The Pilgrimage of the Heart by Simon Wu based on a story by Eileen Zhang at The Etcetera Theatre, Camden.

Review by Cornelia

Published on WriteWords & Dim Sum (15 June 2008)

Shakespeare constantly asked his audience to supplement his words with their imagination in order to cram a universe into his ‘Wooden O’; the tiny stage of the Etcetera Theatre and Simon Wu’s adaptation of Eileen Zhang’s short story demonstrates the art of bringing a complete city into a room.

The strength of this play, as with Chekhov’s theatrical masterpieces, is in combining an intimate family drama with a haunting sense of time and place –in this case 1940’s Shanghai. The writer who believed that ‘history is found entirely in trivial things’ reminds us that personal destinies are inextricably bound up with larger political and economic events.

Best known as the author of the book on which Ang Lee based his film Lust, Caution (Si,Jie) (2007), Eileen Chang reiterates the themes of destructive desire and romantic betrayal. That she manages it in a drama lasting just over an hour seems like a minor miracle.

A note of impending doom is struck at the start of the play with a voice-over of Greta Garbo as the suicidal Anna Karenina saying goodbye to her lover. Returning to their apartment after a celebratory cinema visit for the twentieth birthday of daughter Lin, Mr and Mrs Xu exist in a marriage from which the sparkle died long ago. From their flirtatious manner as they tease the mother, Mei Fong, calling her ‘a half-drowned geisha’, father and daughter might almost be lovers.

The idea of forbidden love in the sinful city is constantly associated with the seductive daughter Lin, whether she’s inviting her father Fengyi to join her in an impromptu dance or asking him to free the zip of her skin tight blouse she’s worn because it’s his favourite shade of blue. Recalling their stroll along the Bund he remembers the romantic mix of ‘Shanghai, the sky and you’.

When Lin refuses to be sent to visit to an aunt in distant Szechuan, so that her parents can revisit their honeymoon destination, the audience wonder along with Mei Fong, the mother, how long Fengyi will hold out against temptation.

The deceptively simple set with its few items of furniture and opulently-patterned wallpaper is subsumed into the city when the walls are backlit by a starry sky, complementing Fengyi’s descriptions of Shanghai’s neon-lit attractions.

In Shan Ng’s well-directed adaptation chief acting plaudits must go to mournful-eyed Singaporean Tina Chiang as the mother living in her beautiful daughters’ shadow. Talented Vera Chok as the self-willed daughter has a contrasting breeziness occasionally at odds with her vampish role, and a too-posh accent that sometimes strays from Nanjing Road in the direction of Knightsbridge.

Much the most challenging role is that of the angst-driven patriarch torn between duty and desire. Jamie Zubairi strikes the right note of indecision but is handicapped by his youthful appearance. Despite this he keeps the audience guessing as to whether he will fall for his daughter’s flattery, rekindle romance among the temples of Puduo Mountain with Mei Fong or simply lose himself in his work. Lin may successfully ruin the holiday plan but unless he comes home occasionally her scheming is pointless.

The prospect of Lin joining an anti-government demonstration promises retribution for the wayward girl, but a surprising twist and bitter ending follow a surprise discovery. Like all great denouements, it is not only completely convincing, but one that is signalled earlier by a forgotten but important clue.

The Etcetera Theatre, and its fifty-seat auditorium may more resemble a black box than Shakespeare’s ‘Wooden O’, but this production will leave audiences begging for more of Eileen Zhang’s mesmerising dramas.

The Pilgrimage of the Heart plays until June 22nd at the Etcetera Theatre, The Oxford Arms, 265 Camden High Street, London NW1 7BU (near Camden Town tube)

OIKOS – THE LONDON MAGAZINE

Edward Lukes reviews a new salvaged stage and what appears on it 

by Edward Lukes   Aug 31 2010

The Oikos Project sees a new temporary theatre, The Jellyfish, erected in Union Street, Southwark. Exciting enough - but this creature really has to be seen to be believed. Under the auspices of The Architecture Foundation, Berlin-based team Kobberling and Kaltwasser have used only reclaimed and recycled materials. As the pop-up phenomena becomes more commercialised, this project takes a stand - it was built by local volunteers and school children. Just gazing at this surreal, strangely beautiful thing is an unmissable experience, learning about the ideas behind it a humbling one.

