Acrobatics Macrocosm (The SOB Review) - Chaoyang Theatre, Beijing, China*** (out of ****)What's that old joke about how filling Chinese food is?
Well, I found that consuming Chinese theatre can have a startlingly similar effect. Sure you enjoy the taste during the thoroughly entertaining performance at the time, but just wait 30 minutes and you realize you're not completely sated.
While in Beijing on the very same evening as the Tony Awards (only Beijing is exactly 12 hours ahead of New York, so the time was actually 7:15 am EDT), I wanted to take in some
real Chinese theatre. However, since most of the selections from which to choose were traditional
Beijing Opera, kung fu or some variation on acrobatics, I decided to go with the show I saw advertised in the English language
China Daily after it was endorsed by the concierge at my hotel.
At approximately $50 per top ticket (Western prices for the mostly Western audience), I found myself close to the front row for the Chaoyang Theatre's enthralling
Acrobatics Macrocosm. This was not your garden variety
Cirque du Soleil-style spectacle. Instead, it was more reminiscent of watching old school Chinese acrobats on "
The Ed Sullivan Show," all against a scenic backdrop with the capital's Forbidden City.
One minute, you're watching the "
Lion Dance" (pictured) where four acrobats dressed in two lion suits are balancing on a giant ball that rocks to and fro on a teeter-totter.
Then there's the multitude of plate spinners who manage to keep their fine China rotating precariously even while somersaulting.
Next, you're amazed not only as a plethora of young male gymnasts are catapulting each other in a virtual human juggling act, but you're struck by how incredibly young they look (my guess is that some were no more than 10 years of age).
The finale featured the mesmerizing "
Bicycle Skills" (pictured): a regular bike resplendent with -- by my count -- more than a dozen female acrobats fanned out as it circled around the stage.
And you just can't help but simply marvel at the so-grotesque-they're-glorious contortionists, who lay face down and stretch their legs over so their feet touch their heads. In perhaps their most repulsive, yet captivating displays, the four lithe females mount a tree-like apparatus with four branches, each with a phallic-looking appendage at the end. In rapid succession the four performers mount each of those appendages via only their mouths and flip their bodies backward. It's simultaneously stunning and creepy. Audibly gasping, I found my own jaw deep in my lap.
While I vigorously applauded the performers for giving it their all physically, it was hard to detect much heart in the performance on the rather joyless looking faces, particularly as many were quite literally going through the motions. But what astounding motions they were.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:New York Has Broadway, China Has Er Ren Zhuan (June 16, 2007)
Labels: Acrobatics Macrocosm, Beijing, Beijing Opera, Chaoyang Theatre, China, Theatre
New York Has Broadway, China Has Er Ren ZhuanA week ago today, as I was flying within China from beautiful
Nanjing to big, bustling
Beijing while reading my gratis edition of
China Daily,
a revealing column by Raymond Zhou caught my eye.
In his opinion piece, carried on the English language newspaper's editorial page, Zhou talked about the rise in popularity within northeast China of the two-person show or
er ren zhuan, which blends standup comedy, singing and acrobatics. Zhou proclaimed this theatrical art form was becoming "as
de rigueur as a Broadway show is to a traveler to New York," even as it was trying to elude the strong arm of the state.
I don't know which surprised me more -- the fact that a popular form of entertainment was flourishing beyond the tentacles of the Chinese government, or that Zhou -- without government censor -- was able to so eloquently pinpoint and cite that as being one of the major contributors to its success.
Just two weeks ago marked the
18th anniversary of the Tianamen Square massacre of several hundred civilians at the hands of their own government, which sought to quell a seven-week old protest by students demanding democratic reform. This certainly was not lost on me as I strolled through the massive square just this past Sunday evening, ironically, just after attending a state-sanctioned run of Beijing Chaoyang Theater's
Acrobatics Macrocosm. The show was inescapably entertaining, yet hardly memorable. Or, to quote Zhou, "Truth be told, it is not devoid of artistic merit. It is just detached from the needs of ordinary people, including the high-brow ones."
Today's China is vastly different from the one I first visited back in 1989 -- just a month after the massacre. In Beijing, entire neighborhoods or "
hutongs" have given way to bright, shining -- make that gleaming -- architecture containing popular Western hotels, eateries, coffee houses and high-end shopping...just in time for next year's
Olympic Games. Save for the
Forbidden City and sacred sites like it around China's capital, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in just about any other go-go capitalist Western metropolis.
Yet the ultimate authority of the state is one that remains absolute, and as Zhou's column so concisely reveals, popular entertainment is one facet of daily life the Chinese government still seeks to control:
Some officials have the mistaken notion that arts and entertainment are all about prettily decked-out singers warbling praises of the latest official slogans that are in fad. They present squeaky-clean images and simulated joys. Like postcard sceneries, they are better to be marveled at than embraced with your heart.
If the official entertainment is like the powdered face of an aristocrat, grassroots entertainment is like the sweaty face of a young man toiling in the field. It may be gritty, but full of vitality and closer to life as we know it. The Northeastern comedy draws much of its gags from daily life. Unfortunately, the show I caught has already been "purified" due to censorship pressure.
Contrast that to American theatre. Whether on Broadway or in the far reaches of regional theatre, live theatre has consistently served as an unrelenting bulwark in the defense of free speech, particularly when it freely challenges our government.
I recall seeing
Tim Robbins'
Embedded at
The Public Theater back in 2003 and thinking whether one agreed with its message or not, this is what democracy and freedom of speech are all about. Did that work challenge people to think, or rethink the war in Iraq? Without a doubt. Did it undermine our government? Absolutely not.
While the Chinese have made great strides toward economic freedoms, it's my profound hope that the Chinese will one-day enjoy
all the same freedoms of the West, particularly the freedom of speech and expression -- without a doubt, the proliferation of
er ren zhuan aspires toward that same dream.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Acrobatics Macrocosm, Beijing, Broadway, China, Embedded, er ren zhuan, Freedom Of Speech, Off-Broadway, Tim Robbins, Travels
