A Thumbs Up Musical Show

I remembered clearly about my interest in seeing the musical of Puteri Gunung Ledang in the esplanade, not too long ago. Indeed, I managed to achieve that last Friday, when I witness the first, Malaysian or rather, Malay Musical Show in the esplanade theater in Singapore.

The first thing you may wonder is that this show would probably be a failure as we never had a real good musical show for the Malay Industry. I was mistaken. I knew the Puteri Gunung Ledang show and I have always been a fan of the legendary Malay Warrior Hang Tuah since I was a child. You can definitely imagine, my enlarged concentration on the musical as I want to see whether the organizers had managed to transform it to a theatrical performance or not.

I am not a good commentor or a critic on the show itself but I will try my best in summarizing what I had observed last Friday during the musical. It all started with the Majapahit (ancient Javanese Kingdom in the current, Indonesian region) empire who have been weakened by the spread of Islam from the other states. Majapahit Kingdom is the only state with the influences of olden Hindu traditions of the past that was brought over by the ancient people from India. It's nation at that era, was one of the strongest nation in comparison with the Malaccan Sultanate (in the current Malaysian region) and other influencial states of Java who have chosen Islam as it's rightful religion through conquest by Prince Demak, (another legendary Prince in Java) at that century.

The Majapahit Ruler was pressured to call upon his best friend who is the Sultan of Malacca for further assistance against the penetration of Prince Demak's forces into his kingdom. Being a loyal friend to the Majapahit, Sultan Mahmud Shah, the sultan of Malacca, agreed to give him a helping hang by sending in Hang Tuah, his greatest admiral and warrior and his men to face Prince Demak for a truce, in hope that Prince Demak will avoid invading Majapahit. In conjunction to that, Sultan Mahmud, just want to marry the Princess of Majapahit, Princess Raden, the sister to the current Majapahit Ruler. Being forced to do something for his government, the Majapahit ruler agreed to his friend's wishes.

Evidently, Princess Raden, decided that it was not her best interest to marry the Sultan Of Malacca as she had fallen in love with Hang Tuah, when the Malaccan delegation visited Majapahit beforehand. She decided to threw off her position as Princess and become a commoner and travelled to Mount Ledang in Malacca to follow the oath that she made with Hang Tuah, in reuniting their forbidden love between them. Apparently, the love story was further dwindled in the demands of the Sultan Of Malacca. He instructed Hang Tuah himself, a loyal servant of his king, to personally meet the Majapahit Princess on the top of Mount Ledang where she is currently residing by herself, to ask for her hand on behalf of the Sultan himself.

Now, Hang Tuah is in confusion. He had to choose either the demands of his heart or his loyal obligations to his King and he made a mistake by choosing the latter. He visited the Princess and the princess was delighted at first, upon thinking that their forbidden love was reunited. To her dismay, she was only acknowledged by the Sultan's wishes which was personally given by Hang Tuah. Failing to understand why Hang Tuah had to do that in replacement of their love, she accepted it with 7 pre-conditions demands by which the last condition was to have a bowl of his current son's blood.

Of course, this was about to be fulfilled by the wicked Sultan of Malacca when the Princess Gunung Ledang, came into the palace and confronted the Sultan's on his estranged desires. She was actually giving him the signs of her refusal of the acceptance of the marriage. The Sultan was furious as he was belittled by a commoner. She was asked to leave the Malaccan empire but she requested to stay at the peak of Mount. Ledang and the Sultan agreed to let her reside there. However, he cursed her using his royal blood to the country, to be forbidden from going anywhere besides there and be completely invisible by sight by the naked eye from dusk to dawn. If she were to reveal herself to any humankind, the person's eye will bleed to death.

Her curse still lingers on till this very day. In the musical, Hang Tuah, who was in agony for making the mistake of abandoning his love for the princess, ran away and meet up with the Princess in Mount. Ledang who is currently waiting to meet him there. However, many historians said that Hang Tuah just vanished from sight ever since that day. His grave was never found.

This forbidden love legend was reinstated with colours, music and atmosphere of that era. It was perfectly done to unite the love between a Majapahit Princess and Hang Tuah, the Legendary Malay warrior. I was fascinated by the songs and the show's choreography that I realized that this musical is comparable to the broadway shows in New York. A truly remarkable display of the Malay Legend. Kudos to the team for a very extraordinary musical of the Puteri Gunung Ledang story. Thumbs Up!