Welcome to the world of theatre

I'll always recall this phrase from Brana, when I was complaining about how exhausted and tired I was from rehearsals, performances & work.

'Welcome to the world of theatre Vince.'

I've written a number of plays. I enjoy writing plays. They are an expression of my thoughts and at many times, my mental state of mind. But I've never acted before.

Well, to say that I've never acted before would be a truth of sorts. Not exactly true though.

I did have a one liner in a friends father's play when I was 10. I was comparing politicians to con artists selling miracle medicines.

I did 'act' in a few of my own videos for college because I had 'no choice'.

I use ' ' because it wasn't really acting. It was just plain reading from the script and a little bit of movement here and there. I can tell you this for free. I did NOT enjoy it. Having all your friends and relatives tell you that a wooden plank has more acting ability than you as well as suggesting you messed up your own script by horrible acting isn't all together ego boosting.

Oh! A LARGE number of people also did express ... shock (?) That I decided to play the role myself.

I quote: 'OMG VINCE! I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO GET INTO THE FINALS! WHY ARE YOU KILLING THAT CHANCE OFF EVEN BEFORE YOU START?'

So needless to say, I swore that I'd never act again! To spare myself, if not other people, the agony of watching it.

That oath would be broken 6 audition with 6 different actors later. From people pulling out, to people being unsuitable or having commitment and attitude issues, we could not find an actor for my play.

Basically, I was put in the position where I HAD to act. Or my play wouldn't be performed.

So I thought, fine. I will give it a go. If I mess things up, I will only have myself to blame. What I can't achieve with natural talent, I hope to get with lots and lots of practice.

All credit to Ivan. He thought me stuff I'm sure everyone knows (well every actor / actress). From the basics of voice projection, facing the lighting correctly and even moving on stage properly, that bugger drilled me good and taught me everything.

I remember I started dreading rehearsals. Cause they were so tiring and so... well, embarassing!

I think we practice around 40 hours in 3 weeks. No mean feat considering 25 of those hours were in 2 weeks. And the last week both me and Andre were sick. The result? I became a fantabulous, awesomeness actor!

Well, not really. Actually far far from it!

Haha. But at least I managed not to embarass myself TOO BADLY. I still embarassed myself la! But not as bad as I thought I would ;)

The biggest suprise for me was that when I performed, I actually enjoyed myself. Ok. That was an understatement, I got a lil high from it! Awesome right! I didn't have to drink or smoke u... ermm... nvm...

I got an extra thrill from the fact that it was my script. My bad jokes. And I was telling it how I had envisioned it. And how Ivan had injected his vision into it else well.

Sure, not everyone loved the play / script. But that was how I wrote it. I wanted people to hate it or love it. In that sense, I'm VERY sure I achieved my objective. I got a reaction. Be it 'Omfg... the writer's freaking sick!' or 'LMAO... thats funny sh*t', as long as I managed to provoke a reaction, I was happy.

I enjoyed this year's S&S much more than I did last years. Probably because I took a much more active part than jus getting my script approved. I'd like to say thank you to Andre for being fun and pulverizing me with academy award trivia to unnerve me. Maybe the right word should be unnervous me? Meh. You get the idea.

I'd also like to thank Ivan for helping me learn everything I needed to for the audience to laugh at my jokes rather than my bad acting alone.

Thank you S&S for an experience I've thoroughly enjoyed.

But my biggest thanks is to my friends, Gen Wong, Chooi Ling, my brother and mother as well as a few others who came to catch me make a fool of myself (blame the mind, not the heart).

And a special special thank you to my girl friend and love, Alicia, for calming me down before each performance, and telling me (she was lying!) that I would do great. for listening to me rant about silly things like exhaustion and a sore throat from projecting incorrectly (and aching abs when I did project properly! SEE! CANNOT WIN ONE LA!)

I wish you were here to have caught me in action. Err.. so to speak...


Thats all for my rambling :)

thanks for pretending to read it :)

Vincent Edwin
Scriptwriter of Reverse Pyschology
(if you didn't like it and want to shoot / kill me for bad writing... my name is actually Ah Em So Soli)
Actor wannabe of Reverse Pyschology (first and LAST time!)