Monday, April 17, 2006

Malaysian Musical: Where Are We Now?

Last year we have watched Puteri Hang Li Po directed by Rosminah Tahir, composition by Pak Ngah at IB and Uda dan Dara directed by Rahim Razali,composition by Yazid dan Yuzaifullah, early this year we have Puteri Gunung Ledang directed by Zahim AlBakri dan Adlin Ramli, music by Dick Lee and Roslan Aziz, M The Opera directed by Jo Kukathas, composition by Saidah Rastam, and recently someone tried to come up with instant musical Suzana@60. What was that actually? Musical or conceptualised variety show? and more to come, Musical P.Ramlee by Adlin Ramli dan Roslan Aziz. Roslan has produced Sheila Majid's Lagenda album dan recently EMI repackaged the album, after witnessing Dayang Nurfaizah released P.Ramlee album. In the past, many people attempted at singing P.Ramlee songs, from Wan to Liza Hanim etc. Hopefully, this musical is not about compilation of P.Ramlee songs, which could be done easily by RTM on their saturday nite show or Down Memory Lane show! What would be good is the life story about P.Ramlee. So where is this crave for Malay musical come from? Istana Budaya started with Keris Sang Puteri, Rubiah, Tun Perak, Tun Fatimah. Oh by the way, IB is staging Lantai T.Pinkie(dont know when this saga is going to end as this is probably the 3rd time the work is staged. But then again, Shakespere's work is being staged over and over again all over the world!) So what say you mate?