This whole entry should be posted to my own private blog, but I just had to let it out.
I still have no idea why I'm allowing myself to be involved in something that I know I do not like. Singaporean comedy... full of Singlish, ah lian- and ah beng-ness and flirtatious antics, and both obvious and subtle dirty jokes... a crappy script, no steady storyline, no character development... a 'cheap' production. Just because they had a shortage of actors, and I could speak with an ang moh accent... doesn't mean I had to say yes. I've read the script before we started rehearsing, so I should've known better. It was all right at first, when they asked me. It sounded ok... 'twas nothing too bad. Then they changed some things. People came and went, and I didn't even know what my role was. Then they abandoned the first script that we had. They used another (which was about the same as the first, not better nor worse). They re-wrote some scenes. They re-arranged the cast. They gave us multiple roles. It ended up that I was about to do something which I did not volunteer for. Darnit, I can't do this.
To act as some 'intellectual' snobbish but cute and still likeable Jap-schoolgirl-like Singaporean who speaks like an ang moh... I can see cocked heads. To act as a chio bu? Me? I can sense a frowning of eyebrows above narrowed eyes. This is a terrible miscast. I can do drama. Serious stuff. Shakespeare even. Roles that require more emotion... I can pass for those. But not comedy. Lame comedy. I laugh along because they laugh, and not because it's funny. I don't find it funny. I laugh because it's my friends acting. Bleh. I know that if I back out, it'll be a real let-downer, and what will the rest of them think?? Plus, the performance is scheduled for this coming Tuesday. We've only had one proper rehearsal based on the current script anyway, so it is still not too late... to get a replacement... but... it'll mess things up, and I'll be a disappointment.
Lil wrote in my year 12 yearbook: "... you should learn to say the word NO. N-O, NO. Repeat after me, no, bu yao, em yu, tak manu, mai, no! It'll take you far, trust me." lol. Even my friends identified and gave a solution to my problem before I came to acknowledge what my problem is. The thing with me is that I simply can't turn down favours. I feel like I've an obligation as a friend to help, if my help is asked for, even if I don't like it. I'm being too generous with myself. And now I'm fighting with myself.
Em yu, tak manu, mai!! Maybe for once I should be less considerate, and let the line between right and wrong fuzz up. I can't keep doing this, for my own sake.
Edit: Ok, maybe that skit is not *that* bad... maybe it's just me. Maybe afterall, I'm not 'Singaporean' enough. I don't know. And like I mentioned before in my I-night post about the SingSoc skit, it's not anyone's fault. Nobody is to be blamed... it's not a lack of talent nor an insult to anyone's integrity. It's just me ranting indirectly about the consequences of the environment in which S'poreans are brought up.
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