The building itself seems destined to overshadow whatever play it stages. And that's a shame, since Oikos the play (the first of two productions scheduled) has plenty to offer. Appropriately it concerns climate change. Neil d'Souza convincingly portrays a successful city trader who, having escaped natural disaster as a child in India, now sees his home in Chiswick flooded and his personal life awash with problems. Dido Miles puts in a great performance as his wife, adrift in her new surroundings and claiming their wealth hasn't made them happy. Their daughter, played by Amy Dawson, also has issues. Spoilt rotten, she seems trapped in an extended adolescence that is suitably irritating.

Director Topher Campbell and writer Simon Wu have problems that are not of their own making. Climate change quite rightly concerns us all but, with similar issues being addressed down the road at the National Theatre, comparisons are inevitable. These are not necessarily to this play's detriment. Oikos is tightly constructed, with fascinating mystic undertones and the idea that our lives need a new kind of balance is intelligently presented. The problem is one of audience fatigue.

Serious environmental threats cannot be doubted - both play and project succeed in their aim of making us think.

Until 18 September 2010

China Voices, a double bill of new plays at Tara Studio, London, 25 and 26 July 2008 written by Rosaline Ting and Simon Wu, directed by Jonathan Man

By Sharmini Brookes

I have little relationship with the British Chinese community. I have no Chinese friends and the only Chinese people I meet are at the local takeaway, restaurant or nail salon where the communication is usually minimal. Words and phrases are fired out in short, sharp Chinglish which comes out sounding impolite. On the TV or the big screen they are either doing martial arts, or if they appear in mainstream dramas and films they tend to be American.

I was pleasantly surprised to have my narrow view expanded by a double bill of new plays written, directed and acted in English by an all Chinese production team. There weren’t many people waiting to see the play in the Tara Studio’s small refreshment area, but what I found interesting was that the Chinese people who had turned up were all speaking to each other in English and not Chinese, and after a while their Chinese-ness melted away and I began to recognise the sort of personalities I meet amongst my usual friends and acquaintances.

There was the group of three excitedly gossipy student women – two of them giving a slightly more reverential hearing to the very pretty one in the middle who looked like a model. A short, young man trendily attired and with a stylish haircut was the camp assistant director of one of the plays gushing with well-earned self-importance. I recognised David Tse, actor, writer and director with Yellow Earth who I had seen only the other day on the BBC talking about the arts in relation to the Chinese community, and bemoaning the fact that Chinese roles are often stereotyped and actors are not given the chance to play mainstream roles.

The first play at the performance, written by Simon Wu, is called Wolf in the House. It is set in a stormy night in Hong Kong. A university professor called Kai, played by David Tse, who has been travelling on the Star Ferry, invites back to his smart flat a young man from mainland China called Ming, played by Stephen Hoo. The blurb tells us it is the night of the ‘Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, and all is not what it seems’.

David Tse is delicately-built and fine-boned and plays the part of the soft-spoken, polite and anxious professor well. He is cast against Stephen Hoo’s Ming, who is tall, athletically-well built and rougher in manner. The whole play is set in Kai’s flat with the noise of the storm outside creating the sort of claustrophobic and tense atmosphere that one finds in a Tennessee Williams play. In fact Simon Wu confirmed this influence in the question and answer session afterwards, as well as those of Harold Pinter, Greek drama and films like Brief Encounter.

Is Ming the ghost of Kai’s dead lover? Homosexuality is illegal in Hong Kong and that knowledge adds to the tense relationship between the two men as they circle around one another, touchingly intimate at one point and jumping apart in violent anger at another. Wu tells us that the play is written and played in English and he has refrained from using any Chinese words or phrases as he does not want to break the illusion that they are in fact both speaking Cantonese. [Review on Rosaline’s play deleted]