my two cents, if it's worth it at all...

my dearest laharianz,
i wrote the following post on my blog, pasting this in this blog just so you know.
i would like to apologize to anybody if it affects any of you but not to worry, the battle is mine. again i would like to thank you all, standing ovation and my hats off to each and everyone in the production team.
cheers !!


today i read a blog that personally attacked me as a director. it was a long one, and the word refers me as "pengarah yang meraban & tak profesional" (refer to http://artsloveddy.blogspot.com)

there, how not professional am i to state his blog add on my blog ?

my cousin said everybody is entitled to their own opinion. agreed. so do i.

before i give my opinion, i want to correct this boy for mentioning 'the actors studio' as when i directed this play i was already NOT ATTACHED with 'the actors studio'. i proudly claim that the production was produced by own company along with the production team. 'the actors studio' do not get any credits with regards to this production.

so obviously, eddy, you don't know any bits of my credential, so get your facts right before giving your opinion.

as a director of the play, of coz i do have some dissatisfaction about the whole thing. from pre-pro right up to the end of show. but i keep my opinion to myself as i appreciated everybody's effort trying their very best to satisfy me. from day one i understood the word teamwork, i learn that even if you have the least dissatisfaction, you don't complain. just don't complain coz it'll make the production look bad as a whole. or at least if you can't contain yourself from the dissatisfaction, you go directly to the face of the person you are dissatisfied with and tell them off.

in my 10 years involvement in events & theatre management, i did just that, makes the whole production so much better. we tell off or crudely fucked off everybody and the results were superb. yeah, not everybody can take that then maybe, eddy, if you are not up to it, then maybe arts is not your forte. boy, IT IS a cruel industry.

i was told that i was too hard on the casts. i felt it was a bit unfair (speaking from my own experience) because when i landed on my first job, no one, not a single soul gave me a chance on that matter. i was treated the same like other people in team, regardless that i was new. i was fucked upside down, leaving no rooms for mistakes. i have to step up aggressively to put myself on par with the experienced one.

ok, back to the said eddy and the play. my opinion on him (since he has a lot to say about me), to me eddy portrays as someone who is good to hold a character as a hero bangsawan. that's all. don't really know him in person, but acting wise, onstage, i don't see him fit in multi characters as he only has the very ancient malay look and cannot speak english to safe his life.

i planted the "real-life" concept in the play, making sure whatever they act onstage make sense to the audience and to themselves. eddy did commented to me about it during one of the rehearsals. i rejected, of course, as his comments were only good on theory, not real life.

i repeated my comments so many times on a certain issue of the play, which eddy refers to my not being professional. well, eddy, am sure if you directing a play and your cast repeat the same mistakes, you tend to repeat your direction. or are you so noble that you gonna just let go of the mistakes and let everybody do what they want ? you are the director after all. what's the use of it ?

another thing that i think eddy was pissed off about is the payment. giving business talk to eddy, in my opinion is close to useless. so let me just say these - business people have contract terms on when they should pay or when we should get paid.

taking credits for calling other friends to join the production or allowing us to use the studio for free was lame. we, the two directors, were banging our heads when we had casting problems but we did have a plan b. allowing to use the studio was your offer, eddy. the production has already calculated the cost of studio renting. yes, thank you for letting us rehearse in the studio for free but if you want to take credit on that, please, please, send me the invoice.

eddy also wrote about "jiwa" in his blog. jiwa, according to eddy was to know yourself. eddy, i hope you already know that you have an inferiority complex in you as you don't even have the guts or jiwa to even identify yourself in one specific text message you sent to me. what were you trying to do ? letting me guess who it was from and if i didn't guess it right, i would blame your friends for it ?

i do have plans to stage this play on a bigger scale. yes eddy, since you have the opinion that you are better than me, why don't you try write a play about tanah melayu evolved to malaya then to malaysia, a play that started from the 14th century right up to now, in 30 mins, must include narration, songs, dialogs and dance. owh, plus only 2 weeks of rehearsal with 20 casts.. come on eddy, you don't even know how to act as a civilian reacting to the tunku abdul rahman's character.

your 14 years and my 10 years experience, come on, lets do a comparison chart. 14 years of acting experience is that your standard, eddy ? for a first time director, even i don't think you have achieved the national level, boy. indeed, you are not yet strong and sturdy !

so eddy, i hope now you can swallow whatever i just said as i did swallowed your words. owh, and i also hope that your english is enough for you to understand whatever i just said ;-

signing off, the proud director of 'a case of belonging', performed at berjaya times square for the reception dinner of WCIT 2008 on may 19, 2008 - lina hasbullah.

c'est la vie !

cheers !