Friday, March 23, 2012

Your BIG Year

Indeed I have expanded my exposure. In a span of 2 months time, me; the Virgin Theater have experience a stand-up comedy, a comedy theater and now a musical comedy theater at Istana Budaya :) I was there for Cuci The Musical, Last Kopek. Actually, this is the third and last installment. It was good and entertaining. No wonder the people have commented that our local theaters are way much better than our local movie industry.

CUCI THE MUSICAL is the story of four brothers: FAIRIL (Afdlin Shauki), KHAI (Hans Isaac), JOJO (Awie) and C' Tan (Nabil) who operates 'Cuci-Cuci Services', a small window washing company - and their dreams is to one day be good enough to be the company that services the exterior of the tallest twin-towers in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers at KLCC. The brothers are given the opportunity to make their dream come true when Cuci-Cuci Services are invited to join the Window Washing Olympics (WWO) - a competition run by, Citi Jasmin or better known as CJ (Vanida Imran) - that awards the aforementioned contract to it's winner. Coincidentally, the defending champions of the WWO are 'Wira Maju' , a company owned by CJ's boyfriend, WIRA (Douglas Lim). Meanwhile CJ's father, the TAN SRI (Harun Salim Bachik), keeps a watchful eye over the proceedings, concerned that his daughter might not be making the wisest choice in having WIRA as her partner for life. Sparks soon fly as KHAI and CJ develop an attraction to each other and simultaneously CJ's personal assistant, Farah (Dina) falls heavily for JOJO. The audiences get to experience the trials and tribulations - ups and downs - laughter and tears - love and heartbreak along with a dose of good old Malaysian comedy as they follow the four brothers on their journey. This enthralling and classically heartwarming tale of the under-dog struggling against all of the odds is sure to capture the hearts and touch the souls of the audience.

I love the upbeat songs (all of them were written by Douglas Lim), especially when the strongest voice in the house belts it out. Songs that are sung by Afdlin, Awie and Dina always manage to perk you up. I especially love the love song between Awie & Dina. Both Hans Isaac and Vanida Imran are not that vocally strong. However, they make up for it by presenting their strong acting skills. Apart from the fabulous 4, which you know is going to be fabulous and hilarious, I always enjoy the scene when Dina and Douglas Lim take to the stage because of their good comedic timing and delivery.

The set is one of the nicest sets that I had ever seen. Kudos to the Set Director or whoever you may call it to be. The set is not bland and amateurish. As a matter of fact, it was big, it was expressive, and I especially love the tiny details that they put into it. I felt like giving the Set Director a standing ovation because to me, it was kind of impressive. I laughed out loud a lot of the time and based on the crowd, they felt the same too. It was awesome. It was great. It was a success. I love Vanida Imran. Make no mistake. I think she is one of the best actresses in her generation. She was good in this. But there is something lacking. I think the something is the comedic timing. Maybe the script just called on the heroine to just look pretty and be fawned over. I don't think she have a great comedic timing. Sometimes she hit it, sometimes she don’t.

Overall, I really have to thank James for organizing this for me. We were supposed to sit at the RM120 section but thanks to James's friend who was the Stage Manager, we end up only paying RM60 for a RM180 seat :) It was in the front and I can see everything very clearly. As this is my first real theater experience, I did not mind investing in it and I already knew that it was going to be pricey before-hand. And for that money, I want a great experience and I have it :)

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