Looking back at the late P. Ramlee's History
Last night's P. Ramlee the Musical was a blast. Tickets sold out, and a lot of celebrities were cramming behind the double doors. I even saw one the popular Melodi reporter chit chatting with the people around there. People were still queueing up to buy tickets, though they were sold out. I felt cocky yet nervous standing and waiting for the show to start. Maybe because this would be my first time watching a theatrical presentation in Istana Budaya, or maybe because this was the premiere, and the feeling were supposed to be tha
t way.
So what's up with the musical? Is it something like the highly appraised TV show High School Musical? Well, it's something like that, but with a bit of Malaysian touch. It tells a story about the history of P. Ramlee from the day he dreamed of becoming an artist to his last remaining days contributing to the Malaysian art scene. Along the way he meets his love life and faces grief and sorrow before becoming a renowned artist througout Asia. And it doesn't need a complex plot to tell such story. Let the song and the rhytms explain it all. And of course with dances too. The story spans up to 3 hours starting from 9.p.m with a 30 minute intermission.
And now comes the review. Since this was my first time watching a Malaysian musical theatre I couldn't comment much about how it was presented (did watch different kind of theatres performed by my collagues, and even acted in one during the KL festival, but those were totally different than what I was watching ). But overall it was good, with the beautiful voices from the cast, synchronized dancing and eye-popping props and backdrops. However I did find a little bit funny (but not obvious) on the voice projection by one of the actors (well, maybe they did that on purpose). And some of the songs did not really fit the moods of the story, especially when it came to the sad part. They also put some modern twist in the rhythm. And the absence of P.Ramlee's collection of original songs were felt (maybe they wanted to avoid copyright infringement). And the plot did really have a climax that drived my emotion to the top. Something that would make a person who had never known P. Ramlee to cry and say "I should've known
him earlier!" Maybe this only came from my own judgement, but I believe that every part of P.Ramlee's life was explicitly told in the story. And with my dad to elaborate on what was happening in every scene, I found out that his life was not just about being a 'seniman' or an artist, but more about being a man. And seriously, Sean Ghazi managed to 'become' him that night. I enjoyed watching every scene and wouldn't want to miss a second of it. The production team really did their best.
All in all it is a theatre worth watching. If you want to know everything about P. Ramlee, start booking your tickets now!
