Endgame.

hey y'all ...

for those of you who actually visited the 'Homecoming Diaries' blog and found it interesting...

Gavin Yap is directing another play entitled ENDGAME (http://endgamediaries.blogspot.com/2006/06/beginning-of-end.html), a play by Samuel Beckett. from what i understand, it is another 'good / disturbing / gets under your skin' play. reading the production blog on how rehearsals are going and listening to the actors, directors and set designer etc is quite interesting.

a side note to the 'guys': "YOU fellas might wanna take note that SHARIFAH AMANI (of SEPET and GUBRA) is in this play.

and ALVIN WONG, that fella in the astro ad wearing the Arsenal jersey who has to share his one astro with his Mother on one hand and his girlfriend on the other and ends up calling Astro to get a nd decoder for 50% off ...

alternatively, you can visit this site (http://www.klpac.com/Welcome.asp?c=whatsontheatreview&theatreID=71&theatrecatID=5) or just read below lah, since i'm gonna be copying and pasting from the site anyway.

Endgame

Executive Produer: Dato' Faridah Merican

Artistic Director: Joe Hasham

Playwright: Samuel Beckett

Director: Gavin Yap

Cast: Alvin Wong, Sharifah Amani, U-En Ng and Kelvin Wong

Lighting Designer: Mac Chan

Production Designer: Loo Jia-Wei

In a bare room, serving as a shelter, sit four characters: Hamm the master, Clov his servant and Hamm's mother and father, Nell and Nagg. Outside all seems dead and nothing happens. Inside, the characters pass the time toying with fears and illusions of a possible change, all along sensing the inevitability of their end.

For more information about the production, visit www.endgamediaries.blogspot.com.



About Samuel Beckett (Playwright)

Beckett studied French and Italian at Trinity College. During a stint in Paris, Beckett was introduced to James Joyce. In the years to come Joyce would have an "overwhelming" effect on his fellow Irishman. Beckett became one fo the intimates in Joyce's circle and contributed time and effort to his work.

By the end of the 1920s Beckett had begun to publish his own work. After acquiring a Master's degree from Trinity, he settled in Paris in 1937.

1941 brought news of the death of Joyce, and the invasion of the Nazis. Thereafter, he joined the resistance and was later awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945 for "extreme bravery". After the war, his focus in writing shifted to ideas of the essential, the minimal, the unadorned. His trilogy of novels, Molloy (1951), Malone Dies (1951), and The Unnamable (1953), is among the greatest prose writings of the century.

When Waiting for Godot first appeared on the stage in 1953, the world of theatre was startled to find itself changed. Didi and Gogo do very little in the course of two acts but wait, wait, wait, for someone named Godot, who may or may not be coming. This very human drama was pared down to its most necessary gestures: expectation, companionship, abuse, hope. The plays which followed such as Endgame (1958) similarly used abstraction as a means to explore the most powerful themes, and to question whether they have any value or meaning.

Beckett received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College in 1959, and two years later he won, with Jorge Luis Borges, the Prix International des Editeurs (or Prix Formentor). Beckett also won the Nobel Prize for, in the words of the Academy's citation, "his writing, which - in new forms for the novel and drama - in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation."

For more information on Samuel Beckett, visit http://www.themodernword.com/beckett/.


besides that, for those of you who are free this weekend, you might wanna check out what's below ...

Dear all,

To mark the conclusion of the 2-week Beckett Residency held at KLPac, the participants will be staging six short plays by the renowned Irish playwright this Saturday. Details are as follows:

Date: 8 July 2006, Saturday
Time: 3.00pm
Admission: open for free to literature / performing arts students (limited places, first-come-first-serve basis)

Lighting: Tan Chui Mui
Technical: Gavin Yap
Stage Manager: Lina Hasbullah

- Catastrophe: featuring Wong Hai Wong, Nor Hazlin Nor Salam and Lim Kien Lee
- Come and Go: featuring Valerie Low, Joanne Tai and Chong Lez Ann
- Rough For Theatre I: featuring Lim Soon Heng and Derek Ong
- Act Without Words II: featuring James Lee and David Lim
- Footfalls: featuring Sabera Shaik and Nicole Ann Thomas
- Nacht and Traume: featuring Nicole Fuchs, Lee Jia Hui and Yoong Pui Shen

If you know any literature / performing arts students who may be interested to attend the presentation, please forward this on to them. They must book their place first. More information about the Beckett Residency and Samuel Beckett below.

For place booking, kindly contact Yue May at 03-40479016


well, that's it for now. i'm still in Singapore and should be on a 11 am bus tomorrow back home.

later then.