Q: How do you handle fame? It's so easy to get lost in ego and fame. Bon Jovi said: “Fame is a liar and a thief. I've seen it ruin people. It is what I do, and I do it well, but it does not define me. I have a family, a business, and tennis.” Fame can be so destructive.

A: Don't define your worth based on who takes a photo with you after red-carpet events, or how many followers you have on social media. Find the people you look up to, such as directors or other actors, and ask them for their feedback on your craftsmanship as an actor. If you believe your own publicity, then you will also believe the negative comments.

Q: do you think your roles represent you as the person you want to be? You have worn many hats – you have been an actor, a producer, and a director.

A: [chuckles.] That's quite a meta- kind of question. [pause] I bring my best self to work. I show up on time. On set, I give everyone the time of day: the AD (Assistant Director), the ADPA (Assistant Director Production Assistant), and the caterer. There are so many people on set. And, I like tequila, [audience laughs] but 48 hours before a shoot, I avoid drinking. If you can hold your liquor, that's fine, but that's how I conduct myself. I don't know if this behaviour represents my race, my ethnicity, and my nationality, but that's what I do.

Q: how did it happen? How did you get inside the world of [redacted]?

A: Well, I met this guy, [redacted], in [redacted]. I don't know what possessed me, but I gave him a bunch of cards, and said, “Here are my head shots”. One year later, he called me up on a Thursday, and said, “The casting director wants to see you on Saturday, in [redacted].” Now, there was no way I could get from [redacted] to [redacted] on such short notice. And you know how casting calls work in [redacted], you have a specific time that you show up, say, 5.27 PM, and if you are not there, you're out. But, you know, my niece – she's here today, in the audience – and my mother, they went with me to the airport. They said, “It doesn't matter, the size [of your travel expenses]. This is your dream, right?”

So I flew over, I rented a car, and I went to [redacted]. And I was very jet-lagged, and I entered the room, and I saw ten other people, who all looked just like me. [audience laughs.] And, I have been directing for years, I haven't auditioned in a while, and my nerves were starting to get to me. And then I went into the room – there is a Flow state that musicians have, you know, where you just get lost in the music – well, I went into the room, and I said my lines, and then I left the room, and after that, I realised I couldn't recall what I did in that room. Not a thing.

And then I waited six weeks, paying for my lodging, out of my own pocket, and then they called me in for a second audition. And it gets even more nerve-racking, because you're closer now, but there's also a chance that everything could end for you, just like that [snaps fingers]. Behind actors' huge confidence is a huge sense of insecurity and fear. [audience giggles.]

And you think the Casting Director can get you in, but the Casting Director is just the beginning. You have to talk to the Studios, to see if they want you, and then you have to talk to the director. This director, [redacted], he meets people in person, for the smallest role. There was this character who has only one line in the whole movie – he says: [redacted] – and the director went to have coffee with him, just to hear him say that one line.

So, some time later, I was driving, and I got a call. And [redacted] said, “are you sitting down?” I said, “I'm not, I'm driving! But I will try to stop driving.” So I pulled into a gas station, and then she said, “You got it.”

And I don't have enough time to tell you everything that I have seen on set, the lovely actors I've met.

Sometimes I look at the sound stage, I look at the stunt crew, and I just let it all sink in. The night before, I'm rehearsing my lines in my head, and saying them out loud, over and over – so that it comes out as naturally as possible – but when I arrive on set, and see everything moving, I just have to let it sink in: “This is really happening.”

#acting

Of course, the behind-the-scenes crew, and not just the cast, are outstanding in their individual and collective genius – time does not suffice to list all their luminary contributions. Included in the crew are Rayann Condy (as Intimacy Director), and Matt Hutchinson (in the department of Puppets, Puppetry Design & Direction). And Lee Yew Jin (sound design), and Peps Goh (fight-choreography).

I would like to highlight the physical space as another actor in its (her?) own right. The venue is Fort Canning Park. As the sun lowered itself behind skyscrapers – which, in the blue light of dusk, glowed softly with a thousand electric lights – a couple of large birds (wildlife, not props) soared above the greenery. “Eagles,” my companion-for-the-evening said. What a strange sound they are making, I thought. I've never heard them vocalise before.

The show started after the emcee (CEO?) had thanked corporate sponsors profusely, and had invited the audience to donate generously.

Dusk gave way to night. Clouds obscured the myriad stars in the heavens above. And, upon the poor humans' perspiration-coated bodies, the outdoor air pressed in, like a heavy gloved hand, moist with extreme tropical humidity. The threat of mosquitoes was on humans' minds: tickling one's nostrils was the smell of mosquito-repelling fluid.

Suddenly, mid-way through the first half of the 90-minute performance, raindrops started falling into the electricity-illuminated night. Cue umbrellas from audience members: umbrellas, which, of course, blocked the view of people behind them, but where I was seated, no one complained – perhaps a testament to the gripping drama unfolding on stage.

