It is good karma, I suppose, that I celebrate my birthday playing for Soracco again.

Last year I had played for the prison visit. We had a sumptuous lunch in-between visiting Sembawang prison and Tanah Merah prison, thanks to May.

Year before last, I had played for Soracco during the first Vesak programme at Etonhouse, having moved from Lorong 29 Geylang.

And now I am playing for the second Soracco Vesak show Passage of Time. It is a very fulfilling and meaningful birthday J

And I also spend my birthday with the theatre folks. We have lunch followed by a chit-chat session at Suntec, before I make my way to Jubilee Hall nearby where I have my show.

I hope to play for Soracco again for my next birthday! It is the best present that I can ever get. My love for music while helping to spread the Dharma.

* * *

There is a particular scene in the first act where the teenage Mei Lye (the protagonist of the story) is with her mother. Her mother is now pleased with her, instead of picking on her as she had done in the past, because Mei Lye was now married and had borne the family a son. So Hui Lin, who played Mei Lye, would be carrying a baby while she spoke to Hui Ling, who played the role of Mrs Lim, her mother.

We have been using a baby doll all the while, and I think nothing of it as the scene proceeds, and as usual I am bent over the keyboard filling in the incidental music. All of a sudden I hear a cry. Right away, the first thing that comes to my mind: “Jeez! The doll cries! What the hell is going on?”

I look up, and I see this woman whom I’ve never met before frantically running onto the stage to pick up the baby. And then she dumps the baby doll into Hui Lin’s hands. In less than five seconds she is off the stage with her kid, trying to pacify him.

Man we should have taped that.

Angie later told us that she nearly died in her seat. She had expected the baby to cry, hence she put forth a plan to tackle that. If the infant cried, Hui Ling would call for the ‘amah’, a role which Sister Tusita would take up. She would then come on stage to pick up the baby and take him backstage on the pretext of looking after him elsewhere. Then the play would continue. The biological mother would be waiting in the wings to receive her baby.

But the plan falls flat. The parent panics, grabs the baby doll and runs onto stage even before anybody knows what to expect. It is a classic moment of shell-shocked pleasant horror, a contradiction of sorts. Either you loved the unexpected twist or you simply went OMG.

* * *

The play is much well-balanced with humour and deeper emotional moments, the latter being quite prevalent in the second act. Thankfully there are little moments of humour to soften the mood a little, to prevent it from plunging into the deep abyss which we may never recover easily by the time the play ends.

Kudos to Angie for her talent in writing, in balancing humour with pain that we all feel good at the end of the show!

* * *

Classic lines from the show:

--- (1) ---


It made me wonder: do women go after men for their money? Is it a case of ‘No money, no honey’?

Of course I am not that kind of woman – Eng didn’t have much money when I married him. Remember, he could not even pay the $188 dowry. He needed a discount. Aiyo – do you realise I was worth only $80?

(Even the Matchmaker wanted to faint when Eng asked for a drop in the bride price.)

--- (2) ---

As some people say, the head on the top stops working when the small head hardens up!

Men can be such suckers!

Sorry… perhaps it is the women who were the suckers and the men got sucked.