broken: Broken Bloopers

What a weekend! 2 over months of intense practices, juggling with work commitments and coordinating the easter cast, finally came down to last weekend. We had a total of 3000++ people over the past two days and overall, the feedback had been very encouraging.

Of course, looking back, we, who have been involved in almost every facet of the story, could see there were scenes that didn’t turn out as we wanted or could have been done better, but that’s stage production, I guess, there are no second takes.

Here are some little ‘bloopers’ that you might not have been aware of (I guess it’s safe to publish it since Broken is over!)

1. The Devil’s Grammar

In the first line of Broken’s narration: “I may have lost the war, but the battle for souls rage on…” is incorrect grammar, since the subject here is the singular battle, hence, should be ‘the battle rages on’. I was wondering whether to correct my script for Day 2 but thought maybe the devil character itself wasn’t that articulate, prone to have grammatical errors when excited, especially when he’s talking about souls. So we left it that way.

2. Bullet Time Mis-Stunts

In the first scene on Day 1, the shoot out all went well, until Jin came out and the cops fired 4 shots at him and he just looked back at us, before falling over after a few seconds of delay. Also, when I came out to be shot by Eddie ( I was the dead cop), we both stared at each other and I was ready to take the ‘bullet’. When the sound effects didn’t kick it, I was seen dancing a little jig, expecting to be shot. Karen mentioned it was quite funny…

3. Harassment of Eddie

Apparently, the team leader of the cops (the one not in uniform, with a holster, our very own assistant cell leader), came out and shouted his lines “Arrest Him!”. Probably it was the mic or a rush of adrenaline, as the words that seem to come out were “Harass Him!”

4. The invisible Ken

On day 2 shootout scene, the police rushed in too quickly, before Ken got a chance to get away. The cops all had their guns pointed at Eddie, even though Ken was still on the scene. None of the police noticed Ken (since in practice, Ken was not supposed to be there anyway), who quickly got away, rushing past the oblivious police.

5. The Mic of Horror

Ken’s mic came loose after the first scene on Day 1, and we did a quick swap backstage. His mic wasn’t turned off and it picked up some chatter backstage, that went like: “Joker lah…what lah…etc.” I was with Yen (the director) at the AV console and I think we both had the look of utter horror on our faces. It was sorted out and all parties told to shut up back stage! Ken’s swapped mic wasn’t turned on as well, so we lost a fair bit of conversation from the play.

6. The missed cue

Ken and Jin missed cues on the second day; where Ken didn’t talk about ‘partners’. This caused a long pause between their arguments before Jin recovered by blurting out, “What about our partners?!”. Great acting…

7. Flipped Dress

Apparently, nobody told Steph how to wear her dress. It was corrected in Day 2 (right)

8. Walk through Walls

Also, some people got confused at how easily the pastor walked around the jail cell out of the jail during some of the scenes, at at some other points, even bringing along Eddie! Unfortunately, our church doesn’t have rotating floors, so we have to imagine that it was a symbolic reference that they were still in the cell, but required a bigger space to cater to the crucifixion scene.

9. Roman Soldier becomes Ultraman

Apparently one of the Roman guards in the crucifixion scene came out with his helmet backwards. Nobody noticed till the whole scene was over, and he was found lounging backstage, still with his helmet backwards.

10. Thief adjusting mic

Apparently on day one, while crucified, one of the thieves managed to dislodge his hand from the nails to adjust his mic, and obediently nailed himself again. To be fair, it was already dark and he did it quite discreetly, but couldn’t escape a few observant people =)

11. Stunt double lost his pants

On day one, I had a moment of panic when I couldn’t find my pants. (I was the stunt double that got hung). The dressing room backstage was so messy, someone relocated my short pants I was supposed to wear, similar to Eddie’s. It was finally found somewhere in the corner and I changed just in time.

12. Stunt double dies too quickly

I didn’t realise people could still see me on Day one (I had a black hood on!), and nicely dropped to the ground when the lights were still on me during execution. D’OH!!