We watched a show entitled "A Madman's Diary...after Gogol" adapted from prolific Russian writer Nikolai Gogol's The Diary of A Madman. It was also my first time being in audience of a performance in Pentas 2. I had no previous account to such a book nor the plot of the story, which was fine with me. Best to hold no expectations of any, low or high. Performances are best experienced as such. And indeed I experienced.


The show was really really captivating. And disturbing. All in debt to the brilliant acting. Best acting I've experienced first hand. There were only 2 actors throughout the 1 and a half hour play. Might sound a tad boring or taxing to some, only having the pleasure of 2 characters, only one with utterance. Heck, it was a one-man-show all along with the other character inducing pleasures of another kind. But yes, it is not pretentious to assert that the lone actor (Will Gluth. Has an imdb page, wow.) was flawless in portraying Ivan, a low-class figure slowly sliding into the brink of insanity and schizophrenia as we learn of his delusions and hallucinations.

The play was a monologue enscripted story, which follows the character's diary written in a first person point of view. It was highly entertaining watching the character physically and facially jotting his thoughts, indirectly telling his story to the audience. A connection was assumed, as the audience immediately responded to his every expression; filled with laughter whenever he impeccably feigned a feminine voice, and stoned with silence as he glaringly endures himself to what he thinks is a strange coronation of kingdomhood. The show develops seamlessly from a very light and comical tone (the character suspected two dogs talking, writing letters to each other, and having an affair. -.-.) to a very self-descending and depressing realm of lunacy as the audience thoroughly sees him strip himself with anguish and torture all inflicted by none other than himself. What's more, was I very puzzled to whether the events happening were all upon his narration in reality or just a phantasm subconsciously created by his paranoiac mind, suspecting himself mentally in so many levels. And I still am.


The stage design was subtle yet fascinating. Everything was grey. Think modelling board. The backdrop was a grey wall slightly smudged on its surface at the right, with an opening fit for a door. Props were basically grey cubes of the same hue, intelligently articulated to fit the scene. Whenever he sleeps, two cubes becomes a bed; when he writes of him being in office, a bigger cube becomes the table, the smaller becomes the chair, etc etc. Acoustics and lighting were amazing, can't help but to think if the Angel were to be performed there instead. The size of Pentas 2 was perfect, not too big, not too small. Nevertheless, I didn't even need the help of the temperature to bloom goosebumps whenever the light shuts out with bewildering tunes playing whenever they changed scenes in the dark. How very appropiate for the ending to be very blinding as well.


I left feeling slightly tinged with uneasyness and incomprehension. Nothing about the play was literal in its approach, but it is the very abstraction of the performance which really invigorates me. The kind that makes you question and question alone. The kind that makes you google the play, the book, the actor. The measly Condors may flutter back and lay eggs, nothing made me query as much as Gluth did. That to me is indeed how a performance should be.

Yata.