More Forgettable Bang Than History-Making Boom

Perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of Jean Tay, whose first play Everything But The Brain was a script I love, that Boom was a letdown. The weird combination of exaggerated humour (grave humour literally, and I mean it in the noun sense - but yeah, pun intended, ‘cos the play took itself so seriously, that it was at times, making no/non sense), diction that left no room for imagination and a liberal use of dialects made the production choppy. I found myself drifting off all too easily. I don’t really care about the characters and their relationship to one another, and I can tell you it wasn’t the acting. Fanny Lee was damn good, but even that didn’t help to focus. In this sense, Boom lacks heart to be a true classic in the local theatre history. Hell, I don’t even think it was that good a play, though it had a fantastic premise to begin with. I miss the genuine poignancy and nostalgic sentimentality replete in Everything But The Brain, and honestly, the whimsical inanity of the three bears was thought up by a genius. Sad to say, I can’t revisit and reminisce what I love best in the former through Boom. Poor Jean. I hope she isn’t feeling the pressure to perform as a result of her brilliant first script becoming the best original local script, which it is still, as of to date till I see another that surpasses it in imagination, emotional depth and maturity of craft, in my less-than-humble opinion.

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Mama Mia! the movie was pure Exuberance and thus, Pleasure. It really made me feel alive, gushingly so, just by watching it.

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I need to make time for the biennale. Damn. Damn. Damn.