Creativity Versus Shock Factor

As an artist I am all in for pushing creativity boundaries. However, nowadays it seems the lines of creativity and shock factor are getting more blurry every day.

We cannot deny that only with creativity that a society can continue to evolve and develop. It also helps to shape the cultural landscape of a community and not to mention it encourage the expression of ideas. However, when we are talking about expression of ideas, do we actually mean there should be no limits whatsoever? Or do artists, who claim to be the beacon holders of cultural development, get free passes to all ideas that are exempted from social scrutiny?

Bill Henson, recently know for a public spat with the authorities over the portrayal of a nude teen, is having a new exhibition opening this week. There is no doubt about his talent and he proved to be a top notch artist. One of the first responses to the exhibition is “if you don’t like about the nude teen thing in the past you will still not like this one and it will offend people”. Now I don’t know about that and can’t make any judgement on this particular exhibition as I have yet to see it. However, this kind of feedback does at times worry me. I am sure most artists, even I, will see things that are beautiful and hard to resist and want to share them with the world from our own point of view. However, we must also agree that, not everything we see is beautiful and socially acceptable for everyone. Does that mean we need to censor ourselves? No. I don’t think so, but I, personally, will think about what kind of impact would there be when these creations go public. Social convention is a complicated thing. As societies are made up by huge variety of people, conventions are developed so that these varieties of people can live together in a “mutually content” manner. There are conventions they I don’t agree and whenever possible get extremely passionate to fight against, but then at the same time I will also consider the impact on others. The issue with Bill Henson’s nude teen photograph is whether it encourages paedophilia in a public arena when people are fighting to protect children from invasive sexual advances. Bill and some other people may find them beautiful and I am sure they have their artistic values, but are they socially responsible? Or in this case, do artists need to be socially responsible?

Another thing that bugs me lately is a new show about brides competing in a reality show to be the top bride and for winning each week’s challenge they receive a plastic surgery to perfect themselves for the day. The catches are, all surgeries can be performed back to back within a few weeks and the groom wouldn’t know what their brides look like until they walk down the aisle on the wedding day. I am sure there are lots of people who are not happy with how they look like and would love to “improve” upon that. I was one of them but I never had the money or courage to do that. However, having back to back plastic surgeries within a short period of time? Even plastic surgeons said that under normal circumstances they will not do that because it is detrimental to health. The producer of the show said it is the creativity and beauty part they emphasise on and the contestants obviously are fine with that. So they don’t see a problem. Yes it may not be a problem if we don’t need to see that play it out on TV. Is this really creativity or it is just a cheap shock factor using creativity as disguise. Also how socially responsible is it to have the groom to wed a bride that could look completely different from the woman he originally proposed. One of the contestants said that she knows she can now be the “perfect” woman she wants to be for her groom. But for me, if my bride shows up at the altar looking completely different and plastic (trust me, so of them look hideous after the surgeries), I will be so shocked that I doubt whether I can marry her.

Some people may think that I am too conservative blah blah blah. But the fact is I don’t really give a damn on how other people see me and as an artists I do think I need to push my own creativity boundaries. However, at the same time I do think that artists have to be socially responsible, have the conscience to protect people who are vulnerable, instead of being so self-inflated to think that under the name of art you can be as shocking and as irresponsible as we wanted to. We may be able to do that if we run our own cult but let’s be honest, that’s not most of us. We can challenge conventions, social ideas, political issues etc. etc. but at the end of the day, we still need to be responsible so that when we push the boundaries, we have credibility under our belt to fight against the “authority”.

Tsunami and the Media

The recent events in Japan reminded us how powerful the forces of nature are. In just one day, the north eastern part of Japan was turned into ruins with cries of the despair echoing in the air. The continued unfolding of the nuclear plant melt down didn’t add any optimism to the country’s wait-to-be revived economy. Pictures and videos of the earthquake and the subsequent tsunamis flooded our TV and computer screens. We all feel the horror with the people in Japan and have our thoughts with them at difficult times.

