Never a company to shy away from challenging themes and plot lines, Seattle Children’s Theatre proved their mettle yet again with two recent productions—British playwright, Charles Way’s Sleeping Beauty with new music by Chad Henry and a new production, the world premiere of The Devil and Daniel Webster by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Robert Schenkkan. Both plays tackled themes that some might consider dark but both were striking in their approach and both held their audience’s attention throughout.
In SCT’s production of Sleeping Beauty, directed by Artistic Associate Rita Giomi, Charles Way has written an adaptation that is Spartan in its cast size focusing on the characters and relationships in the small fairytale kingdom. In his version of this classic tale, the young Briar Rose is head strong with a free spirit that, at first glass, doesn’t seem to need saving. The Prince, on the other hand, seems a bit feckless and in need of saving himself. But this adaptation focuses on the blooming relationship of these two characters. The plot line is similar to many others with the antagonist role filled by the snubbed and jealous evil sorceress Modron who decides to cast a spell on the unsuspecting King and Queen’s new child. The good sorceress counters this magical curse with her spell sending all in the kingdom to sleep once Briar Rose pricks her finger on that fateful birthday on the needle of a spinning wheel.
With only seven actors in the ensemble, Charles Way’s adaptation is swift and to the point. Only a handful of the characters do any doubling with the most entertaining being the two actors who double as the wood sprites in Act II when Prince Owain sets out to solve a series of tasks to reach the palace and save Briar Rose. The King of the Spiders—a large spider puppet combined with a speaking actor, was terribly impressive and garnered many gasps of awe from the full house of children and families. The rest of the design was, as always incredibly inspiring and imaginative. The design by long-time collaborator Carey Wong who teaches at The University of Washington evoked a large woven medieval tapestry with walls of leaves and vines hinting at the rose briars that will figure into the story later on. Three vertical panels of the same design served as trees that would reveal the infant who would become Briar Rose and through the use of miniature scaled palace shadow images would evoke the progress of the growing rose briars invoked by the evil Mordron.
One of the most stunning surprises of the design was an inner “stage-within-a-stage,” that created the christening chamber, and the room where Briar Rose would be laid as she falls into the deep enchanted sleep. This interior stone chamber was framed by a beautiful gilt frame. The whole unit could track upstage and downstage and was designed with forced perspective. There were several beautiful images created through the staging that bore a striking resemblance to the beautiful jewel toned paintings from the medieval period.
I was curious though to see how the new music and songs written by Chad Henry would work within the pre-existing script. Charles Way, I’m assuming, signed off on the music and lyrics, but I was less than impressed on their impact to the script which I was familiar with in the original version. Most of the songs did not propel the story or action and only served to slow down the momentum. There was a song about “having and wanting,” appropriate themes as they are, I felt the song to be a bit childish and, at times a trifle pedantic. The “dance off” with the woodland faeries was very entertaining and made me wonder how it would have played elsewhere. At first the music seemed to have a very strong Celtic feel, but as the play progressed, the music became more reminiscent of Rogers & Hammerstein.
The dialect work was weak and seems to be a challenge for most actors in this city. Many plays this season at other theatres involved plays with dialects (mostly British) and most, if not all, were weak efforts.
The end battle between Mordron and Prince Owain was, however, very dramatic and made up for any lack of tension or slow plot movement. With only fifteen seconds left for the spell to be broken, the sword fight kept many of the children seated around me on the edge of their seats. The victory of Prince Owain elicited a very enthusiastic applause from the audience.
On a side note, Seattle Children’s Theatre, like many of the major theatres geared for young people, provides a cry room for families that bring children who get restless or have difficulty keeping quiet. At the top of each performance, the House Manager makes an announcement regarding the usual—cell phones, pagers, running times, exits, and the availability of the cry room. However, at intermission, the House Manager made another announcement resulting from a crying child who didn’t get shuffled off to the cry room during Act I. I had to wonder if it was the Stage Manager or the actors that called for the additional announcement. It was welcomed nonetheless.
