The director did not tell the story in a linear time sequence. Instead, he just gave the audience all the scenes, and let the audiences to combine the story by themselves. In such conditions, I had to be very concentrated on the show in order to know what was happening in the show. After watching half of the drama, I finally could tell myself ‘I know what is going on!’ Through this method of expression, the drama could offer more spaces to the audience to think and they would be more willing to concentrate on the drama.
Modern dancing is a very important tool for the characters to express their feelings in this drama. In almost every scene, there would be a dancing part, just like a series of body movement. They danced in order to express their feelings of getting lost. Getting lost is the common difficulty for every character in the show; including getting lost from work, public relation and family relation.
What is the story about???
The story is composed of four little stories. Three stories were talking about love and another was about work. All the characters were linked by the TV program called ‘Good Times’ which was shown on a bus. Since the story was made up of four little stories, it was very difficult to say who the main character was. Three of the four stories had their endings. I deduced that the central character was in the one with no ending. The main character was a woman at about early twenty. She was an interviewer of the ‘Good times’. This story had three characters. One was the boyfriend of the interviewer who was a businessman, being very selfish and materialistic. Another was an old classmate of the interviewer who was a doctor. Although the interviewer had a boyfriend, the doctor still took care of her very much. The interviewer left her boyfriend since she had found that her boyfriend did not care her feeling at all. Finally, she left the two men and spent all her time on her work.
The message of the drama is very simple. It is the stress and the loneliness of the people living in city. The drama aimed to make a contrast between two kinds of people. Some people who have someone to take care of were not aware of their fortune while some people who were very keen on others’ care could not get the love. This old idea was expressed in a modern way. Using the ICQ player as an example, the director used pop song to express every person who uses the ICQ and showing what is love mean about each of the people. It showed how childish the teenagers’ thinking of love was. But it is the reality of our world. What a pity!
What I like the drama most is…
The most impressive part of the drama is not any main character but the one who was wearing in black as mentioned before. He would appear at the stage in every scene for a couple of minutes and just hid in some corners of the stage or just sat on the stairs. Throughout the drama, he had never spoken a word and was always being very sad. This mysterious old man became a very attractive factor of the drama. I found very puzzled after watching this show due to this old man. Our entire group members had discussed about that old man. Based on the Christian background of the production unit, we guessed that he might represent the god. But the conclusion of our group about this man was no conclusion. Perhaps it was a character created by the director used for leaving some spaces for the audience to brainstorm. If it is the reason, the effect is so good.
Another area I like the most is the stopping period for the latecomers. The director prepared some songs with changed lyric to tell the latecomers that they were wrong but the punctual audience would wait for them. The lyrics were so interesting that the period was not boring at all.
What should have done better???
Maybe due to the religious background of the drama, almost every character had a great change at the end of the drama. But it was so dramatic that the audience could hardly believe that it was a real story.
Apart from music, lighting was one of the effects that the director used for expressing his ideas. But the effect was not good at all. The main drawback was that the overall stage was not bright enough. As such, the facial expression of the actors was difficult to observe. I had tried to look carefully about the facial expression but in vain. I do think that the facial expression sometimes is far more important than the lighting. In order to have a better performance, the director should have a better balance between lighting and facial expression.
