The Reluctant Saint

Remember the feature I wrote last semester for Online Journalism for artStage, on The Reluctant Saint - the musical that Shangari is directing? :D



Well, Jenny and I bought tickets and off we went to KLPac this afternoon to catch the musical! :D It was Jen's first musical, and my second one since my first was 2005's Pinnochio in London. We were so excited!


Despite the awful afternoon traffic, we were a tiny bit early :D So we took photos of the waiting audience.



And of ourselves! :D Look at all the merchandise we bought and got, haha! The RM5 booklet, RM20 soundtrack (the songs are hauntingly beautiful!), and a free casette of the soundtrack. But does anyone reading this own a functioning casette player? Lol!


My 17th-century inspired outfit, for a 17th-century inspired musical :D


The colourful Pentas 1 chairs :D


The beautiful backdrop of the musical :) Sorry I don't have any more photos of the musical, we weren't allowed to take photos of it :P

The musical was amazing. It was so moving and heartfelt, I cried twice! The first was a scene in the hospital - when there was a dying girl, singing about the things her father told her and her mother told her - her voice was so beautiful and weak (as a dying girl) yet strong ...

The second scene that moved me even more - and mostly everyone in the audience - was St Alphonsus' parents Giuseppe and Ana doing a duet for "It Breaks My Heart". They were singing about how it breaks their heart to see Alphonsus go to Scala and start his own mission, but they knew they had to set him free.

I think the most incredible thing about the musical is that none of the cast were professional actors, singers or dancers - they were your next-door neighbour, engineer, businessperson, student, IT guy ... and they were totally Broadway material :D

Almost a full house:


Monash had its representation in the form of Dr Yeoh, Abeer, Malati, Sarah, Anis, Santushi, Jen and myself :D And a permanent fixture in the form of its director, Shangari, hehe!





P.S: LOL Moment of the day - look at this group photo I took below:

I took it because I thought they were the cast of the musical - I saw other people taking photos - but it turns out they're a group of friends! LOL! So I basically just stood with their friends and took a bunch of strangers' photo :P