HYPERACTIVE (R) MAPS OUT A MARKETING PLAN
WITH THE MAIDS' PRODUCTION MANAGER,
ENAN LIM.
I trekked to My Musical Studio on Saturday night for The Maids' first reading and production meeting. I was a bit apprehensive, but mostly, I was excited. Apart from my frequent outings as an MC and the odd appearance onstage, I haven't really been in involved in theatre work in a significant way.
I arrived at 5.30pm on the dot. My best friend, Rye, was ceremoniously pouring white wine for everyone. "Everyone," really was juts a handful of people: Rye (Solange), myself (Claire), Moe (Madame), Enan (Production Manager), Alvin (Director), and Tina (Co-director, Dramaturg).
We jumped into the material immediately - no preamble. I guess the best way to tackle any Genet piece is not really to approach it, but to attack it.
And that's exactly what we did.
The last time I touched The Maids was in 2002, for my senior directing thesis. I re-imagined the final sequence - a gruesome but nebulous act of sacrifice - as something that might have happened within the tight, echo-bound walls of a bath room. I got an A+, but I'll never forget the countless sleepless nights I endured, trying to make sense of the ending.
Rye and I have been talking about performing The Maids as our alter egos, La Chiquitta and Fabiola, for years. Rye had always been more emotionally infatuated with the project than I ever was. The Maids is the kind of dangerous material that grips you by the balls and never lets go until it gets out of you a release that is neither satisfying nor predictable...
So this time around, I vowed not to over think it. I'll take the material as it comes, I told myself, one day at a time, and try to not to be wholly consumed by it.
...who was I kidding?
By the third line, I had become Claire - impetuous, impatient and impressionable -an accomplice to terrible acts that nobody will ever completely understand.
The last week wasn't just a whirlwind of Hyperactive events; it was an HI (10) Tornado, where Hyperactive Intensity is calculated as follows:
HI = DW / NEo x nSH
(NEo +/+ NEp) A ^ S
That's days of the week (7) divided by number of events organized (2), multiplied by net sleeping hours (5).
The most volatile variable here, of course is NEo, which isn't always indicative of NEp (number of events participated in). In most cases, NEo and NEp are inversely proportional. After all, DW (days of the week) is a constant. The more events you organize, the less time you have to allocate to events you participate in. In my case, however, NEo and NEp are directly proportional - especially since nSH follows the Law of Diminishing Returns. It's only by keeping NEo and NEp parallel on the HI graph am I able to keep producing the amounts of A (adrenaline) required to secure a high S (success) rate.
THE QUEEN'S SILVER
BEFORE HK1K
AN EMPTY OPEN-AIR LOT
DURING HK1K
WITH MODEL HELENA CHAN
AND COLUMNIST YALUN TU IN THE BACK
AFTER HK1K
AFTER-PARTY AT MAGNUM
I organized HK1K, HK Mag's 1,000th issue pop-up "Hong Kong Hipsters" block party, on an empty lot in Fashion Walk. The event required the support of over 20 brand partners, over 100 support staff (technicians, stage managers, gophers, security, chefs, waiters and bartenders, door bitches, interns, photographers... and so on), managed through 5 Google Docs (guest list, contact sheet, rundown, budget, script and show flow), and mobilized via 5 buses, to pull off.
It wasn't perfect, but it was awesome. I think I did awesome...
I'm my own biggest critic. So many things could have gone wrong. But so many things were OK, I'm tearful with gratitude to everyone who had in hand in making it a success. Also, my mom's 9-day novena before the event obviously worked! Thank you Mommy, and thank you God.
KEEP IT MOVIN'!
MANILA
KARE-KARE
HYPERACTIVE AND A BEVY OF BEAUTIFUL AUNTIES
#HYPRFAMOUSFLOORS
THE PENTHOUSE IN THE GREEN LOUNGE
ORTIGAS, MANILA
WITH MY BEAUTEOUS BABY SISTER, LOREN
As if that wasn't enough, I had an 8am flight to Manila immediately following HK1K, for Destination, I Do! - the highly conceptual wedding of my cousin, Mark, to his lady love, Abbey.
Upon my arrival in Manila, my youngest sister, Loren, speed-ironed my barong Tagalog and dress pants whilst I greedily gulped honey lemon water, multivitamins and a whole pot of kare-kare. I knew I had to make an effort to be fit for public consumption. I was hoarse, exhausted and sleepy, which is unfair because my family deserves to have the best of Hyperactive.
The wedding invites were mock passports, the guest cards were baggage tags, the tables' centerpieces were each inspired by a dreamy destination, the cake was a stack of luggages rendered in fondant, and of course, the entire thing was MC'd by Hyperactive. At one point, I had to grab my cousin, Boyang, to share hosting duties. I was simply too hoarse to be coherent. It would suck for Mark and Abbey look back to their wedding reception and remember only that I sounded like a broken accordion.
Luckily the happy couple seemed to guess that I might be at less than my usual 150%, and so they had a Starbucks concession especially licensed to operate at their wedding reception. They're coffee lovers, you see. Naturally, they want their guests to have free access to a caffeine fix. Of course.
I got back to the hotel at 1.30am, by which time I figured it'd be futile to sleep and risk missing my 7am flight back to Hong Kong. In Manila, if something could go wrong, it will. So my sister, Loren and I, simply called for massages.
I was back in Hong Kong less than 24 hours after I left - too exhausted to even be aghast at the explosion of event detritus all over my flat.
BACK IN HK,
LAUNDRY AND A MESSY FLAT YELLED FOR ATTENTION.
DID ALL THAT JUST FUCKING HAPPEN?!
Clearly, there had just been a Hyperactive Intensity 10 Tornado.
I dutifully scrubbed and laundered and sprayed and cleaned.
Last Thursday was dinner with the British Consul General. Next Thursday is the Guest List event at Volume HEAT. And then Mr Gay HK's send-off for Mr Gay World, and my birthday. Somewhere in there, I have to squeeze a reading for The Maids. And I mustn't forgo my regular workouts, of course, because Chris is arriving next week.
July is stupid!
I am sleepless, restless and running purely on adrenaline.
And I'm still going.
Where I'm now pulling energy from, I can't even tell any more.
Can we just stop and talk a while?
FUNNILY ENOUGH, THIS SONG WAS USED FOR A COFEE TVC DECADES AGO...
PROD PHOTO FROM THE LION & UNICORN / LONDON
DIRECTED BY VICTOR SOBCHAK
I directed a scene from The Maids for my final thesis. It stank; I took the scene to a communal toilet in my university's Fine Arts Hall. There I left the audience whilst the titular maids, sisters Claire and Solange, had a big, old fashioned showdown. It was my hope that the ghostly echo of their screams would continue to ring in the audience's ears as I led them towards the vertiginous stairway where my final scene would take place. What can you expect - I was in university and was therefore easily swayed by esoteric bullshit!
Fast forward to today.
Who is foolish enough to imagine that the Hong Kong economy would be what it is if our maids weren't home, doing all the dirty stuff we don't want to do?
My best friend Rye and I (as our alter egos La Chiquitta and Fabiola) have wanted to play Claire and Solange for years. This November, we will finally be able to bring this vanity project onstage. It's kismet. We're Filipinos. We're gurls (naturally). And we'll be in front of a crowd that can't live without maids, in a city that can't still accept them. You'll leave them home so you can come to our show, yet, what you'll really be seeing is what they do when you're away.
