06.07.2007

alias Grace in Kuala Lumpur, Day 4

day four

the morning after opening night, [which was a really great occasion. Lots of people came, which was fabulous, including lots of very enthusiastic and supportive members of the KL theatre community, people from the High Commission, media and friends. The audience seemed to really take to Grace. They caught her ironic sense of humour and loved laughing with her, but were also carried along by the deeper and darker sides of her story. It was a wonderful night in the theatre, and there was a lovely reception afterwards where I was fortunate to meet a number of very interesting people. It was all the more gratifying as things had been pretty rushed, stretched and generally theatre-like in the lead up to opening. Thank heavens there were no major disasters, exactly, just typical touring things like there being no detailed practical working plan as to how the set should be constructed, and that the entire plot, which we had painstakingly done all Tuesday afternoon, had somehow, overnight got wiped from the lighting board. stuff like that. we did the Dress Rehearsal [after an unscheduled photo shoot] and it went pretty well considering all that and the fact that it was the very first run we had done with all of the elements in place: costume, set, lights, sound, lighting operator, stage manager, director, backstage crew [who are absolute stars] and Grace.]

so, yeah, the morning after, like a typical morning after, was challenging. We had our last media call, on LiteFM, at 10am. I pretty much felt as though I had been run over by a truck.

However, Non, the host, was great, and we had some interesting chats on air about the show, but some even more interesting chats off-mike about murder and killing and the terrible tragedy of getting swept up into events like the ones in the show, or indeed the front-page murder trial happening right here in KL at the moment. The we were taken to lunch by the lovely Lennard and Swin-Chee, at a little restaurant in Bangsar, specialising in cuisine from the north of Malaysia. It was great.

Laurence and I then went to the gorgeous Islamic Museum, as interesting for its own amazing architecture, as well as its exhibits, and then we stumblingly but successfully negotiated the public transport system back to the hotel, which included a monorail ride, from which you see some great temples, buildings and back yards. We were then collected and driven to the theatre and prepared for the second night. It was, as usual, a slightly more subdued evening, and Grace was more serious, her suffering more evident. But the focus in the theatre was fabulous, and there was some great feedback afterwards. We went out to dinner and I was very excited to eat pineapple and prawn curry, and other Malaysian delights and then we stumbled back through the warm streets to the hotel in the wee hours to the immensely satisfying sensation of clean white sheets and a deep white sleep.