I am writing some reviews of performances which I have attended here on the blog and transferring them to my written journal. This journal is one of the assignments I have to complete while in Beijing.
Woman, Woman.
The play revolves round the lives and struggles of the modern woman. There were six actresses portraying the different roles in the play. The medium allowed the writer to explore and expound on some of the current issues faced by women. Some of these issues are not considered to be controversial in the USA or other western countries, but they remain taboos or rarely discussed subjects here. The issues raised include weight loss, adultery, prostitution, lesbianism, career vs husband or family, unrequited love, gender inequality and tensions in the workplace, and reality vs. fiction. The set was rather simple, a pedestrian crosswalk and traftic lights, a raised platform and some chairs. The play unfolds with a news broadcast that an elephant has escaped from a zoo. Whatever the outcome, someone had first placed the animal in a cage. The play had many scenes, each one with a slightly different format: fairy tale story telling, Chinese opera, talk show, game show, street scene, office scene, shopping etc. At the end of the play, the women associate themselves with this elephant, a willing prisoner in a zoo which perhaps has escaped or imagined it has escaped.
Since I attended this play in the beginning of the semester, my comprehension of the play was limited. I would love to attend this play again at this point when my aural skills are much better. The actresses tried to interact with the audience but I felt the audience members were rather hesitant in general. For the talk show and game show, they ran out and high-fived the audience. They also noticed our AL gang by the side and proceed to sing "Beijing Welcomes You" to us. That drew some laughter from the audience. At a point, they interviewed the audience as to whether a woman should be married. The people they asked were caught off guard and gave tentative answers. Some stereotypes were used for the team who were in favor of marriage. Korean women are stereotyped to be soft spoken and good wives. To some extent, male bashing occured but I don't think it was overboard.
One particularly disturbing or mind rattling scene was about a normal woman but is repeatedly told a lie. She is attempting to cross the street but is constantly stopped by others. They tell her the light is green when it is red & vice versa. As each person passes her by, they increase the volume they use to speak to her. By the last person, she is utterly confused and thinks she is deaf or color blind. I think the writer is trying to communicate that one would be convinced something is the truth if this lie was repeated long and loud enough. That brings us to the post-modernist question "What is truth?". I digress.
Journey to the West
I attended this modern play of a famous Chinese epic at the Experimental Theatre. The play was supposed to be Journey to the West from a feminist's point of view. I am not fully familiar with the story of Journey to the West although I have read Wu Cheng'en's novel "Monkey". I know the main characters of the tale but the story is intricate with many mythical characters and sub-plots. I wanted to go to the play without refreshing myself on the story-line and characters to see whether I would be able to understand the play based on my Chinese comprehension.
I was greeted with a cloud of cigarette smoke as I walked into the theatre. It was free seating and so we quickly found seats in the middle section. We were handed some postcard flyers for today's show and the upcoming events. I was surprised that the program was a 2008 calendar. Don't you think it is rather late to be handing out a 2008 calendar at the end of November? I think so. As I walked past the stage, there was an incense burner on the front. Many seats were reserved for VIPs, so tonight must have been the premier of the play.
The play began with a bang.. if you could call Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 1st mvt a rousing start. The actress comes out in coat and tails, with a conductor's baton and mimes. She cuts the orchestra (the audience) off and says to the violin section that they keep missing a note - C. She sings the scale "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti" and leaves out C. I hum it because I cannot stand unresolved cadences. Then the middle section gets lectured about rhythm and she reminds them to say the word "you" as in swimming. The poor cellos are reminded to remember .. "ji". With this she also gives a short introduction about Wu Cheng'en's play .. "Si you ji". The audience here gladly participated with her in this little exercise.
There were five acts to the play. Even though I understood the play a lot more than the first play I went to, I could not figure out the point or a plot to the play. The play only involved one actress and there were no other persons on stage. There were costume changes and she was mainly playing a man's role. There was a lot of mimickry as to what a man should be like. There was also the use of previously recorded video portraying the journey of the monkey.
Even in a play, the USA and Japan are not spared. In one of the videos, the character was at Donghuamen Food Street at(Wangfujing) and she pays the candied fruit seller. She is given a US dollar as change, she spits in it and stamps on it. I thought this was rather offensive and our group gives a collective gasp. There are many levels in which this could be interpreted. There was a point in the play where she speaks a phrase of Japanese which means "get out of the way". The last scene the script calls for English and Mandarin with a fake foreign accent which was merely just a monotone. Most of it was incomprehensible, neither English nor Chinese. Again this could be taken as a subtle insult to foreigners.
At the end of the play, I was left confused as to what the writer's point was. The fact that it was a solo play made it more difficult to understand. I appreciate the fact that it was very hard work for her to be on stage for 1 1/2 hours by herself. I am not sure whether the rest of the people in the audience understood her effort. I just know she must be exhausted. She only had two bows and then the people started leaving. I don't think that was sufficient acknowledgement for a solo act but we were all tired by then.
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