Neighbours Gets a Play Treatment

On 19 February, students from SMK (p) Sri Aman Petaling Jeya, some of whom I met (along with their teacher Christina Chan), at the Popular BookFest@Malaysia 2010 put on a play titled Shorts, (short for Short Stories), whereby they dramatized three stories from SPM literature, Roald Dahl's Landlady, Anya Sitarams Naukar and Neighbours from my collection of short stories Lovers and Strangers Revisited.

Although I was unable to attend, Christina Chan kept me abreast via Facebook, which was how we first met last September when one of her students contacted me over some questions regarding Neighbours that they were studying and ended up meeting a few days later in KL. According to Christina, "Mrs Koh was well-loved during our matinee show! Then the following day, after the evening performance she added, For the record, Mrs. Koh is now one hot chick! Everyone loved herthe actress and the character. We took some liberty at interpreting what she is like and how she would react to situations. A success indeed.

I was relieved to hear that it was a success. Mrs. Kohs reputation (i.e. Are You Mrs. Koh?) was riding on it.

This is! not the first time that students have turned Mrs. Kohs character into a play. Students from another school in the KL area, also studying Neighbours took my ten minute play Back From Heaven and entered their performance into a school competition a couple of years back and did quite well. I had adapted Back From Heaven from a One Drink Too Many a play a wrote, which I adapted from Neighbours whereby I turned a tragedy into a comedy.

"One Drink Too Many" has been play read twice by Penang Players and had some interest in both Penang and Kuching. Maybe someday it will finally get produced, or maybe even The Merdeka Mircle that I wrote with Lydia Teh and Tunku Halim for Malaysia Airlines. The story has a nice 1Malaysia theme plus a Merdeka tie-in. It would also make a good story for SPM Literature. Unfortunately there is no Mrs. Koh like character in that story.

Im not sure who played Mrs. Koh in Shorts, although I was briefly introduced to her last September. Would you like to play Mrs. Koh? Or maybe youre a Mrs. Koh type already! Are you? Who knows, someday you might end up in a play, too!

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