A walk to be remembered!

On 7th March, I went to KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre) with my coursemates. To go to Sentul, we took a train. In Sentul, we tried to get taxi to go to KLPAC. “Excuse me, can you take us to KLPAC”, I asked. “KLPAC?” “Where is that place, do we have place named KLPAC?” That are the questions that we got from many taxi drivers in Sentul East. It’s weird, right? Taxi drivers in Sentul didn’t know KLPAC. Maybe they didn’t want to take us there or maybe they have their own reasons. Although we got such negative feedbacks from taxi drivers, we never gave up and tried our best to go there. Finally, we arrived at the destination.

Once I saw the place, I felt so comfortable. The place was nice and full of art. Wished I could be there again. I bought a ticket to watch a play titled 2someS: The Secret Love Life of Ophelia. Since I’ve watch Hamlet the Movie, I had some knowledge about Ophelia. It was like the sequence of the movie and I was looking forward on it.

At 2.00, the play started sharp on time. Seriously, it was really different with cinema. It was real; I mean the actors performed live in front of audiences. The props were not much, only couch, coffee table, and television table were there. It was astonishing when the play started; I noticed that they used the same props for two different setting, the house of Ophelia and the house of Hamlet. Well, the time for the play was modern time. Why I said so? It was because they actors used technology such as telephones, PDAs and notebooks to contact each other and share their love in secret. Another thing that I really excited was the function of imagination. Hamlet in the play loved to drink coffee and he made coffee several times in that play. But, there was no kitchen and he just pretended like he was in kitchen and made coffee. In fact, Hamlet and Ophelia only used illusion of technology. I didn’t see any technology stuffs as the props. So, I needed to imagine the situations and thanked God I could imagine it. My imagination was working. The lighting and sound effects were really helpful to build the mood of the play. Trust me, it was absolutely amazing.

“Ophelia, my only heart”. How sweet Hamlet addressed Ophelia as his lover. “Dear my dearly dear prince, Hamlet”. This was how Ophelia thought about Hamlet. In letters, messages, and phone calls, they expressed their mutual feelings. The play was about their secret relationship. They didn’t want Polinius, the father of Ophelia and Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle or king knew about it. So the exchanged love letters and messages and they also called each other secretly. So, the play went on with the actors reciting their own feelings. They were really in love and the audiences noticed it when Ophelia and Hamlet had phone sex conversation. It was pretty modern, right? The language used was classic and of course Shakespeare’s language was classic. The climax of the play’s plot, Ophelia realized that her father knew about her relationship with the prince of Denmark. She was afraid and then called Hamlet to ask for favour to solve the problem. Then, Hamlet killed Polinius to cover up their love. Unfortunately, Ophelia became really sad because of her father’s death. But Hamlet promised to be her father and lover and then love her ever more. Ophelia only had Hamlet after her father died. One day, Hamlet left to go somewhere. At that time, Ophelia really sad and she needed Hamlet like crazy but Hamlet was not there. She then became mad or out of her mind, her sadness drove her crazy. She committed suicide and after that Hamlet came back but Ophelia had left for heaven.

Personally, the play was interesting and I enjoyed it. The voices of Hamlet and Ophelia were clear enough for me to listen to every word that they said. Both of actor and actress did a very good job. The play was about 1 hour 30 minutes. The duration was alright. I totally liked it.