Snow.Wolf.Lake

The ever famous Hong Kong home-grown "Broadway" musical stageplay was at Stadium Putra on 25th & 26th November 2005.

This musical first started in year 1997 and its original version was in Cantonese. After 8 years, the Mandarin version was brought to live and the version that is staged in Malaysia is (sad to say) the Mandarin one.

Snow.Wolf.Lake is a sad love musical show depicting the life of Wolf, a poor gardener, who's in love with Suet, his boss's daughter, and how the sister of Suet, Yuk Fong, silently loves Wolf but who's love is not returned. The cast are, of course, Jacky Cheung as Wolf, Evonne Hsu as Suet and Nnadia Chan as Yuk Fong.

Back to yesterday, we reached the stadium at 7.15pm and most of the seats weren't taken yet. We could understand that coz it was all numbered seatings. Unlike those free seating concerts, we wouldn't need to reach way earlier to grab a good seat! The stadium was comfortable and the stage was suprisingly quite near. Thanx to our binos, we could clearly see the expressions of the cast! The show started at 8.20pm, and at 9.50, was the 15-minute break, and continued to 11.40pm! Was not aware of the time until CM told me "this is the 2nd last song of the show".. I guess it meant the show was good as I didn't feel bored or sleepy! Well, the synopsis provided by Galaxy did help me understand the show better though! Suprisingly, the synopsis (which was placed on every seat) was in English, and it summarized the whole musical. Thankfully, with the help of the summary, I was able to better relate the songs, lyrics and conversation to what's happening throughout the play! At some points, I actually explained to CM what was happening! muahaha..

The PA system was however a let down. The voices of the cast were generally good, but it would have been better should our PA system complement their vocal by projecting a clearer audio effect!

Jacky's singing is still as powerful as ever and he really did manage to connect to its audience via his voice! Evonne's vocals were not as powerful as Jacky's but nonetheless very mesmerising! She's REALLY sweet and like what Xzan says, her voice was very Disney-ish! hehe.. She danced quite a bit and looks very natural and pretty on stage. Oh yea, slightly off the point, she wears RED throughout the play!!! All her costumes were red in colour and she looks damn good in it! hehehhe... Nnadia's voice was ok, nothing to shout about. Didn't get any goosebumps effect when listening to her; and unlike Jacky and Evvone, Nnadia didn't seem too "into" the musical! I'm not sure if her character in the play was supposed to be so solomm and reserved, but she certainly didn't look as if she was enjoying the play (unlike Jacky and Evvone). Then again, she still has a good voice.. Audience had no chance to catch the flaws of the cast, no matter in facial expressions, dancing, conversations or their pitching. Everything was purrrfect! Thumbs up for that!

The ending part touched me most. It was a scene where all dancers appear in pairs, clad in wedding gowns, and at one time, they shered Evvone and Jacky out in a "sampan" which is decorated with wedding flowers. Jacky and Evvone too were dressed in wedding gowns and they sang the last song of the play "Ngoi Si Wing Hang". Then, everyone went back stage and then it was time for all the cast to come out and say their thank you's. First it was the dancers and the supporting actors/actresses, then followed by Nnadia and Evvone. All the audience were already clapping like crazy and the hall went wild cheering and shouting for their idols. The cast received a full standing ovasion from the crowd!!! AND when all the cast on staged ushered out Jacky, my tears flowed freely!! hahaha.. I cant explain why I cried, I just feel that the atmosphere was just too good to be true!! Such a good play, and the ambience and feeling created by the audiences were just great!! Those VVIP seats audiences rushed to the stage to take photos of their idols and some even presented the cast with bouquets and bouquets of flowers! Jacky then proceeded to say a few words (couldnt really hear what he was saying coz everyone was cheering like mad!! but I guess it was none other than thank you and more thank you's :) )

Lastly, everyone on staged sang the last stanza of Ngoi Si Wing Hang, waved to the audience, and the curtain came down. Everyone left feeling very satisfied and all went home with smiles :)

(Note: The play would have been EVEN better if CM was not having fever and sore throat. Poor darling, waited for the play for so long, and when it's finally here, he's not in tip-top condition! *sigh*)