While it is supposed to be a natural human response to feel for the unfortunate and offer them whatever help they need, there are some “media personalities” that are willing to make fun of other people’s despair to elevate their own status. Two of the most notable ones were Alec Sulken who penned the animated satire Family Guy and the US comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Both paid for what they’ve done – Sulken was forced to make a public apology and for Gottfried, he lost his gig for Aflac. It seems that justice has worked this time on these people but the fact that there are media personalities publicly mocking and making fun of other people’s tragedies was just appalling. The even more appalling fact was that there were people supporting such acts claiming that “jokes should have no boundaries” and these joke “can actually cheer these people up”.

I have no idea where these ideas come from, but the fact that playing on other people’s misfortune as a funny pass time is no laughing matter at all. There are good jokes and bad jokes and the ones in question are definitely bad jokes. I wonder how these people will feel if their love ones passed away and someone cracking jokes about them in front of these people at their funerals. Or maybe we can wait till these people pass away and then tweet and joke about their deaths like “Thank God! No duck asses from Gottfried”.

We can’t expect media personalities to be saints, but if they consistently exhibit low tastes in their speeches or behaviours, they bound to pay the price for it. The whole notion of freedom of speech does not give people a free pass to go and say something to hurt others while they are already in pain. And other people’s argument of artistic expressions should have no boundaries is just an irresponsible expression of speech. How our society has become so unmoved and self-centred is something that needs to be addressed to. Is it the media or the overly tasteless artists who love controversy to earn a buck? If as media we do not condemn what is regarded as low taste, then the last frontier of decency and moral will be gone. What the human race will spiral into is beyond imagination.

I am not saying that we need to be overly politically correct either. I support freedom of speech and freedom of artistic expression. However what we are dealing with at the moment are disasters that costed thousands of people’s life. Since when deaths in natural disasters like this is a good subject for jokes? I am not talking about self-censoring here too, but my point is how low can one go nowadays to be considered as a decent human being if joking about other people’s deaths like this is acceptable? Where are our moral and social responsibilities to our society in this modern world?

And really for the Chinese parents who want New Zealand to pay you out because your kid died in the earthquake (as if there are no New Zealanders lost their lives), or those Chinese people who applauded on Japan’s disasters as a natural pay back of World War II, get a life! You not only exhibit bad tastes but also extremely low life behaviours that need to be spat out by the rest of the world!

Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole is the adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name. The adaptation was done by the original playwright David Lindsay-Abaire and now starring Nicole Kidman (in which Cynthia Nixon won a Tony Award in the same role on stage).

Obviously Rabbit Hole is a star vehicle for whoever plays Becca and nailed it. Cynthia Nixon did it and Nicole Kidman scored an Oscar nomination for the role and brought her right back up in the Hollywood game. So how does the play hold up in its silver screen adaptation?

Rabbit Hole is about grief. In the original play, 5 different characters of equal weight played out the grieving process. In the film adaptation, the weight seems to just fall on Becca. Other characters except maybe for Howie, played nothing more than a supportive role to Becca. This change of balance in fact affected the whole structure and story telling. In the play you have a comprehensive view of the different approaches of each character in dealing with the same incident. However, in the film, these were gone, and especially for Izzie, Becca’s sister, she became a mere plot movement in the film. This drastically reduced the dimensions originally offered by the play and became really simple story telling. Also, the adaptation seems to have fragmented the original tight structure of the play and made the story unnecessarily jumpy. And the over-emphasis of the “Rabbit Holes” in the film had to a certain degree reduced its great metaphor and connotation through information redundancy. There were other scenes that were originally narratives in the play being now shown to the audience. Some worked, some didn’t. For example, the scene about Becca slapping a mother in the supermarket was super and provided a lot of dramatic elements to the film. However the side story between Howie and another grieving mother didn’t work at all. It feels more like it was placed in the film as a dramatic bomb but it didn’t go off.

