What did you learn today? - Dawn Yiu

I watched the play "What did you learn today?" on the 15th of  January. 

I really like this play a lot after watching it as it was very unique. Instead of the normal plays where the actors just act on stage and just be in role and having a storyline, this play however is actually made up by small sections of the play being joined together to form 1 whole play. Where there is no story line for the whole play but a stimuli, whereas the storyline is being implanted in the small sections of the play to create one drama. The actors interacted and engaged with the audience. In the midst of the play there would be a few seconds or a minute of interval when the actors can take a water break and converse to the audience.

I think the message that this play was trying to tell us today is that whatever we do, wherever, whenever, we can always learn something from it. For every time the characters want to change to another stimuli/act, there would always be this time when we are suppose to meditate on a stimuli which is being given to us, and I thought that that was very meaningful because while we are watching this play, besides learning 'something' from this play, I get to think back about what I have been doing since growing up, and to learned that I have to start learning from my mistakes.

What impacted me the most was actually the part where Neo Swee Lin was talking about her younger times and how she actually misses her mother after her mother passed away. 

As to why, it is actually because while I was watching this segment of the play, I realised the great effort and sleepless night that our mothers have put in to let us study and have a better lifestyle, while we just go home everyday and complain about having too much homeworks, not knowing the efforts our mothers have to put into to let us study. Well, my mother was also the eldest child of the family and similarly to Swee Lin's mother she also had to sacrifice her studies for her younger siblings. Hence when she was talking about her mother, I realised that I actually missed my mother a lot and it actually made me think about 'things' and this was actually (why) that part of the play impacted me the most. 

I think that the little stories formed to make up the phases of life of what Lim Kay Siu, Neo Swee Lin and even some of us  has been through and what they have learned from it.

There was this part of the play where Lim Kay Siu is acting as a small kindergarden boy, and Neo Swee Lin acting as his mother.

Kay Siu was imitating a voice of a young kindergarden's boy whereas Swee Lin was imitating a voice of a stern, motherly voice. Without any props used, the relationship between the two characters can be seen very clearly, through their movement and language. 

As the mother sees her son, she hugged him tightly holding him closed to her as he wraps his around her waist 

I think that what they are trying to achieve for this scene is that they are trying to show the type of relationship the between the mother and son, whether it is close or distant.

What Did You Learn Today? - Nicole C.

The play “What did you learn today?” was very different from all the others plays which I have watched. It is different in the sense that the play was very interactive meaning that the actors literally engaged the audience during the play. This play only consist of various characters played by only two actors, they are; Lim Kay Siu and Neo Swee Lin. I think that both the actors were very expressive and really entertaining.

The whole structure of the play was broken down into smaller stories here and there. Honestly, I was very confused during the play as to what was happening. As for example, at first Lim Kay Siu played a small child and Neo Swee Lin played the mother, and consequently in a few scenes, they showed how they met when they were younger till they got married and grew old. There was also a scene that I liked very much showing a student’s perspective during a lesson in school where Kay Siu was a student and Swee Lin was the teacher. When she was teaching all we could hear was “BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH” I thought it was very funny as it really portrays what some of us hear during our various lessons.

After watching various stories I realized that maybe these little stories portrayed are linked together. For example, the stories are like a summary of Kay Siu’s and Swee Lin’s overall childhood, school life where they had doubts and how they both met and got together. I think it was a rather interesting way of portraying what they wanted to get across to the audience.

From the structure of the play, I learnt that to convey a message across to the audience we could always find other ways to do it other than the conventional ways of acting out from the starting to the end. Also I found it impressive at how both actors were able to change their characters by changing their facial expression, posture, and tone of voice so quickly and most importantly it was very convincing from the audience point of view, which all the more made it very entertaining. This is definitely worth learning.

I think the most impactful thing in this play was the meditation segment where people are to voice their thoughts out loud on a topic like “what I would like to learn”. Many people responded during this meditation period. During this period it really allows us to think and reflect on ourselves of what we want to do in life and more. Also it allows us to hear what others think which sometimes are topics that are also true about ourselves and we can relate to them. They had the meditation segment 3 times throughout the whole play.

Lastly, Lim Kay Siew and Neo Swee Lin started to share their own childhood stories. I think it was nice that they were able to share their childhood stories with the audience so openly.

What did you learn today- Gillian

What did you learn today?

               I felt that the play had a variation of scenes that at first seem to have no link to the scene before or after it. However, after i thought about it, i discovered that they were actually inter-linked. I felt that the whole play was about Swee Lin and Kay Siu’s characters. I felt that the freeze frames were about the story the characters were about to tell.  These characters are somewhat based on their dating experience. It progressed to show them getting ready to be husband and wife, later them growing old together and eventually one of them dying. It seemed like a fairytale. Until, they start bringing us into their past and showing us their early part of their experiences – where the struggle to achieve the fairytale began.

              The play was not the typical play in which i would have expected. A typical play for me would be a play in which the audience would not participate actively but would only watch as a third party. The play was part of a typical play and part of an untypical play which is the engaging the audience type. This i feel got me to understand the play better as it made me reflect and ask myself what the play was about and what it had to do with me.

            The play is potrays a variety of perspectives of learning. Learning from our past mistakes is an example. I realised when we were meditating and the questions asked about our past experiences made us reflect on our mistakes and faults. The meditation process was one that of a audience participation. After reflecting on my mistakes and learning from them, i decided to participate actively in the meditation questions that were up for grabs. This made me bolder and ask questions because in life, we need to ask questions as well. The meditating process made us reflect our mistakes because if we are in denial, we will never learn what was wrong with us in the first place.

