December 03, 2003
Peking Opera, and Bluegrass?

Last night I went to go see a play called Snow in June

I'm not too much of a conneseur of Beijing Opera, usually I'll pan it as unnecessary screeching that the communists should have done away with, but something about this intrigured me. I thought I'd go.

So in short it's a traditional Chinese tale, the lead actress is trained in the classical Chinese style. But most of the music is a mix of bluegrass, country. Yet the story seems like it was set in a large American city. There's a little bit of pretty standard musical in it. Throw in some choreography that seemed to be somewhere between a wushu exhibition, and the flag twirlers at a marching band exhibiton, not to mention 12 inches of fake snow.

A friend said it sounded a bit too overboard avant-garde for him. I think he's right. I did like the fact that the judge in the play had a fish tank. It reminded me of the performer who pulled goldfish out of his shirt sleaves at the teahouse in Bejing.

Maybe it's a bit racist too. I'm sure it's not as bad as I've heard Flower Drum Song was, but the whole idea of taking a traditional Chinese tale and telling it in a contemporary western style. And then characterizing the innocence, and goodness in the girl by having her using a very Non-western exotic easten style. Of course in the end she dies tragically unjustly. Well they couldn't have a Chinese fairy tale for the stage without at least some screeching. So although she manages to demonstrate that she's not at all interested in the evil men, she does get her vengence.

It can't be as bad as Riverdance, which ironically enough was playing in Beijing when I was there last and now is playing in Kuala Lumpur... goodness someone save us.

Maybe I should go see the balet one of these days. I could learn a thing about fluid motion across the stage.

Someone commented that on TV and film you can see every nuance of the actors faces, while in the theatre, you can't so there's more of a need for broad motions.

Posted by justin at December 03, 2003 12:00 PM
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