After many, many weeks and months of waiting, I finally caught Rent - The 10th Anniversary World Tour, featuring its New York cast and well, Hong Kong star Karen Mok. Mind you, this is not the movie version that everyone or at least Jean and me have been waiting for but the stage version.

One thing I have to say though is that this version is frankly, a little disappointing. Really. Yes, so the cast came from Broadway and we have an Asian star in a leading role but I still felt that something was missing. From earlier version, what clearly came through for me was the songs and the heartfelt delivery. You felt the heartbreak, the joy and the pain of each character. You wiped away tears, you laughed at their silliness. This version lacked the extra heart and soul that would've made it the toast of its Singapore season. I'm sure that the papers have been raving about it as have I in an earlier post but still...sigh. Maybe I am jaded, but still - where is the oomph?! Being ranty and all, another thing that rankled was the lack of merchandise. Call me weird but I am one of those mad people who collects programs from every show that I've seen and the fact that this one lacks even a little program is a bit annoying.

Cast performance was a little lacking. Frankly, from the reviews of Karen Mok's past shows, I expected her to burst on stage and own her songs, but well. Not much luck there...she was better on the slower numbers though. My favorite character of the night was Angel. Sweet, affecting and totally believable. And let's not go down the Roger road...

Oh and did I forget to mention catty Singaporeans? While we bought more expensive tickets, Jean and I met up with a friend during intermission and we decided to switch seats. I was initially surprised that the theatre was not maxed out. So well, we did the evil thing...Abandoned our friends and moved closer. What happened next was pretty hilarious on hindsight. Two couples were seated in front of us and the local women, well, they went to complain! Amazingly enough, they bitched and moaned about the fact that we moved and went to complain to the ushers. I was just waiting for the guy to come tell me to move my ass and relish the moment in telling him to hold on we got the more expensive seats! and moved to the cheaper ones to be closer to the stage -honestly, Singaporeans can be such philistines sometimes. Last I heard, the bitchy twins were thinking of writing in to complain. Some people have absolutely no life. Ok, so final note on the musical? It's just ok and nothing much to rave about. First-timers will probably enjoy it a lot more than seasoned Rentheads.

Meanwhile, the movie version of the musical is taking it's own sweet time to come to our sunny island. Maybe the distributors are hesitant in bringing in the more superior version to the current musical but then again who won't be? The movie version contains most of the original cast (hello Jessie L Martin!) and will probably be the version that more people will flock to see. And I don't blame them. How can you compare? I almost went into spasms when I found out that they cast almost everyone from the original musical... . Well, don't just take the word of a Renthead...go check out the trailer!

And yes, no one can top Adam Pascal as Roger...be still my little heart! Mmmmmm...