The raindrops ceased. Lady Macbeth had gone on a monologue throughout the brief shower.

I should highlight the clever use of lighting: an illuminated platform underneath the sand-covered stage, lit sometimes blue in colour, and sometimes orange. If one covers the lights with layers of sand, the set looks like a desert scene, straight out of the sci-fi Dune movies. But wipe the sand away (mobilising a crew-member with a manual tool), and the orange glow, from the glowing platform beneath, looks like a horrible image of Hellfire as the witches cackle and preen before the anxious Macbeth: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth.” (Act 4, Scene 1).

I loved the group-dances and the salutes. And derived pleasure from the “prayers” in an unfamiliar language – I wonder if the language was created just for this production, like how a new language has been created for the blue aliens in James Cameron's film, “Avatar”.

Overall, it was a night that I savoured.

#PostPerformanceThoughts #acting

It uses the gimmick of body-swap – once popularised in the movie, “Face Off”, featuring Nicholas Cage (1997) – but after reading it, I fear that I will be ashamed of the final work.

The lines are unnatural, although the use of slang is endearing. There is a definite clumsiness throughout the interactions between characters. “Real people don't talk this way,” I thought to myself.

Granted, the scriptwriter may be, quite likely, a 17-year-old youth, inexperienced in society, but low-quality work is low-quality work, no matter how one may try to find extenuating circumstances to explain it away.

Better to turn down this invitation in a polite, amicable yet firm way, than to do something that I will be ashamed of.

Synopsis:

Mother and daughter switch bodies for a day, and grow in their understanding of each other's struggles (in the mother's workplace, and at the daughter's school).

#acting

HCAC: private acting school with various short courses of styles and methods.

https://methodactingasia.com/

Nine Years Theatre: Actor Training

http://www.nineyearstheatre.com/en/class.php

Companies that have long term training programmes.

• Young and Wild by Wild Rice
• Young Co. by Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT)
• Buds Youth by Buds Theatre

Schools (Dip/Degree):

• Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)
• Lasalle
• Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI)

______________________

The following links are for Acting News/Audition/Everything else:

Facebook artscomm https://www.facebook.com/groups/artscommsg/?ref=share

Facebook casting call https://www.facebook.com/groups/143232105689606/?ref=share

Telegram https://t.me/channelnewstheatre

Arts Resource Hub (there are helpful materials here as well) https://www.artsresourcehub.sg/

#acting

Games, and exercises, to build up confidence and reflexes.

• stand in a circle. Next person asks you: “what are you doing?” That next person has to do what you say. For example, you might say: “I am playing soccer on the moon.”
• enter a space. put in, or take out something. Exit the space. Then, the next person has to evolve the story.

Ways of using your body to convey feelings.

• disgusted: your body is tensing up
• overjoyed: you are walking on a bed of roses
• frustrated: your guts are twisting

#acting

1. Signed up for a course of study, at National University of Singapore. “GEK1055: The Theatre Experience”. (2014). Conducted by Paul Alexander Rae.
2. watched a play. “The House of Bernarda Alba.” (Produced by Wild Rice). 2014. Location: Drama Centre, National Library Board Building.
3. Acted in a short film, with Wong Souk Yee, and Jason Soo. 2014.
4. Watched a play. “The Skriker”. November 2017. Location: McNally Street, LaSalle College of the Arts.
5. Experienced Recess Time, by The Theatre Practice. 2019. Location: 58 Waterloo Street, Singapore.
6. Watched a recording of an opera. “Faust”. (Produced by Royal Opera House in the United Kingdom). 2019 (approximately). Location: The Projector, Golden Mile Tower.
7. Watched an opera. “Inconvenience of minor parts”. (Written by Felix Cheong). 2022. Location: Esplanade Theatres.
8. Watched a play. “Muswell Hill”. (Produced by Pangdemonium). 2022. Location: Drama Centre, National Library Board Building.
9. Exchanged functional e-mails with a certain Shaza Ishak, who works at Teater Ekamatra. 2022.
10. Had a brief chat with an experienced actress, Neo Swee Lin. 2022. (approximately). Location: an eatery named Orange And Teal, in a mall named Rochester Mall.
11. watched an opera. “The Butterfly Lovers”. (Produced by Wild Rice). 2023. Location: Victoria Theatre.
12. Enrolled in a short course on Introduction to Acting Techniques, by Darren Guo. 2024.
13. Sent a postcard to someone who works at Teater Kami. 2024.
14. Watched a play. “Playing With Fire”. (Produced by Checkpoint Theatre). 2024. Location: Drama Centre, National Library Board Building.
15. Watched a hybrid form of theatre. “Tunggu sekejap: the P. Ramlee suite”. By: Wild Rice. 2025. Location: Funan. (Someone else's review is there.)
16. Watched a play. “Macbeth”. By: Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT). 2025. Location: Fort Canning Park.

#lists #acting

the actors were L and H.