Performance wise, Nicole Kidman surely had done her homework for the role and played Becca really well. It could be one of her best dramatic roles since The Hours. However, if you don’t like her, this film will still not change your views about her, as the style is very Kidman. Nonetheless, it is always good to see her display a bigger emotional range in a very lovable character. Aaron Eckhart as Howie was solid. As with other characters, Howie’s role was much reduced unless it is a plot point for Becca to shine in the current or upcoming scenes. Nonetheless, I am glad that the pivotal “Howie break down” scene was still there and Aaron Eckhart’s performance in that scene was perfect. Dianne West as Becca’s mother also had a reduced role in the film but not to the extent that Izzie suffered. Critical scenes in the play were still there and the sometimes-warm sometimes-cold relationship between her and Becca was depicted with precision. Miles Teller as Jason, the teenager who caused the grief to the family was quite wooden to be honest. There were a few good moments, but on the whole somehow his character didn’t really work for me. Tammy Blanchard as Izzie really got nothing much to do in the film version. I feel sorry for her as in the play Izzie was such an important comic relief element.

On the whole Rabbit Hole is still a solid film. However, it has become more melodramatic than its stage counterpart. The good part of the original play is that it did not emphasise on the tear-jerking factor but let the audience feel and absorb into their grief. In the film version, there was just too much crying that discredited the characters and reduced their grief into simple one-dimensional moaning. There were great performances, but the film is just not as good as the play.

Harvey Normal?

As we rolled into 2011, the first media warfare was not among media personalities but between big retailers and everyday customers. Gerry Harvey (of Harvey Norman’s “fame”) and his cohorts’ movement to call for GST for online goods purchased under $1000 had caused significant backlashes from the society. Gerry said he has expected unwelcoming responses but claiming that this is for the good of the society as people will lose their jobs if retail shops are not doing well. He even went on to condemn people who prefer to shop online “unAustralian”.

Being an international shopper (yeah I live for shopping) I have been telling my friends about how it sucks to shop in Australia all these years. You usually pay much higher prices for less satisfactory products. I was told that because Australia is far away with a smaller market so it is much more expensive to sell products – so the costs drove up the prices. If we are talking about High Street fashions and electronic products, I can understand that, but even for daily products, Australia is still way more expensive than other places. A pack of 4 AA batteries in Sydney can cost you easily up to AU$7 but in Hong Kong, a pack of 16 AA batteries – same brand and not counterfeit, is just around AU$5. The huge price differences caused me to stock up batteries every time when I visit my parents there. Another good example is video games. Video games in Australia are easily a third more to double the prices to their overseas counterparts – Hong Kong, US and Japan. So it is not surprising that people who have limited income, unlike Gerry who is a billionaire, will choose to shop overseas and online!

Another major issue with local retailers is the product model. I remember when I first moved to Sydney, I needed a mini hi-fi system as I can’t live without music. I went into a shop and asked for a multi-discs system. I paid AU$250 and got one but it was the same model that I had for 10 years back home (and of course obsoleted in the market 8 years ago). I was told at that time that it was the latest model they have. I thought it was absurd but then when I checked other stores, they were all saying the same thing. Similarly, with mobile phones, Australia is usually one or two cycles behind other markets unless it is a major product like iPhone and BlackBerry. I once tried to find a Nokia phone for a friend in Sydney when I went back to Hong Kong because it was a new model in Sydney so it was extremely expensive. I went around all the shops, all of them told me that the model is no longer available because it was phased out a year ago and replaced by newer models. So for tech savvy people who want the latest technology, of course shopping online is the best way to get the latest gadgets. If Harvey Norman or other retails stores are not stalking them, they surely cannot complain about people are not shopping from them.

Further, the range of products in Australia is far more limited as compare to overseas. In Sydney, you can only find three to four styles of soap dishes available, at around AU$10. However when you go overseas to places such as Japan and Hong Kong, you have aisles and aisles of soap dishes to choose from. They will come in different styles, sizes, colours and looks etc. And they are all a fraction of the price you pay in Australia. I usually get a lot of household items back from Hong Kong simply because I got something to choose from and they are so much cheaper even if you need to pack them into your luggage to bring them here. This is the same for skin care products where you have a lot more to choose from and at very reasonable prices.

