Just came back from watching P Ramlee the Musical at Istana Budaya. My expectation was bit tarnished earlier as i read somewhere that the musical is lack of P Ramlee's songs. But, as i arrived there, i realized that the musical is not about his songs. The tagline of this musical is "The life, the loves and the inspiration". Unless they put "the songs" in between the tagline, then i would be pretty disappointed. Nonetheless, the musical was totally marvellous, outstanding and superb. not just the array of great casts, but also the setting, story arrangement, songs arrangement, story flow and everything.
I really adore P Ramlee since i was small. grew up in Penang in my early age gave some miscellaneous memories and it includes P Ramlee. i used to sing Getaran Jiwa on my neighbor's swing, and the old guy really loves listening to me. unfortunately, as i grow up, i'm not that fond in doing things that would embarrass myself eventhough that old guy requested me. anyway, the musical is (hoping it would re-stage again) a 4 hours show. i thought it would only be around 2 1/2 hours, but it worth it. seriously. those who missed, really gonna regret it. i didnt managed to get the rm53 ticket, instead, my friend and i bought the rm 153 ticket. deduct the student discount, i only paid rm 108. another friend told me that he can buy 10 movie tickets with that. yeah, true but in a sense that this musical is a rare opportunity (in term of casts and show time), i considered the 108 is nothing to compared with the experience i'll get; and again, i reiterate that, it's worth every damn cent i paid.
The musical is about the life of P Ramlee; from the rise, to his downfall. he starts off as a clapper in Ampas Road Studio, then as a sing-voice for actors who cant sing; and soon became an actor and a director. His loves includes Azizah from his hometown and that was before he came to S'pore, then Junaidah, Norizan and lastly, Saloma. I've watched how his marriages went down into the drain as his fame rosed. jealousy and lonely creeps in. but it was sweet to know that Saloma stayed with him till the end, even by that time he is no longer popular. the reasons for his downfall are the invention of TV, break up of Malaysia and Singapore (he was forced to move bak to KL and do film in Studio Merdeka. Budget for film are not as lavished as he got from Shaw Brothers in S'pore) and also younger demographic are more towards pop yeyeh stuff. Too much smoking leads to heart failure. he died at 44. In the musical, the last sentence was, "Will i be remembered Sally (Saloma)?". She replied, "Yes, people will remember you for a very long time". quite comforting words for the weary P Ramlee. And it is true. even after 35 years, we still strongly remember who is P Ramlee, what he had contributed to the industry, and what type of person he is. The lines from his movies still etched on our mind, and we still laugh to his jokes eventhough we watched it dozens of time. As he is, will always be remembered.. as a seniman, a legend and a person.
"My art is not for money, it is for people (Seni aku bukan untuk wang ringgit, tapi untuk masyarakat)" - quoted by P Ramlee to Aziz Sattar.
Al-Fatihah.
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