If you are surfing here for sports day photos, I'm afraid you have to wait till tomorrow at least. I just came home from this musical and I'm still developing the raw files (for sports day, duh) right now while blogging AND trying to fix the chaotic mess left by CHAOS and at the same time trying to combat Murphy's Law. I spent $389 on this musical, enough to go Malaysia for a weekend of fun for two, and since I can't sleep till that #!$#%@^$#&%* edumail2 recovers from it's almost weekly maintenance to get some work done...

Most people watching this musical would have know the storyline so there is no point in discussing the plot of the musical. Many were there perhaps to watch their favourite actors or actresses or to enjoy the singing in this musical. What's interesting to me about this musical, however, is the use of a limited space and time in the stage to create a smooth and entertaining show.

Watching a musical in a theatre is different from watching it in the movies. In a movie, the director could spend millions of dollars which acres of space to build and recreate everything he wants in his mind. He could get his actors and actresses to repeat every scene till he is completely satisfied with the effects. He could make us of post-production editing to mix and blend scenes and to make everything work in perfection. In a theatre, you can't. There are so many scenes in this musical and you have to make use of the stage cleverly to present your show. From an office to the lake under the bridge to the rooftop, a house or the stage of another theatre, it takes a lot of effort and planning to coordinate and design this musical.

In this aspect, it was very successful, except for minor hiccups like the some fireballs didn't light up, structures get caught in the cover and some no so obvious but still disturbing shadows casted on the backdrop during the show which was not intentional. There are many things that bothers me because I'm physics trained (excuses) so I tend to notice these little stuff that others wouldn't even bother about. Like the "candles" on the VIP box in those stage scenes were specially designed to "flicker" just like a real candle. But real candles do not flicker together uniformly and regularly, it depends on the air flow around it. The chase lights we electronically controlled and moved in steps rather than one fluid motion when it tries to focus on the actors. The boat in lake part was too smooth for a boat ride as it lacks the "speed up", "slow down" processes as the Phantom steers it etc.

Of course, the actors were great with their singing and stuff, there are many scenes where different actors sings differently and I wondered how come they won't get confused by their friends on the stage.

So that's Phantom of the Opera for me...