So, with products that are cheaper, more current and with more choices, you don’t need an expert to tell these retail giants why Australians are leaving them to shop online. The claim made by these retail giants is like they are crying foul over the foul they created. Furthermore, when did these people care about other people’s jobs when they are just importing products that are made in China, India and South East Asia? If they care about people’s jobs, then they should sell more Australian made products and promote them to the world. And a bit of research would tell you that Gerry Norman was the person who in 2008 said charity is a waste of money as they help people who don’t deserved to be helped – who are usually people at the lower end of the society.

With so much hypocrisy jetting out like venoms from the fangs of a rattle snake, no wonder there are backlashes from the society. I’m amazed that these people could even come out and make those claims and present themselves as saviours for the working class. To be honest, if they are willing to cut their million or even billion dollar pay checks by 10%, we can already get a lot of products from their shops at a cheaper price, but would they be willing to do so? So don’t blame the customers for deserting your stores cos what goes around comes around. You desert the Australian workforce to get goods from overseas; customers desert you to buy stuff from overseas directly. That’s the free global market you guys have been championing in the past. You can’t just come back and say that it is wrong now because you couldn’t add another million to your bank account.

Uncle Vanya

Without a doubt Sydney Theatre Company’s “Uncle Vanya” is one of the most anticipated productions of the year. With a stellar cast such as Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Richard Roxburgh, John Bell and Jacki Weaver, it has a lot to live up to.

Sydney Theatre Company’s production of “Uncle Vanya” is a standard Chekov play with a non-standard touch. All the things you can expect from a Chekov play such as the condemnation of the landlords, the mocking of the intelligentsia, the disapproval of industrialisation, and the life of living in the middle of nothing were all echoing around the walls of the theatre in the 2.5 hour production. However, you no longer see the actors dressed in white standard “Chekov costumes” and walking around in certain posts. Gyoryi Szakacs, the costume designer had injected a heavy dose of naturalism into the costumes – they were worn out and sometimes unsophisticated yet they cry the parts out loudly. This twist of costume design fits in nicely with the superb class that delivered one of the most natural performances you saw on stage this year.

John Bell plays the returned “Celebrity Professor” Serebryakov who, as with some modern celebrities just created hell after hell for the rest of the people in the house. He completely upset the balance of time and habits of everyone and took his young second wife Yelena (Cate Blanchett) for granted. Richard Roxburgh plays the title role of Vanya who wasted most of his adult life for a mere return of profit for his hard work and had to endure a mother (Sandy Gore) who completely ignored his contributions but looked up to Serebryakov. The play opened with Jacki Weaver as the Nanny and Hugo Weaving as the battered doctor Astrov. The opening scene immediately delivered to the audience what a cast of top notch actors can do. The restlessness Hugo Weaving displayed was a sharp contrast to the reminiscing calmness that Jacki Weaver was delivering and yet they just melted together into one strong daily conversation. Cate Blanchett as the unsatisfied trophy wife was an obvious misfit to the rural setting. The immaculate locks on her hair and her tailored fit wardrobe distinguished her from the plain looking daughter Sonya (Hayley McElhinney) and paved way for future disruptions to this quiet and extremely boring country household. She became the drop of water that triggered a series of ripple effects for the pool. There were several scenes between Cate and individual cast members that were just a pleasure to watch. Richard Roxbourgh told the sad story of the title role with great precision and his break down scene in the second half was just a showcase of what a great actor can do when he is in a company of other great actors with a great script. Hayley McElhinney was a good choice for Sonya as she did exhibit the helpless plainness Chekov described in the play. However, sometimes her words lack the unbearable lightness of life that one would expect and this was particularly obvious in her closing monologue. Also at times I found the over deployment of head movements during conversation quite distracting.

Andrew Upton’s adaptation had modernised the language to make the material more approachable, although at times it is less poetic as it should be. However, given the setting is in a rural household (and most characters are supposed to be uneducated), this was not a serious problem. The set by Zsolt Khell was smart and made great use of the stage space. It first opens up to display an extensive space but then as the story progresses, it closes in further and further and created a suffocating space for all the characters – which directly reflects the stifling of these people because of the arrival of Serebryakov. However, also because of this sophistication in the set design, the audience needs to be prepared for some longish idle time when the set is changed on stage.

