My Colourful Fishes Inspire Better

Did anyone noticed how skinny my fishes are these days?

There's a lot of things that I would like to do these days. Who doesn't? I mean, in life, people would like to fill theirs with happy stuffs as much as they possibly can. Let it be in terms of quality or quantity, objects of possession or frantic experiences, giving or receiving, et cetera. I would like to fill my life with happy stuffs, such as this.

Writing is still one of my happy things I like to do. Time, no, convenience does not allow me to do so. Well, I've that used that excuse for a lot of things. Friends, exercising, family, etc. To me, busy is not a good excuse. I use it occasionally but hear me here that I'm not that fond of seeing myself being careless in time management.

Hence, here I am trying to work my way back to what was my weekly, if not daily, source of mental apple pie.

So, today I am writing a review. Please allow me to start the next paragraph with a bolded title.

Inspire the 10-Year-Old Me

I went to watch Tun Mahathir The Musical early last week. Credit to Ainee and Kerel for the awesome seating. I came in my formal shirt and pants as any nice gentleman would attend the theatre - especially a high profile biographical play. Plenty of beautiful ladies around the multi-tiered hall and nicely dressed pakcik and makcik attending the show to witness their beloved former national leader celebrated in a play. It was a nice atmosphere for a show of this stature. It was about Tun Mahathir and I had high expectation for a play about a leader of his magnitude.

Well, suffice to say I was frustratingly disappointed (note the two adjectives applied). I won't say whether I am or not a big fan of the man, but impartiality would not credit my feelings otherwise.

I can forgive the following things:
1. Pre-recorded musics
2. Excessive stage performers
3. Glare-prone lighting directions
4. Amateur-ish scripts
5. Cheap background video editing

However, the very essence of a biographical play is whether it inspires or not. Failure to do so defeats the purpose of crafting a high-profile play of a high-profile person on a high-profile stage.

It was like watching an educational film, the kind that you show to primary school kids to learn about our nation's rich histories - our leader is good, our enemies are bad, all he did was right and whatever his enemies did was wrong. This is a stage where intellectual people attend to be inspired by great works of our local playmakers. We (as it seems now that I openly claim that I am in fact an intellectual person) would like to be respected with stories where process of thoughts is challenged and our minds can tingle in excitement from learning the ultra-wide human perspectives. Alternatively, at the end of a good play, I would hope to feel that I should go to a bookstore and read more about what he did.

However, I felt I could have settled with my jeans and collared T-shirts and probably a dewan sekolah rendah (you know the kind that you have to merge a row of classes, rearrange the desks and chairs to make space for the general assembly) would have been a suitable stage for the quality of the play, with me as a 10 years old with my school friends as their marginally interested audience, although we're forced by our educators to go through the 3 hours of torture as punishment for wearing jeans to school.

I came with a wish to be inspired. A leader inspires and his story should be inspiring. I was not inspired by any part of the play. All I learnt from the play was Teh Halia seems quite nice and I shall try it soon.

Even the beautiful lady sat behind me left at half time. You see that, 'bad play'? You made my potentially future wife/scandal ran away.