[Review] The Taste of Water

The Taste of Water poster from TimeOut Malaysia

“It’s like trying to explain the taste of water. You know how it’s like and I know how it’s like but why can’t we just say it to each other? This is the thesis statement of the play,” explains Wong. – From The Taste of Water happening at KLPac

And that is pretty much the Taste of Water in a nutshell. This play follows a year in the life of new college students Janet and Lily Tan in Monash U, Sunway (no, they are not sisters or related to each other). There’s the independence thing of living away from family for the first time, of dealing with religion, with friends and family…

But where Taste of Water really excels is in showing how messy living is. Like really messy. From love to school life, to dealing with family. There were so many things that could have gone wrong in this play, but everyone pulled it off wonderfully. The entire production team elevated what was a good script to a masterpiece of Malaysian theatre.

Here, have a podcast about it, but listen especially to the second half. This is what theatre in Malaysia should be.

TL;DR final rating is 11/10. 4 to good writing, 4 to epic acting that brought the entire thing to an incredibly high level, 2 to set, and another star all on its own to the music, which is just crazy beautiful.

Go watch it. Get your tickets here (there’s discounts on certain days).