May « 2007 « Don Khuth Chronicles

I have never been a big fan of live theatre before but just recently it has become an interest. I didn’t think that live theatre would be any better than watching the movie version but apparently, the live version is so much better. I got a chance to watch a performace of “The Phantom of the Opera” which was playing at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto. I told a few people that I was going to see it and everyone told me that it was good. Throughout the week, I looked forward to see it on stage. I saw the DVD version of it and thought that it was great. There were a few scenes that made me wonder how they were going to pull it off on stage because the effect looked difficult. The live performance didn’t let me down and I loved it!

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show in Broadway history. It is a musical based on the book by Gaston Leroux about a disfigured man who lives underneath the Opera Populaire in Paris.

The musical starts off at an auction where items from the old Opera house were being sold. Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, bids for a musical box that holds special memories for him. From there, it flashes back to twenty years earlier and the story is told of the events that occurred at the Opera house. It tells the story of the Phantom’s obsession with a young girl named Christine Daae. He has been helping Christine with her voice but Christine does not know that it is the Phantom that has been helping her. She believes that her father has sent an Angel of Music to help her out. Raoul and Christine are childhood friends and their feelings for each other start to grow. The Phantom knows about this and gets angry so he takes Christine to a secret under world hidden beneath the Opera house.

At first, the story line did not catch my attention. All I knew at the time was that the show was about a guy in a white mask. I didn’t see any fighting or action scenes so I thought nothing of it. But a while ago, my girlfriend sang a song to me which sounded really good. I asked her where it was from and she told me that it was from the Phantom of the Opera. I went on YouTube to find the music video for the song and saw that the movie actually looked interesting.

I watched the DVD version of the musical and was intrigue. Knowing that the movie can be performed on stage made me wonder how they were going to achieve the effects that the achieved in the movie. So when I went to Toronto to watch the musical live on stage, I had my eyes peeled for as much detail as I possibly could. I thought that it was going to be an easy task for me to do but it turned out that it was harder than I thought.

It was easy to pay attention to detail on the DVD version because the camera does all the focusing on the detailed parts but when you’re sitting on the balcony watching a live performance, there’s so much going on that you miss things. There was a part where the audience was laughing but I had no idea what they were laughing at. I glanced around the stage and saw that there was a fat guy trying to get on top of an elephant but he couldn’t mount it. There was so much going on that if you blinked, you’d probably miss something. I’ve never paid so much attention to a show before.

The way they start the show in the DVD version and in the staged version is great. In the DVD version, the scene is in black and white but slowly, we see a splash of colours being added as the theatre is being brought back to live. In the staged version, the chandelier is being lifted off the stage and stops above the audience. The cool thing about the live performance is the fact that the audience becomes part of the play. In the DVD version, there’s a scene where the chandelier falls and almost kills an audience. In the stages version, we see the chandelier falling towards the audience in the front row but it’s rigged so that it falls on the stage instead. That was a awesome seem to watch. I saw the people in the front row cover themselves.

Another scene that I thought was “phantasically” done was the scene of the underground. The Phantom takes Christine into his secret lair but in order to get there, they go down a dark pathway and across a foggy and eerie lake. That was the scene that I looked forward to in the live performance version. They way they create this scene was mesmerizing. The stage is completely dark but you see shadows of things moving. Then the light starts to get brighter and you see fog all over the stage. The Phantom and Christine appears in a boat that looks as if it’s floating on top a layer of foggy water. The Phantom is propelling the boat forward as candles start to appear and disappear into the fog.

The DVD version of the show was great but the live performance was way better. I got tickets for balcony seats that overlooked the stage. The view from there was perfect since I was able to see everything, including the orchestra. Ticket price are a bit high but the performance was well worth it to see in person. I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.

Let me start off by saying that I’m sorry for the lack of posts. My new job has taken up a lot of my time during the day. After I’m done with work, I just want to relax and spend some time with my girlfriend. I’m rarely on the computer outside of work. I spend the whole day working on computers that when I get home, I don’t want to touch the computer anymore. The only thing that I do on the computer at home is watch movies. Other than that, I hardly have an online life. My life is spent doing offline things. I feel like I’m getting a lot more done now that I’m away from the computer. Plus, the summer season is approaching and I don’t want to be slumped over the keyboard while the weather is nice.

The new job is great! I’ve done and learned so much in the past few weeks. My coworker told me that I was hired during the busy season. At first I didn’t believe him because things started out slow but now things are starting to pick up. And to make things harder on me, the coworker that has been training me went on vacation so I’m left to my own according. But from what I can see, he deserves a vacation. He’s always running around the plant and getting things fixed. He’ll be on vacation for a week so I’ll have to fend for myself.

I won’t be alone though. The other coworkers will be here and they’re all experts in their fields. I’m excited because one day, I’ll be an expert too. At the moment, I’m just a Junior I.T. Technician but a few years down the road I can call myself an expert. That means I’ll be going back to school and upgrading my education. I’m hoping to get a degree in Software Engineering and then going from there. I’m not sure of any programs that the company offers to help with keeping up-to-date but I’ve heard that they had one. If I play my cards right, I can take advantage of that and get far in life.

I told my girlfriend that once I get this job, I’d be set for life. I’m working for a big company and as long as I don’t screw up, I don’t have anything to worry about. It’s a high paying job with great benefits. I’m learning something new every day and I’m meeting new people around the site as well. I get to work on my communication skills by interaction with other employees in the other departments. Everyone here is nice and welcoming. It doesn’t feel like I’m the new guy. They’ve all made me feel like part of the time from day one.

My main responsibilities are to fix computers and deploy them. During my first few days, I had to prepare twenty laptops for existing users. The company leases computers and laptops from Dell and right around this time, those computers and laptops expire. So when the new shipment comes in, we have to get them ready and then swap them with the end of lease ones. I find the task very easy but there were some minor complications. Some of the employees, who have end of lease laptops, are not in the city so we have to wait for them to get back. Some of them aren’t scheduled to be back for a long time. That complicates things more because if they don’t get the laptops back before a certain date, their department will be charges for an extra month’s worth of leasing. Once it goes beyond that, it’s out of my hands.

The twenty end of lease laptops are the least of my worries because the July end of lease will keep me busy for a while. There’s supposed to be about one hundred fifty computers that need to be replaced before the end of July. That means I have to prepare one hundred fifty computers and deploy them. Each computer will have an LCD flat panel monitor to go along with it. To make matters worse, the end of lease computers aren’t all situated in the same location. This week, I’ve been replacing just the monitors on my floor which isn’t that big of a task. But in the weeks to come, I’ll be going all over the plant to deliver computers. That’s going to be a fun task.

Overall, I really love this job. It’s easy and the coworkers are great. Everyone here is so laid back. There are times when it seems like they’re stressed out but they’re fine the next day. I haven’t done anything to stress myself out yet. I’m just taking it easy and learning things as I go along. I haven’t forgotten about my site though. I’m on here whenever I get a chance. I try to write some things but something usually comes up and I never get a chance to finish it. For the time being, the frequency of blogs will slowly start to go up but I can’t guarantee anything as of yet.