs, rest a bit and started the full dress rehearsal pulak.. tiring day but energy was good.. anyway, in the afternoon, i was introduced to 7 acs ipoh students who will be the stagehands / foh for the show.. i dont wanna talk about them again for the next 3 days we were there coz they were actually not helping much.. like i told them, it probably was my fault coz i didnt brief them and i had no time to train them..
again, that night we party in my room.. but just for a while coz we all wanted to have a good rest for the opening night..
nov 24 - opening night. had a late call time coz it was friday and since the place is owned by govt, the place is closed from 12.45pm to 2.30pm, well, supposedly ! the personnel came to open the place at 3pm ! sigh... had another dress rehearsal run.. hectic.. opening night was full house ! crowd love it !
party time ! after show, cast party at indulgence, right across tmn budaya.. had good food, good wine, good picture taking, good laughs ! went back to my room and continue party.. this time it was mike's turn.. he became the storyteller til 6am.. he slept on my bed so i decided to continue hassling the rest (wah, sandee, hanif & rasul), not allowing them to sleep until we then went down to claim our free breakfast.. eating during breakfast made us sleepy.. went back to the room and mike still conquering my bed so had to share bed with my roommate until i woke up at about 10am and saw my empty bed, happily jump on the bed and slept til 2pm, i think...
nov 25 - call time was at 6pm so hanif, tora, yo, rasul and i decided to go out have lunch and buy more props.. show goes on as normal but today's crowd was a bit difficult.. not sure if they like it but as usual i always enjoyed the backstage drama more... after show went back to hotel to change and went out back.. we went out for char kuew tiow at dataran ipoh.. then we went to play snooker for a while and went back to the room and did our usual production party.. this time it was tora who became the storyteller... surrendered early coz tomorrow's call time is at 12noon..
nov 26 - closing night. i started packing whatever i can.. show as normal, also difficult crowd but again the backstage drama was overly melodramatic today.. a lot of complaint but as usual, my speciality is democratically diplomatic..
after show, packing time, bump-out.. we started at 5pm and finished at 9pm.. filled the lorry with everything.. it was a fun 4 hrs bump-out.. when the lorry left for kl, all of us (jia-wei, maria, paul, mike, wah, tora, yo, sandee, hanif, rasul & me) went for a production team dinner party.. thank you jia-wei for the dinner.. it was really good..
all the rest left for kl right after dinner, only left sandee, hanif, rasul and me who decided to go back the next day.. went back to hotel, watched manchester united vs chelsea (1-1) and i slept 10mins before full time.. it was a relieve that everything is done, i had a good sleep without liqour..
nov 27 - sandee left in the morning with jia-wei.. rasul, hanif and me checkout at 12 noon and started our journey back to kl.. singgah tapah for lunch and reach klpac at 3pm. then i realized that i've lost my ic, license and bankcard.. hmmm.. what a welcome back.. being an immigrant !
so that was the broken bridges tour from my point of story.. i am a storyteller not a book writer so there's more to this if you'll chat with me.. am sure all the casts have their side of the stories as well.. am gonna find time to organize a reunion if i can... first, have to declare myself back as a malaysian.. huh ! macam-macam ada...
