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Mr Harold Tan( RI, 1976)
Ms Gloria Lewis( RI, 1976)
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student-directed performance to a national crowd comprised of youths from various schools. Instead of the yearly Shakespearean play in RI, the Raffles Players, together with some choir members, staged a musical adapted from one of the greatest Victorian classics, Great Expectations.
To write the musical, the Players combined two centuries worth of entertainment— a 19th century bildungsroman novel focusing on the moral character of society with adaptations of 20th Century love pop songs( most of the lyrics were changed to suit the scene). The cast also borrowed the idea of a Greek chorus, with a 29-member strong choir singing the adapted pop songs that formed the narrative backbone of the musical.
They even introduced new characters not found in the novel— the Wanton Sisters— who provided much hilarity, glamour and an Asian context to a quintessentially English text. The resultant musical was uniquely Rafflesian, and held much appeal, particularly with Literature students.
As Harold had let on earlier, staging the musical was no
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mean feat. Gloria Lewis( RI, 1976), who resides in Perth, Australia and who is also an amateur watercolour painter and a beauty therapist with her own business, recalls dividing her time between softball, Raffles Players and academics. In the period leading up to the national tournaments, her days would start at seven in the morning in the school field( at the Grange Road campus) to train for softball. After running laps and practising her throws, she would head for assembly and then diligently bury her head into her books before rushing off to Great Expectations rehearsal in the afternoon. In the evening, when the sun was not too hot, she would continue her softball practice.‘ It was quite funny sometimes. I would be playing in the field at around 4 pm and I could hear the Players practising the songs at the music room next to the field. Often enough I had wished I could be at both places at the same time!’
Gloria, who was a recipient of the Colours award( an award given to students who excelled in academics and sports) for her dedication to softball, admits that her grades suffered
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Rafflesian Times
17
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