Seattle Children’s Theatre’s next production really plumbed the depths of dark themes in Robert Schenkkan’s serious adaptation of The Devil and Daniel Webster penned in the 1930’s by Stephen Vincent Benet. As the audience entered the theatre, the stage picture was dark and atmospheric with bold shadows of twisted tree branches that fell over a cluster of gravestones that anchored the far downstage left and right areas of the playing space. The main playing area was a large sweeping raked trapezoidal platform that diminished as it moved upstage to a dark and brooding sky. The whole design was inspired by the old hand tinted wood block prints from the
A desperate farmer, in an effort to marry his sweetheart and appease her skinflint father, makes a pact with the Devil. When his deal comes due at the end of six years, the farmer pleads with the Devil to release him from his bargain claiming that he has indeed fulfilled his end of the bargain. The Devil, old Scratch himself, feels otherwise. He denies Jabez Stone, the young man, any sort of reprieve. The young man approaches Daniel Webster, a noted lawyer to help him figure out a way to free his soul from the pact he has made with the Devil. Daniel Webster manipulates old Scratch into agreeing to have a trial whereby Webster will defend Jabez Stone.
The Second Act begins with Jabez Stone, his young wife Abigail, and Daniel Webster sitting in their home waiting for the clock to strike midnight. Again, a dramatic setting utilizing the previous Act’s raked floor with the addition of a door and towering upstage interior wall with fireplace, large mantel and ominous mantle clock. As the hour strikes, the door knocks and Scratch appears. He conjures a jury of his peers, which in this trial means one comprised of infamous villains from the past and the future including such luminaries as Lizzie Borden, Benedict Arnold, Al Capone, John Wilkes Booth, a member of the Klu Klux Klan and Blackbeard the Pirate. The playwright, Schenckkan has taken some liberties with this episode in the story, but it plays relatively well. The jury appears through a scrim above the fireplace painted to look like the interior wall of the house until there is a dramatic lighting change revealing the combination of actors and puppets. The use of puppets was predicated, I’m sure about cast size, but it works relatively well and carries through with the earlier use of puppets in several moments from Act I. The Second Act transpires as Webster and Scratch bandy lengthy arguments regarding themes of slavery, the value of a soul, the virtue in forgiveness and the strength and value in love and compassion. Ultimately Daniel Webster wins the trial with old Scratch leaving nursing his own pride, and the young couple living a long and prosperous life.
I think this production was effective and suitable for the target audience of junior high school children and some younger during the performance I witnessed. The shorter but much wordier Second Act lacked the energy and dynamic rapid staging of the Second Act so attentions began to waiver. But at the moment of Webster’s triumph, there was actually a collective breath of release from the audience which signaled the audience’s connection despite the shifting and shuffling.
The performance featured the ubiquitous Question & Answer session that follows all the SCT productions for middle elementary aged children and older. The actors lead the Q&A with questions posed to the audience which is really the best way to handle these sessions. I was struck by the answers to the question, “What is this play to us? Why do it?” The answers offered were varied but two children answered with, “Responsibility,” and “Civil Liberties.” The story has a power and resonance that can not be denied. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece and hope that it has a life beyond the premiere here at SCT.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Cathay: 3 Tales of China
Cathay: 3 Tales of China
Conceived, Written and Directed by Ping Chong
Made in Collaboration with the Shaanxi Folk Art Theatre of Xian, China
I recently had an auspicious opportunity to see Ping Chong’s latest theatrical cultural exploration in his new piece Cathay: 3 Tales of China that premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre September 10 – October 9, 2005. In the Rep’s more intimate Leo K. Theatre this piece did not suffer from the misfortunes of guest productions forced to play in larger barn theatres that diminish the artistic power of an evening of theatre filled not only with subtlety of story, but the delicate and intricate puppetry art that has become a signature of Ping Chong’s New York based company.
Cathay: 3 Tales of China is just that, three tales exploring the cultural dynamics of an ever-changing China. The piece was conceived by Ping Chong after several visits to Xi’an (pronounced Shi-ang), a city that was once the most populace in the world. The city’s dynamic evolution is a testament to the resilience of the Chinese culture and one that Chong respects deeply. His curiosity of this evolution makes up the backbone of the spirit of his new piece which he explores through the use of traditional Asian puppetry arts including rod puppets and shadow puppetry combined with his usual infusion of contemporary technology of robotic lighting and digital imagery.
As the audience entered the small, approximately 200 seat theatre, the setting onstage consisted of a very clean, contemporary interior with painted marble floor, a small seating area center stage comprised of clean contemporary ottoman/benches, two small raised areas left and right of center, and a back wall that consisted of a large timbered grid with panels measuring approximately four feet by six feet. The whole wall comprised twenty of these panels with the large timbers dividing them. The center panel contained a digital video projection of the title of the performance that was animated to give the illusion of silk billowing gently in a breeze. The whole setting visible at the top of the show inclusive of the full wall was only around eight feet from the edge of the stage. The audience conversations ranged from the curious as to how the puppets would figure into this setting to those who really had no idea what the play would entail.
