SHAH’S RAMBLINGS

We got the opportunity to catch the opening night of Impak Maksima The Musical at Istana Budaya onTuesday thanks again to our media pal Farihad.

As the show gets underway, one thing you’ll definitely notice is the not so subtle product placements in some of the sets – a TV3 banner, a Good Year Tyre workshop, billboards for various products and last but not least, one of the sets was a cafe which actually exists (and happens to be owned by the musical composer of this show).  An ingenious way of adding some colour and variety to the backdrops (as well as getting some corporate sponsorship – it’s definitely not cheap producing a musical of this scale)

The musical score was a good mix of elements from all sorts of genres fitting the youth theme. That scene with the mat rempits doing a classical malay dance while singing a traditional song with modern words really brought the house down with laughter. The music however, did at times drown out the vocals but that didnt’t ruin the flow of the relatively straightforward storyline.

The intentional lack of coordination among the dancers may seem chaotic to some but it fits the theme of the musical perfectly. In fact it would seem rather out of place to watch perfectly synchronised movements among the rowdy group of youths portrayed by the characters in this musical. Almost all of the group dance sequences and fight scenes were especially a delight to watch.

And the actual on-stage race-car drift scenes sure added some extra excitement to the show.

There’s nothing too complicated in the storyline and I could pretty much anticipate where the story was heading. The only confusing bit was the initial part of the show where a lot of emphasis was put on two characters who ended up not being the main characters of the show.

All in all it was a very entertaining musical to watch, definitely something different and unique compared to the usual Malaysian musical, but not unique internationally since the play somehow reminded me of The West Side Story which I got to watch overseas many years ago.

Stephen Rahman-Hughes was among the guests during the opening night that night – catch him on stage again at the restaging of PGL The Musical early next year

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Dato Siti & Dato K were the invited VIPs on opening night sitting a row behind us – hopefully our cameras’ click-clicking throughout the show wasn’t too annoying for them

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And Hans Isaac was another one of the celebrities who had to endure the throngs of people wanting to snap a picture with a celebrity right after the show, yours truly included of course

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The lead actor DK played by Zul Huzaimy who has outstanding vocals

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With Impak Maksima The Musical’s director and producer the talented Ahmad Idham

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Asmida played by Dina – a relatively minor role given a lot of emphasis at the beginning

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Ray played by Zed Zaidi – the mean looking baddie sporting a weird Japanese Emo hairdo

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Impak Maksima The Musical will be playing at Panggung Sari, Istana Budaya till the 22nd November – so it’s still not too late to go get your tickets to this show

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