             I learnt that we do not always need a lot of props or costume changes to portray the scene or character. It is the acting substance that counts instead. If you have a variety of props but standard of acting is not good, the props and costumes will not do any good. You can have the least amount of props but still pull off the performance because of the acting. In the play’s context, watching the scene where Swee Lin was a student and Kay Siu the teacher, all they needed was a pointer, a pair of glasses and a stool. The rest was up to the actors to paint the picture for us through their acting.

What did you learn today?-Nicole R.

This play had a big impact on me because this was the first ever play that i've gone to that actually puts in meditation intervals and in those quiet periods, i felt the audience and actors became one in mind and actually shared each others thoughts without having to express themselves vocally. It gave me time to properly reflect on the message the actors were trying to portray through the different scenes. I discovered that the audience were all thinking on the same wavelength through the thoughts of people that shared and the replies of "me too" after they shared their thoughts.

I also felt a connection to the actors as they were actually comfortable with sharing their private life such as how Neo Swee Lin shared about her mother and when Lim Kay Siew sang her a song after which i felt so touched as  they were sharing their close husband and wife relationship with us when usually actors tend to keep things very proffessional, so this was also a first for me. It let me sympathise with their feelings and it kept me attentive and reflective instead of having a fixed storyline.

I felt the play was about the ups and downs of life and how school life could be like for both students and teachers and how learning could be hard sometimes, with both teachers and students learning from each other. It taught me that life was a journey of learning which we caThe scene that impacted me most was when the student's voice was portrayed by Kay Siew playing the violin in high, squeaky tones and the teacher not understanding and getting agitated, screaming at the violin to "sit down and shut up!". I thought at that point, that to truly learn and understand what is being taught at school, both teacher and student must be able to communicate and understand each other. If not, it will just end badly with the teacher getting angry and uptight and the student being confused.

The structure of the play was one scene showing the positive side of life then a meditation period followed by the negative side of life. Overall this play was different in a good way and i would love to see more of Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siew's acting. It was really in-depth and helped me to reflect.

MELISSA: What Did You Learn Today?

In the play 'What Did You Learn Today?', I found it really interactive, funny and dramatic at the same time. I also liked the fact that Neo Swee Lin and Lim Kay Siu were the actors in this play, and the fact that they are married. 
The play started out with them singing a song. Kay Siu played the guitar and they took turns singing the song. Halfway through the song, they got all of us to clap along with them and sing the chorus with them. As I've said before, it was an interactive play. After the song, they started talking to us and I found them really funny. Whatever they said was true. They also started the play by telling us that if they forgot their lines, if they got a wardrobe malfunction, we would see it. They also said this at the end of the play, only with a darker tone. 
When they started the play, I was clueless about what was going to happen in this play. I didn't know what to expect. I was very impressed by the way they performed. They were so expressive in whatever the did. For example, in one scene of the play, Kay Siu played the student who had to present something for speech and drama. Swee Lin played the ignorant teacher. When Kay Siu's character finished talking about his parent's getting a new house, Swee Lin's character started critisizing him. Kay Siu's character then went on saying how much he hated his teacher. He then strangled her till she was lying on the floor, barely conscious. He scolded her a "cunt" and started shouting vulgarites at her. I found that so impressive as they are married in real life and she actually allowed him to say those things to her.
I liked the meditation part of the play. The sound and lighting crew would dim the lights and they would play this relaxing sound with a powerpoint slide saying what they wanted us to reflect on. I found it very effective as we, the audience got to say what we reflected on and people would listen to us. I wanted to say some things but I was too shy at that time. I liked it because it was calm and quite. It was relaxing.
This play also made me tear up. It was the scene when Swee Lin's character passed away and Kay Siu's character was still speaking to her, pouring his emotions out. I was so touched as this showed that they loved each other till the very end. It made me realize that even when you're old, you can still love and not take your partner for granted. 

Model Citizens Letter-Nicole R.

Question: (to MP's wife)Are there any things you would change if you had the oppurtunity to go back in time?-Ms C (or something like that, i lost the paper)

Answer letter:

Of course! I would never have let my husband go into politics. Because of that now I have to suffer although people think its so easy to be an MP's wife, they assume that I get everything I wish for because I have power. They don't know that Everyday, I have a set routine. Once every week, meet the people. Do you know how boring it is? And why meet the people if I'm not going to help them? Everything is all 'disapproved'. In fact, I wish I had not left China at all, that I had not listened to my mother. In China, there is more excitement, more fun! Over here? My whole life is planned out for me. I wish I had never married my husband and that he had never gone into politics. Who needs power if you are going to live like this? I hope this answers your question.

MELISSA: Model Citizens Letter

Wendy, Why couldn't you let go? 
- Lauren


Dear Lauren,
I couldn't let go because he was my one and only son. How could I let go? Could you let go if you lost your son? 
He was the only joy in my life and now he's gone. A mother is not supposed to outlive her child. His death made me realize just how much I needed him in my life. Without him in my life, I always feel like something is missing. I needed to know what caused him to commit suicide. That's why I went online almost everyday to talk to Tony. I felt a need to talk to him so that I would get answers to why, just why, he would want to end his life.
Every night I go to bed, I cry myself to sleep. I think to myself, how did that even happen? How could he have died? What did I do? Was it my fault? I miss him terribly, my heart aches just thinking about him. I couldn't let go, how could I? I cry whenever I go through his things. I cry whenever I see the photos we took together. I cry whenever somebody mentions him. I'm still not over it. 
I hope that in the years to come, I will try my best to overcome it.
Your's Sincerely,
Wendy.