Weekend Theatre Marathon

In the weekend I was among the lucky ones who managed to catch two fantastic theatre plays at Esplanade. The Royal Shakespeare Company came to Singapore with two super cool productions: Kind Lear by the good old Shakespeare and Seagull by Chekhov and we were inspired enough to buy tickets months in advance to catch it.

As expected, the whole show was solid and outstanding. You come out from a show like this saying wow, these guys really know theatre. Obviously it was the best show I have seen in Esplanade in the past two years I was here in Singapore. Here are some reasons why I thought it was outstanding:

- Very natural and world class acting, very nice pronunciation and accent
- Great set, costumes and good effects
- The whole show was flowing naturally like a river and it felt very very real. Even the set changes were very well done, smooth and innovative.
- The actors truly lived the characters and the expressions and feelings they have expressed were very real.
- It felt like not being in the theatre but watching the events live when they happened in those old times, or felt like being in the room with the people when the action happened (being in the first row for the second show helped as well )
- Simple yet complex shows
- Just felt so good seeing these two shows. After the show I left with a strange feeling that I could not explain, but which just moved something inside me that made me feel in a way that I can’t explain though.

The only downside of it was that the King Lear was a bit tough to understand in terms of old English language and accent. But I guess that’s a good reason to watch it again next time and catch all the dialogues that I have missed this time.

It was very refreshing to see these shows and realised that I really miss going to good theatre. I used to go quite often while I was a student, but since then haven’t seen much. Of course Singapore might not be the place for the kind of performances I appreciate.