{"id":8526,"date":"2020-02-27T14:12:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T06:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wr\/?p=8526"},"modified":"2020-02-28T15:28:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T07:28:50","slug":"stage-fright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/stage-fright\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stage Fright is REAL!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a child, I always\nsecretly harboured a desire to be a performer.<\/strong> I went for speech and drama classes, and I acted in\nschool plays and things like that. But I don\u2019t think I ever really thought of\ndoing it as a career until I was much older, when I realised that there are\npeople who actually do this for a living. That\u2019s why I initially enrolled to\nstudy architecture in the University of Auckland. I never completed my degree,\nthough \u2013 because I soon realised that I appreciated architecture as a discipline,\nbut I didn\u2019t really like doing<\/em> it. At that point, I tried switching to\ndrama school. But I couldn\u2019t make it work before I had to come back to\nSingapore to serve National Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love acting because <\/strong>you get to explore different worlds. Every job is different.\nWith each new show you do, you get to enter a new world and learn, in a sense,\na new language. You live this life for a few months, and it\u2019s exciting and new.\nAnd then, you get to go on to explore something else. I think that\u2019s why I like\ntravelling too \u2013 because I like seeing new things!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might surprise you to\nknow this about me, but I<\/strong> still\nexperience varying levels of terror before any show I do. As long as it\u2019s live,\nI\u2019m terrified. Five minutes before I go on, I\u2019ll be asking myself: \u2018What am I\ndoing? Why do I do this to myself?\u2019 To get over my nerves, I try to breathe a\nbit better. I try to trust myself \u2013 telling myself that once I get at least the\nfirst line correct, everything will flow from there. And I try not to freak\nmyself out by thinking about, like, the fourth thing I\u2019m supposed to do! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Like Mother Like Daughter <\/strong>Enlai plays Gwendolen Fairfax opposite Ivan Heng as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Returning to WILD RICE\u2019s The\nImportance of Being Earnest<\/em> <\/strong>has\nbeen a bizarre, lovely experience. It\u2019s been five years since we last did the\nshow in Brisbane, so it was very strange to pick up the script again. I found\nmyself going, \u2018Wow, this is all new to me. What show is this?!\u2019 But it actually\ndoes<\/em> come back to you, because it\u2019s all there, somewhere… in my spleen\nor my pancreas or something! What\u2019s really interesting this time around is that\neverything<\/em> has changed because of the space we\u2019re performing in \u2013 WILD\nRICE\u2019s new theatre in Funan. The blocking is completely different, so we\u2019ve had\nto connect what\u2019s deeply embedded in us, all these deja vu <\/em>moments,\nwhile putting a bunch of new things together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performing in WILD RICE @\nFunan is <\/strong>scary<\/em>! I\u2019ve never performed on a thrust stage before, and\nit\u2019s insane having audiences on three sides of the stage and so close to you.\nI\u2019m one of the few members of the cast who\u2019s unlucky enough to be able to see\nthe audience clearly while the show is going on. So, during our very first\nperformance, I remember thinking, \u2018Who are all of you people? And why are you\nso close to me??\u2019 I was so stressed that I actually started having gastric\nproblems. My stomach hurt, so I had to go back to the green room and eat\ncookies after my first scene! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, terrifying though it might be, it\u2019s also wonderful. That first night, the applause was so powerful I could feel it all the way up my ass crack!! [laughs] More seriously, it was so overwhelming that it actually moved me to tears. And the space is so intimate that you can observe audience reactions! The other night, I could see these two women in Balcony One \u2013 they obviously didn\u2019t know the play, and they were loving it so much<\/em>, gasping in shock at every revelation. It cracked me up, and it was incredible just to watch them relishing the play, to witness their pure delight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Enlai having a ball with Lionel Yeo and Janice Koh at the Importance of Being Earnest<\/em> gala!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of my most memorable\non-stage mishaps <\/strong>happened when I did\na play called Prospero\u2019s Children<\/em>, based on William Shakespeare\u2019s The\nTempest<\/em>. I had two different scenes with Karen Tan, which were quite far\napart. However, my first line was the same for both scenes. At one performance,\nI started doing the second scene first! Karen couldn\u2019t say anything to me while\nwe were on stage, but I could see it all in her eyes as she tried to will me\nback to the original scene \u2013 \u2018You want the show to go faster ah?! Where exactly\nare you going with this, Enlai?!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m inspired by <\/strong>everyone who works together to put together a piece of\ntheatre. Even if I don\u2019t like a show that much, because of its script or vision\nor whatever, I\u2019m still well aware of how much work goes into putting on a show.\nAs a host myself, I\u2019m also inspired by Jimmy Fallon \u2013 he must have such a huge\nand amazing team that enables him to do what he does five times a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I could give my younger self some advice<\/strong>, I would say: be open-minded and be a team player. And try to keep fit and be healthy! As performers, our jobs are physical ones; we can\u2019t hide behind a keyboard. Our brains, our hearts, our bodies \u2013 they\u2019re all we have. And you definitely need a lot of stamina in the theatre, because it’s live!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love working in the\ntheatre because<\/strong> it requires you to be\npresent, to be in the moment. In the days before mobile phones, we used to be\nable to concentrate and focus on doing one thing at a time. These days, I find\nI\u2019m always swiping, moving on to the next thing, and my attention span is\ngetting shorter and shorter. What I love about theatre is that you can\u2019t do a\nscene halfway and then just wander off! You\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing with\nyour utmost attention, and whoever is on stage with you is just as fully\ninvolved. You have to be there<\/em>. And I think that\u2019s an important thing to\nremember in this day and age!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chua Enlai has had decades of experience as an actor and host \u2013 but did you know he still gets scared every time he performs live? Read on to find out what inspires him, why he loves working in the theatre, and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,141],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}