Darren observed their performance once, and then told them to perform again, but with a game in mind – an actor's game. L's goal is to get H to look at her for more than three seconds. H's goal is to give L as little eye-contact as possible.

They weren't very competitive in this game at first, but Darren stirred things by saying, “L, you're losing! H isn't even looking at you, he's just sitting there!”

L won the game. She won it by touching H's hand with her hand (with mutual consent among the actors, of course). I believe she made the skin-contact while speaking the line: “won't you think it over?”

H's response was an ejaculation – an ejaculation of eye-contact, I mean, (though whether there was indeed a ejaculation of seminal fluid, only H – and an omniscient God – knows.)

Darren said afterward, after the performance ended: “it is okay if there is romance or even lust. We are all adults here.”

L and H were maybe the same age as the young English-speaking Japanese soldier and the teenage Malay-speaking, Borneo-born, Chinese sexual slave, who appear in a sobering chapter in Swee Lian's memoir, “Tears of a teenage Comfort Woman.” (Swee Lian is a pseudonym).

How horrible to have your first sexual experience in a war-time brothel!

What was I doing in my teenage years? Playing soccer at lunch-time, among poorly-behaved boys. Performing on the harmonica, in a group. Preparing for examinations in Classical Piano Performance. Learning how to swim in a pool of water that was deeper than a human's height – and how to achieve faster speed and higher efficiency – under a coach's instruction. Watching movies in a group, legally or otherwise (memorably, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Final Fantasy: Advent Children.) Learning how to achieve victory over other boys in a game of Chinese Chess. (But, some of them, I could never defeat.)

#acting

“It is better to be a glorious failure than a mediocre success.”

Mediocre success hinders you from tasting glorious success. (Editor's note: Darren attributes this quote to the late playwright, Kuo Pao Kun)

“Everything is a transaction [a communication or exchange]“.

As long as you are within view of the Other – which is the typical situation of the average human in modern times – you are sending out a communication-signal, whether you are conscious of it, or not.

“I cannot emphasise enough the importance of awareness [as an actor's tool.]”

the onus is on the actor to engage in exercises that develop his own awareness, when he is absent from the stage/screen. But there is danger in over-stimulation of one's sense, such as inside a crowded shopping mall. (Darren confesses that the latter situation does drain Darren's energy quickly.)

“Think for yourself: How can you game the game? I never said you cannot play the game a certain way. [Within ethical boundaries.]”

Do not harm others. Do not harm yourself. Don't be an asshole.

“whenever there is a dialogue, you are doing something to another person. [Whether you are conscious of it or not].”

Be specific with your behaviour. That's the mark of a great actor, as compared to a good actor.

“Respect each other's choices.”

How should classmates – or co-workers – behave around one another, when working together to prepare a performance? (Throughout the entire process, from script-hunting, to rehearsal-planning, to stage-unfolding).

#acting

“invisible body”: What an actor does off-stage, which helps in his performance on-stage. Eg. Tai-chi, amateur boxing, basketball, soccer, marathon-running, stamina-training.

“theatre sports”: team-games that actors play among themselves, that help their performance, and athleticism – and, all-importantly, awareness – on-stage. Eg. “Cat and Mouse”, Tag, Zip Zap Zoom, and variations of Broken Telephone.

What is the difference between a good actor and a great actor? Kester, my classmate, said: “I think [Darren, our coach, said] it is about specificity – being specific and clear about your intentions and expressions [while acting].”

Darren said, “a good actor can act. A great actor can show specificity.”

articles in Cyber-space

• “The Invisible Body and the Suzuki Method of Actor Training”. https://www.nineyearstheatre.com/en/abt-suzuki.php
• ”'Flower' as Performing Body in Nō Theatre”. In Asian Theatre Journal. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41306514
• “7 Movement Techniques for Actors”. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/movement-techniques-actors-study-8763/

#acting

As things turned out, our scene became a confrontation between two hostile criminals.

Darren directed us. His guidance to me included: “let your pose inform your voice. Whatever that means to you.”

Topic for today: the various resonating factors in your body, for your voice.

• chest voice
• nasal voice
• head voice

Received our roles for our Final Presentation. I'm paired up with Asha. The script is titled “MRT”.

My character is a young man, old enough to be a motorcycle-riding grandson of a guilt-ridden grandmother.

“I got retrenched without much notice. I don't know how to break the news to my wife. I wore office clothes while leaving our house, to put up a pretence of employment when I'm actually unemployed.”

Questions for my character:

• what is the nature of your relationship with your wife? Loving and amicable? Or strained, irritable and strife-filled?
• how wealthy are you and your wife? Which socio-economic class do you fall under?
• how many people are depending on your salary, which has now evaporated?
• where are you going today, if you are not going to your (now-eradicated) workplace?
• what is happening from your employer's perspective? Is there a particular reason why your employer has dismissed you?
• with what feelings did you wake up in bed today?

#acting