On the whole, “Uncle Vanya” represents a fine night of theatre for those who love classic text and great performances. If you are not a fan of Chekov you will still find the material angry and at times too tooth-aching. However, just having a chance to see a group of great actors working together is pure enjoyment that you will relish for the rest of the night.

Sex and the City 2

Sex and the City defined a generation of TV. It didn’t come as a surprise that the producers decided to make a movie out of it, as it is already a trend in Hollywood, although the series is far from being old. When it comes to the second movie out of the same TV series with the same characters, what more can they pull out of the hat is really a question.

A lot of people didn’t like Sex and the City 2, thinking that it is politically incorrect and trying too hard to magnify issues that are not issues but for the sake of being a feminist movie that provides a voice for women. Being a man, I really have no idea about what a woman’s voice should be (or less I will not be still single) but I personally do think Sex and the City 2 did have a better structure and script than the first movie.

The first movie cramped the timeframe of a whole series into one movie – so time moves quickly to show the changes of these women’s life in one year. Did it work? It didn’t. The characters became shallow and underdeveloped and issues dealt with were like damped fireworks that didn’t go off at all. Also the fact that they were dealing with the same old issues as they did in the last 6 years didn’t really help at all.

In the second movie, the time is more compact, and there were more development for all the four main characters. The plot was more tightly knit together as compared to the first movie. And the most important part was that the characters grew through time. They are dealing with a whole new lot of issues that compliment their characters. Samantha trying to beat menopause, Charlotte’s fairy tale world being torn apart by her kids, Miranda’s mid-career crisis and Carrie’s incompetence of dealing with marriage. These are real issues that fit well into the world and age of these characters and personally I think they were dealt with greatly.

I don’t really remember any memorable scenes in the first movie except Charlotte’s mishap at the resort. However, in the second movie, there were good scenes after good scenes being written for the main characters. The scene between Miranda and Charlotte on motherhood was extremely well written and acted. It proved once again Cynthia Nixon is an acting powerhouse. Every single reaction and line that she delivered in that scene was just right to the point. Under her influence, even Kristin Davis stepped up from a mediocre happy housewife into someone with a lot more layers for the audience to explore. Another remarkable scene was Samantha under arrest with her glamourous and confident veil removed. Kim Catrall proved that why she is one of the most popular theatre actors around the world. There were moments there were no words but expressions, and you can still see where the character came from. Even for Sarah Jessica Parker, the scene between Carrie and Charlotte out at the hotel front arch provided a much-needed injection of believability for this character. And the good part of this scene is her realization of she thinks she knew everything but in fact she knew absolutely nothing was an absolute gem (as that was the core of that character throughout the years but never really articulated).

Yes there were moments of political incorrectness (and sometimes they didn’t really work) but what I don’t understand is for the same dose of political incorrectness, if they showed up in movies like Hot Tub Time Machine and Hang Over, they will be funny and alright. But it is not so for Sex and the City 2. The jokes they exhibited in the movie are no worse than many of the others, so whether the critics in this aspect judge Sex and the City 2 a lot harsher I don’t know. The interesting thing about Sex and the City 2 is that it is dealing with women’s mid-life crisis as compared to a whole lot of other movies dealing with man’s mid-life crisis. I think that these issues were dealt with in good humour and some of the writing was beautiful. As compared to the first movie, it has a lot more substance than being just a fans movie. Is it really as Miranda said, “people pretend that they are not threatened by strong women and strong voices but they were in fact scared by them?” That’s interesting to know.

Some people say that Sex and the City 2 should be the end of the franchise as it lacks relevance to the current society. I only agree partially. I don’t agree that it lacks relevance. It just deals with issues that people prefer to pretend that they are not relevant or tricked themselves into believing that they are not relevant. However, I do agree that the franchise should end at this point unless they have more interesting issues to talk about in the next movie. At this point, I think it does wrap up the characters nicely both character-wise and story-wise.

Personally, I think Sex and the City: The Movie was a low for the franchise but contrary to most, I believe Sex and the City 2 managed to lift the franchise up back where it should be – dealing with real people and real issues with a tint of humour.

