ENTER: MADAM SONG

When Julie Taymor's creative cauldron was bubbling with the ingredients for Lion King, 15-ish years ago, she was trying to imagine how an animated movie could become a live stage musical, without it looking like a large serving of cheeze panto. She found much of her inspiration in classical Javanese mask and puppetry. Our director, John, decided that, since we are in Asia, and just a stone's throw from Indonesia, we are virtually obligated to take advantage of some of the great teachers that might not otherwise be available to us.

Enter, Madam Song and her company. Collectively, they represent the various aspects of traditional dance, puppetry, mask and movement that live at the heart of Malay culture. They join our Lion King family for three, half-day workshops, hoping to give us a crash course in the basics.

Madam Song, foreground
John, our director, background

Madam Song's multi-talented company

It is clear, from the beginning, that Madam Song runs a tight ship but with great humour and respect. The mentor-student relationship is very much in evidence when she deals with her proteges. She rarely demonstrates things herself, but is constantly on the periphery, calling directions, offering clarifications and keeping a keen, yet gently critical eye on all of us. At one point, she was talking about something, I don't know what, because I couldn't take my eyes off of her hand which was moving like a blade of grass or a willow branch blowing in the breeze.

One of the most entertaining exercises involved various cast members who improvised a short story, in their native language, using traditional shadow puppets. You might have one person speaking Zulu to someone answering in Chinese. Or a monologue in Tagalog. My stomach hurt from laughing almost as much as my thighs hurt from learning the basic martial arts stances.

The Young Simbas & Young Nalas do a
shadow puppet version of
"Can You Feel The Love Tonight"

As if discovering our inner Javanese-iness weren't enough, we had a full afternoon of other discoveries, triggered by one event. John was working with Andrew, who plays Simba, on his soul-searching solo in Act II. John wasn't quite feeling the sense of a lost, lonely soul singing to his dead father, so he cleared the stage, put a blindfold on Andrew and stayed just close enough to Andrew that he might be able to sense John's proximity. The rest of us were chit-chatting and adjusting our puppets in the wings. Gradually, all sound in the room ceased as the most achingly beautiful rendition of the song began to flow out of Andrew. We stood, absolutely still, drawn into a voice filled with anguish and loneliness. By the end of the number, most of us were in tears. The real bonus of this exercise, however, was that Andrew's bravery and willingness to allow himself to be totally emotionally vulnerable raised the bar by several notches for our stumble-thru of Act II....and we soared.

Bird kites for the top of Act II

Some more introductions...

Bafikile (Buffy), ensemble
Nasrine, who covers 7 or 8 different ensemble parts

Puleng, who plays Nala
Clem (Clement) our musical director

Puleng is Sotho and speaks, not only her language, but several others as well including Xhosa (the 'X' is pronouced as a tongue click). She's promised to teach me how to 'click'.


Lu, who does my makeup

We are very happy with the results of my most recent makeup test

And, finally, a word about dinner...
Food in the many food courts and hawker centres is usually pretty top notch but, like anywhere, you're bound to get a less than memorable meal sooner or later. So I decide to try my first Fried Char Kway Teow, a Hokkien noodle dish featuring slices of fish, greens and cockles. At least according to the picture. What I am served looks identical to a plate of dog food. Gravy Train, to be exact. The actual dish and the photograph were as different from each other as chalk and cheese. The taste was, well, .....ok, but I had to search through the pile of brown muck to find the two, lonely pieces of unidentifiable greens. It only cost me $4 SGD, so no great loss. But really. I mean....yeeech.