Hesitated getting tickets to 'FLUID'《水往上流》. Well, partly because it's in Mandarin. Even the English surtitles won't be too attractive because I dislike losing nuances in the script. Certain tones are lost in translation. The friends raved about it. I liked what I read in the reviews. Anyway, watching a Chinese play is more attractive than sitting through a xinyao (新谣) musical or concert.
Part of the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival 2014, 'FLUID'《水往上流》is written and directed by Liu Xiaoyi (刘晓义) of The Theatre Practice. The play asked, what is theatre? The blurb said the play "will challenge the notion of performance, theatrical space and the audience experience. In so doing, the performance attempts to examine “theatre”, in the theatre and experiment “stage”, on the stage." The stage was kept clean. There was a table, a vinyl player, a stark lone lamp, and a performer-host. In the far right corner, a gathering of plastic bags where a dancer moved silently. Those two worlds stayed apart till later, when they swopped and checked out each other's world.
We went back to basics. A storytelling via a voice over the radio or perhaps a recording. There was a vinyl player which I'm sure doesn't work that way. It was a good voice. Animated, dramatic and all. It told the story of a regular bloke, Lao Wang (老王), or old Wang. He worked a mundane job as a cashier and decided to sign up for a theatre workshop in the mountains where the teacher instructed the students to undress and strip in at least two lessons. Old Wang's experiences and thoughts would probably boil down to what everyone thinks, is this what art is about nowadays? Or what is theatre? What is art? There were 'technical faults' which were really cool. We don't see any of the characters in the story, but we imagine, and that's the beauty of this play. Every little detail was carefully crafted and worked into the story within a story.
The English surtitles were more than sufficient and competent. But I felt it funniest if we understood Mandarin. It isn't just about the tone. It's the usage of certain words that fail to translate to English that made a whole phrase hilarious. Also the image of a stern and unyielding fellow classmate nicknamed 'Priestess Mie Jue' (指峨眉掌门灭绝师太，《倚天屠龍記》) just doesn't convey the humor if you haven't read Louis Cha's (Jin Yong 金庸) sword-fighting novels. Not a need to know, but it's just...funnier.
Li Xie (李邪) and Lim Chin Huat (林 振发) were respectively the host and the dancer. Li Xie sang such a beautiful unaccompanied version of Hong Kong 50s and 60s star Yeh Feng's uhh...'Mystery Girl' (I dunno!), 葉楓的《神秘女郎》. The performers invited us to share the stage and suggested many definitions of art and theatre. Love the ending. Open-ended. The curtains were parted and the doors were thrown open. The audience faced the glass panels and the doors that they had entered from earlier. We became the watched.
What is theatre? As we merrily stomped through those plastic bags to the exit doors, the same ones the actors went out of, each formed our own conclusions.
Part of the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival 2014, 'FLUID'《水往上流》is written and directed by Liu Xiaoyi (刘晓义) of The Theatre Practice. The play asked, what is theatre? The blurb said the play "will challenge the notion of performance, theatrical space and the audience experience. In so doing, the performance attempts to examine “theatre”, in the theatre and experiment “stage”, on the stage." The stage was kept clean. There was a table, a vinyl player, a stark lone lamp, and a performer-host. In the far right corner, a gathering of plastic bags where a dancer moved silently. Those two worlds stayed apart till later, when they swopped and checked out each other's world.
We went back to basics. A storytelling via a voice over the radio or perhaps a recording. There was a vinyl player which I'm sure doesn't work that way. It was a good voice. Animated, dramatic and all. It told the story of a regular bloke, Lao Wang (老王), or old Wang. He worked a mundane job as a cashier and decided to sign up for a theatre workshop in the mountains where the teacher instructed the students to undress and strip in at least two lessons. Old Wang's experiences and thoughts would probably boil down to what everyone thinks, is this what art is about nowadays? Or what is theatre? What is art? There were 'technical faults' which were really cool. We don't see any of the characters in the story, but we imagine, and that's the beauty of this play. Every little detail was carefully crafted and worked into the story within a story.
The English surtitles were more than sufficient and competent. But I felt it funniest if we understood Mandarin. It isn't just about the tone. It's the usage of certain words that fail to translate to English that made a whole phrase hilarious. Also the image of a stern and unyielding fellow classmate nicknamed 'Priestess Mie Jue' (指峨眉掌门灭绝师太，《倚天屠龍記》) just doesn't convey the humor if you haven't read Louis Cha's (Jin Yong 金庸) sword-fighting novels. Not a need to know, but it's just...funnier.
Li Xie (李邪) and Lim Chin Huat (林 振发) were respectively the host and the dancer. Li Xie sang such a beautiful unaccompanied version of Hong Kong 50s and 60s star Yeh Feng's uhh...'Mystery Girl' (I dunno!), 葉楓的《神秘女郎》. The performers invited us to share the stage and suggested many definitions of art and theatre. Love the ending. Open-ended. The curtains were parted and the doors were thrown open. The audience faced the glass panels and the doors that they had entered from earlier. We became the watched.
What is theatre? As we merrily stomped through those plastic bags to the exit doors, the same ones the actors went out of, each formed our own conclusions.
2 comments:
I really enjoyed this. Heh, helps that the mandarin wasn't too cheem at all. ;)
bmuse
yes! such a surprise though. it's a play normally out of my comfort zone, but it seemed really interesting. So glad we went!
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