The framing devise used by Ping Chong for his three tales were two ten foot tall terracotta Chinese dragon/sphinxes that tracked in onto the low platforms left and right.
The conceit of these framing characters—because each of these dragons came to life with glowing eyes and large elephantine ears that would raise and lower along with movable head and articulated jaws—was a matter of expansive time. What I mean by this was that each of the stories told by Chong’s company was prefaced by a quick repartee between the dragons that would help place each story along a linear timeline. These terracotta dragons would have been similar to the ones found in ancient burial chambers unearthed in 1974 by farmers. What they found was an ancient site containing 8000 terra-cotta soldiers, horses and other attendants for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
The first tale, taken from the pages of classic Chinese literature is entitled “The Lady and the Emperor.” In this story set in imperial China, a young woman has won the heart of the Emperor. She becomes the primary consort for him, but is seen as a threat by the armies of the Emperor. Their relationship, a beautiful testament to true love and star-crossed fate, sets the wheels in motion for the third story’s key plot line.
The first story is told through the use of beautiful rod puppets manipulated by the company comprised of members of the Shaanxi Folk Art Theatre and members of the Seattle based Carter Family Puppet Theatre. What was so striking and imaginative was the cinematic way in which each of the scenes was played out. For each vignette, a different panel of the large wall would open either up or down revealing a four by six, or sometime larger, playing area. The cinematic quality would allow the scale of the puppets used to change from one scene to the next from large oversized heads only, to diminutive settings where a large number of smaller scaled figures would play exterior scenes or large group scenes. The effect was as if the camera would pull back for a long shot or come in for close-up shots allowing the audience to experience the whole performance like a film. One of the cleverest scenes was when the Emperor’s consort was visiting with her servant girl while sitting at her dressing table. The audience viewed this scene from above, as if the lens were directly above the puppets and table looking down onto the scene. The use of foreshortened puppet torsos and forced perspective (along with an amazing use of a little Shitzu dog puppet) garnered a collective gasp of astonishment and wonder from its audience.
The second story, further along the timeline, centered on a small child “Little Worm” and his family just prior and following the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. Here the technique shifted to an amazing variation of shadow puppetry where the puppets were not completely opaque like traditional shadow puppets, but made with semi-translucent plastic that cast a tinted image with painted detail onto the projection screen. Here, as in several other moments, the use of digital projected imagery was combined with the puppetry to create a highly cinematic fluid style. Little Worm wonders what will happen if the Japanese invade and is forced to run away during a Japanese air raid. This sequence is another testament to Ping Chong’s vision as the shadow characters are juxtaposed with digital images of squadrons of bombers flying over the Chinese countryside combining angle and visual perspective for the audience. Little Worm, separated from his family and community, is forced to flee on foot to safer locations. A Japanese soldier corners him. During the pivotal moment, the Japanese soldier fires his rifle leaving the audience to wonder the fate of the little boy.
The final story once again opens with our two dragons, but this time, they awaken to the sound of rocks falling and a brief glimmer of light from the outside world. We now see a digital image of the word “New”—the title of the last piece. We hear a soundscape of a hotel lobby and as the panels begin to open to reveal this story’s characters, we immediately realize we have now caught up with today. We are introduced to a brusque, obnoxious American businessman and his wife. We then glimpse an older gentleman who arrives at the hotel for a clandestine meeting with another older gentleman that we find out is Japanese. Interspersed with the vignettes are moments of sly commentary as a Chinese Rap artist MC Tang raps about modern Chinese culture.
This last vignette brings the two older characters together as we learn they are Little Worm and the Japanese soldier who tried to kill him in a poignant commentary on reconciliation. One of the younger male characters we meet in this section also comes to realize that the beautiful female hotel registration clerk is undeniably someone that he knows or perhaps met in a previous life. Ping Chong not only cleverly uses the device of the terracotta dragons as bookends to the story, but threads all three together with the trope of reincarnation that poetically brings the two star-crossed lovers from the first story—the Lady and the Emperor—together with the discovery of the male and female ingénues in this last story.
The play ends with a whimsical change of scale and perspective as the lights come up to reveal the setting visible at the top of the show with the addition of the two terracotta statues onstage. We are now in the hotel lobby. The puppeteers then make a couple of passes in costume with large puppet head/masks covering their own representing several of the characters from the last story. The commentary is filled with irony and humor, and leaves the audience with a sense of questioning the possibilities of our own lives and our own culture.
