Saturday, November 18, 2006

FIRSTWoRKS Firsts

Animah (left) snapped last night after the reading of her play Malacca 'o7 at Stor Theatre, Dewan Bahasa Friday night.

I rolled in late (horrible jams, taking the wrong turning off the highway, walking round in the dark trying to find the venue) and missed a good slice of the first play Shannon Shah's Air Con.

From the part I did see, it looked extremely interesting. Not least because I was a teacher in a school very much like the one attended by Shanon's characters. Though my boys didn't hang out with the transvestite prostitutes at the railway station ... did they? I liked the interplay betweeen Shanon's characters ... they felt very real.

Animah's play was intriguing. She took a real historical incident - the demolition of the Portuguese fort in Malacca and added a cast of characters which included a gutsy activist type heroine and an UMNO youth type guy out to foil her plans. I could vicariously see just how thrilling it must be to write something and have it lifted from the page by a cast of actors (who incidentally were excellent).

It's still a work in progress, so won't say too much here, but am so proud of my friend!

Incidentally, how do you pronounce the name of the British governor: William Farquhar. I'm as certain as only a Brit can be that it is pronounced (Farkwa) not, as the cast and Animah pronounced it (Fakuha). The name is Scottish and derives from the gaelic. Any Scots on the blog?

(To digress for a moment, the Brits have several surnames which are pronounced very differently from their spelling including Featherstonehawe which is pronounced 'Fanshawe', and Cholmondeley pronounced 'Chumley'. The pronunciation is simplified over time, though not the spelling as aristocratic families hold on to evidence of their lineage.)

Congrats to both new writers and to the others whose works were read last night at Stor.

Yes, am somewhat envious and thinking ... hey could I do this?

12 comments:

Allan Koay 郭少樺 said...

ur opening line is very misleading. you wrote "Animah snapped last night after the reading of her play ..."

i read on in suspense wondering what made her snap! but alas ...


u should see Talking Cock The Movie ... there's a sequence where two Brits are talking,and one of them says rather quickly: "How's your mother, Farquhar?"

to which the other said: "excuuuuuuse me??"

bibliobibuli said...

*LOL* about first line! ambiguity rules huh?

yeah but how did they pronounce it? (and remember this was a local film so they maybe got it wrong too ...)

Allan Koay 郭少樺 said...

oh they pronounced it correctly. fakwa.

Anonymous said...

And speaking of the Brit penchant for pronouncements that don't match the spelling, am still trying to figure out why the blazes is St. John pronounced as "Sinjin".

Anonymous said...

Thanks Sharon. And yes, you can do this!

Allan Koay 郭少樺 said...

Krishna, that's American pronunciation.

Americans don't know how to pronounce and spell.

haha.

bibliobibuli said...

nope brits also say "sinjin"

Allan Koay 郭少樺 said...

really ah???

Anonymous said...

Smoother that way I guess. Y'know there's a company there called Motherwell Engineering. Every time you called them, someone would pick up the phone and say "Motherwell." I can't believe I never once said "Yes, thank you. And yours ?" :)

Anyway, Animah has nice underwear :) I guess you could too, but how do you look in that cleavage-baring, bra-revealing dress ? :)

Starmandala said...

Hello Sharon! Stumbled on your blog via Silverfish... thought I'd leave my mark here, and say: "Hey! Busy blog!" (Just started one myself today... but haven't said anything yet :-)

bibliobibuli said...

hi antares! it's lovely to see you here and i do hope you'll come back a lot and kick up the dust in the comments from time to time. blogging is great fun (addictive!) and i wish you all the best with yours. let us know when you have it off the ground.

i just bought your proverbs book yesterday from raman - love it!

Starmandala said...

Guess what, Sharon... I no longer have your email addy in my personal address book... so you aren't on the mailing list for the new Magick River Blog @ http://magickriver.blogspot.com

Yup, it's up and running and there's plenty there to read for those with unlimited online time!

My email (if you ever want to write me):
Antares@magickriver.com

Website: www.magickriver.com (or .net)

2007 Cheers & Hugs,
Ants
xxxx