Broadway Beng! 3

This evening, I went to a musical, Broadway Beng! 3 at the Drama Centre, inside National Library. The main lead, Mr Ah Beng is none other than Sebastian Tan.

A lot of the jokes, songs, humorous slap-sticks are mostly in the universal language of the Bengz, Hokkien. Being a Cantonese Pedigree, I can only understand like 90% of the play. It would have been better if subtitles are provided for the hokkien jokes and dialogues.

Sebastian Tan is rather good at engaging the audience and getting them to dive into his musical performance. I applaud him for his stage effort. On the matters of the his CB (Chio Bu), though very tongue-in-cheek funny, it is a degrading Beng's joke. It can only be funny if you take it with a pinch of salt. As a feminist, I'm having a little bit of a hard time dealing with any derogative behaviours and words towards female. Then again, that's just me.

Overall, the musical wasn't as entertaining as I imagine it to be. There are a couple of interesting jokes about Mas Selamat, Maria (the Original Maid) in the Sound of Music, her Chio Bu (in She works hard for her money) and more. This musical is very much palatable to the Singapore local audience.

Personally, I do not think I will be going to another Beng's production. I do enjoy what Selena Tan has produced so far and her productions in Dream Academy. But Broadway Beng just isn't my cup of tea tonight. I can't help feeling a slight disappointment when I'm expected a good laugh.