Flight

“Flight” is a play by Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov. The play sets in the years of turmoil at the end of the Civil War during which a group of people were tied together by fate while trying to survive the ordeal. It could also be seen as a semi-autobiography of part of the playwright’s own life.

This version is a NIDA second year production interpretation (with a cast of first year acting students as the crowd) of the play using the huge space provided by the Parade Theatre. A lot of value was put into this production. Apart from a huge cast, every detail from costume, make up, props and sets and even changing of stage were thoroughly thought through (and some of them pretty cool). The actions played out on a slanted wooden platform with two levels of radiating contours stretching out from the centre – a simple yet very versatile performance space. However, it is also because of this design that the stage was littered with traps. There were many times that actors miscalculated the height of the steps and tripped over or nearly lost balance during the actions. They masked the mistakes skillfully most of the time but after several stunts you will start to worry who will be the next victim of the stage.

This is a huge production with a huge cast. The deployment of the first year students as crowds and other ensemble characters gave them a chance to get involved and be seen. However, it is also because of the huge number of actors on stage that actually affect the delivery of the play and this is particularly obvious during the first half. Unlike musicals in which the chorus was usually tightly written into the production, for plays, when you deploy a huge cast of actors onto the stage, they have to serve a purpose. This is exactly what was lacking in this production. A lot of time these background actors were on the stage doing what they need to do but then they lack a purpose. For purpose I mean not only as backdrop but also what they are supposed to do as characters on the stage, how they are going to enrich the actions and tell the audience that they are essential in the scene. This is where this production fell short. Even worse was that at times they became distractions to the main actions of the leads and you can hardly concentrate on the main actions because there were so many other actors doing this and that all the time. This gave the audience a fragmented and shattered experience that nobody benefited from. The second half of play was a lot better as it focused on the main characters instead (or finally) and gave the audience a better experience or a chance to escape into the characters’ world. I am not saying that NIDA should not use that many actors, but they have to use them correctly. I remember when I saw “Jarabin” and “All in Good Timing”, they too had lots of actors on stage, but each actor was integrated in the whole production that you didn’t find them distracting or ruining your experience. So if NIDA wants to do a huge production like this one again in the future, that is one of things they have to look into and improve.

The main cast delivered a satisfactory but sometimes offbeat performance. Strangely enough, as a drama school that should be focusing strongly on stage acting, there were some real voice projection issues in this production. It could be because the space is huge, but I personally did not remember there were such issues with other similar performances, especially considering productions such as “The Plough and the Star” (with Ian Roberts), which only had a few actors throughout, didn’t have such issues. Neither did I remember that graduates from last year had such issues on their agent’s day performance. Apart from the crowd sometimes drowning out the main characters, or sometimes loud background music deafening your ears during the lines, there were times that when the actors were upstage, you could hardly hear them (and I was in the seventh row from the stage). And there were also times that you could just hear them mumbling their words with “lazy tones” (e.g. missing out consonants) that you needed to figure out the lines with the context. However, the actor who played Khludov (I think his name is Ross) was brilliant throughout. The journey he brought us through with his character was well executed and you could actually experience the journey with him. Also the actor who played Paramon was great too. The monologue on “the importance of a dollar” was so well done that you just couldn’t help but being blown away by his commitment to the character. The other actors were not bad actors (I’d seen them all in last year’s Chekov and Sonnets) but it seemed to me that the aforementioned voice issues really took out a lot from them. I was surprised as some of them were pretty good with lots of potential when I saw them as first years last year in their rehearsal room performances.

“Flight” was an above average production. It has great potentials but the issues mentioned above taxed out a lot from it. The play certainly got a lot better in the second half but as I saw tonight quite a number of the audience left during the intermission (one of them in my group left too). However, I personally would recommend those who go to see it to stay and soldier on, as the second half is really where you see great actions playing out on the stage. Also, the high production value that was put into this play would make your money worth. At the end of the day it is after all not an average amateur production. However, if NIDA want to put on similar scale productions in the future, issues mentioned above must be rectified to make them more enjoyable.