Sunday January 1, 2006
Pouring out of Ida
JASON CHEAH meets a woman of many talents, stage personality Ida Mariana.
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“I’m a very normal, everyday person. I don’t exactly see myself as extremely interesting,” she says with a laugh.
Maybe it’s just the exuberance and enthusiasm that is apparent that makes her life interesting. But one wonders how she has enough energy to be that bubbly ? check out what she does:
She hosts Red 104.9’s weekday lunchtime show Living It Red (11am to 2pm) on Thursdays and Fridays as well as Coffee Shoppe – another weekday show that runs from 1pm to 4pm – once a week, she lectures on theatre studies twice a week, and, of course, she’s married with a home life to think about.
Just recently she had a 10-performance stint at the KL Performing Arts Centre in Encore, a revue-style production featuring music from Malaysian musicals.
For the moment, though, it’s the radio shows and her teaching that are keeping her busy.
Her stint at Red fm (which The Star operates) began last September, but it isn’t the first time Ida’s been on radio. Back in 2002, she had a year-long stint on the then Wow! FM.
What had she learnt from that experience and what did she bring to Living It Red and Coffee Shoppe?
“You eventually stop thinking who is out there,” she says in a recent interview. “I was very self-conscious when I started, but now I just go with the flow.”
The difference between now and her 2002 radio stint was that then she was co-hosting with two others.
“Here, I’m alone – it’s just you and the microphone. Back then we were bouncing off each other.
“Now, I’m more comfortable with the space. You need to enjoy yourself, while (of course) getting your facts right,” she adds.
Ida’s other current love is teaching theatre studies, which she did for two days a week at Sunway College’s School of Performing Arts and Media in Bandar Sunway, Selangor, before the present semester break. She will resume teaching in the next semester in March.
“When I went back on air in September (last year), I started teaching as well,” says the Classical Theatre lecturer.
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The versatile Ida Mariana in the stage productions Rhapsody of a Songbird and... |
Although Ida has been involved in theatre since 1998, she didn’t start out as an actress; the daughter of Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid and his late first wife Datin Yasmin Abdullah has a law degree and practised until that year.
“I quit law at the height of the Datuk Seri Anwar trial,” Ida says, referring to the case of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
“In hindsight, leaving law then might have been a rash decision but I was curious about what was out there for me. I could always go back, I wasn’t closing the door to legal practice (at the time).
“Right after quitting, I went for my first audition with (Actors Studio’s) Joe Hasham for the play Pouring Out of Me. Mergers and Accusations happened the same year (1998), and so did the musical A Slice of Saturday Night.
“I auditioned (for Pouring Out of Me) just for the fun of it. I didn’t really think I’d make it,” she laughs.
Other music and theatre productions she has been involved in include The Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral and Sunetra Swish Sings Sondheim in 2000, Puppets and The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree in 2001, and Rhapsody of a Songbird in 2002.
“So for a while I was doing theatre, then PR for three years while still doing performances, so I thought why not try out Theatre Studies for further education? I wanted to try something I liked (for a change).”
She duly quit her PR job and went to the University of New South Wales in Australia, spending close to two years studying for a Masters in Theatre Studies.
“Studying in your 30s is more enjoyable,” Ida claims. “You’re more confident as you know what you want. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it but I did.”
Ida returned to Malaysia in September 2004.
“The year just went by in a flash. When I came back my mother was very ill (with leukaemia; she died in March last year),” she says.
She had a one-month singing stint at The Piano Bar at the (now-defunct) 1919 Wine and Bistro Bar from the time she returned home to February last year – and she even found time to get married! Her husband, Carl, is an actuary (actuarial science specialist).
Ida certainly plans to keep herself just as busy as ever with her current activities.
Recently, she did a play reading with Lim How Ngean.
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...Sunetra Swish Sings Sondheim (with Suzan Manen and Radhi Khalid). |
“Teaching, radio and home life take up most of my time,” she says, although she won’t say no to going back to the stage if the right project comes along.
“I’m not one for doing one performance after another without a break. I need to retreat into the normal life of Ida,” she states.
“I treasure my personal life, which you do tend to neglect while in the midst of rehearsals and performances.
“Also, being a wife is a permanent job in its own right and it’s something I want to do well at, too,” she says, then bursts out laughing, still refusing to admit that she’s got a little bit of Superwoman in her?.
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