The evening proved moving and filled with wonderful moments of stylistic beauty. The only major detriment to the production was in the first story where we are given a scene between the Lady and the Emperor in their bed chamber when the two finally consummate their love. It was humorous in a very uncomfortable way and brought back images of the vulgar and base puppet sex-scene in the film Team America. All of the voices in the entire evening were pre-recorded—and to hear these two voices give an interpretation of breathless love, really brought the whole audience out of the moment. I began to wonder how this production would play to younger audience members since the last stop for the production would be the New Victory Theatre in New York City, a venue dedicated to theatre for young audiences. The moment mentioned above was so jarring and without merit, I fear that the rest of the story in section one would be lost to the twittering and whispers of a younger crowd.
The beauty in this completely theatrical event, was witnessing the artistry of the puppeteers from both cultures working in collaboration. Such an extraordinary cultural collaboration does not happen that often and it is to the credit of the Kennedy Center for commissioning the piece. Perhaps this is evidence to a growing awareness and appreciation for the puppetry arts beyond the Muppets or citizens of Avenue Q to a more refined and ancient art form that is given such exquisite expression in Ping Chong’s Cathay: 3 Tales of China.
Director Ping Chong's latest work, Cathay: 3 Tales of China received its world premiere September 10 - October 9, 2005 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, then continued on to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. as part of The Festival of China then to the New Victory Theatre, New York City. Photo © 2005 Seattle Repertory Theatre.
Conceived, Written and Directed by Ping Chong
Made in Collaboration with the Shaanxi Folk Art Theatre of Xian, China
I recently had an auspicious opportunity to see Ping Chong’s latest theatrical cultural exploration in his new piece Cathay: 3 Tales of China that premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre September 10 – October 9, 2005. In the Rep’s more intimate Leo K. Theatre this piece did not suffer from the misfortunes of guest productions forced to play in larger barn theatres that diminish the artistic power of an evening of theatre filled not only with subtlety of story, but the delicate and intricate puppetry art that has become a signature of Ping Chong’s New York based company.
Cathay: 3 Tales of China is just that, three tales exploring the cultural dynamics of an ever-changing China. The piece was conceived by Ping Chong after several visits to Xi’an (pronounced Shi-ang), a city that was once the most populace in the world. The city’s dynamic evolution is a testament to the resilience of the Chinese culture and one that Chong respects deeply. His curiosity of this evolution makes up the backbone of the spirit of his new piece which he explores through the use of traditional Asian puppetry arts including rod puppets and shadow puppetry combined with his usual infusion of contemporary technology of robotic lighting and digital imagery.
As the audience entered the small, approximately 200 seat theatre, the setting onstage consisted of a very clean, contemporary interior with painted marble floor, a small seating area center stage comprised of clean contemporary ottoman/benches, two small raised areas left and right of center, and a back wall that consisted of a large timbered grid with panels measuring approximately four feet by six feet. The whole wall comprised twenty of these panels with the large timbers dividing them. The center panel contained a digital video projection of the title of the performance that was animated to give the illusion of silk billowing gently in a breeze. The whole setting visible at the top of the show inclusive of the full wall was only around eight feet from the edge of the stage. The audience conversations ranged from the curious as to how the puppets would figure into this setting to those who really had no idea what the play would entail.
The framing devise used by Ping Chong for his three tales were two ten foot tall terracotta Chinese dragon/sphinxes that tracked in onto the low platforms left and right.
The conceit of these framing characters—because each of these dragons came to life with glowing eyes and large elephantine ears that would raise and lower along with movable head and articulated jaws—was a matter of expansive time. What I mean by this was that each of the stories told by Chong’s company was prefaced by a quick repartee between the dragons that would help place each story along a linear timeline. These terracotta dragons would have been similar to the ones found in ancient burial chambers unearthed in 1974 by farmers. What they found was an ancient site containing 8000 terra-cotta soldiers, horses and other attendants for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
The first tale, taken from the pages of classic Chinese literature is entitled “The Lady and the Emperor.” In this story set in imperial China, a young woman has won the heart of the Emperor. She becomes the primary consort for him, but is seen as a threat by the armies of the Emperor. Their relationship, a beautiful testament to true love and star-crossed fate, sets the wheels in motion for the third story’s key plot line.
The first story is told through the use of beautiful rod puppets manipulated by the company comprised of members of the Shaanxi Folk Art Theatre and members of the Seattle based Carter Family Puppet Theatre. What was so striking and imaginative was the cinematic way in which each of the scenes was played out. For each vignette, a different panel of the large wall would open either up or down revealing a four by six, or sometime larger, playing area. The cinematic quality would allow the scale of the puppets used to change from one scene to the next from large oversized heads only, to diminutive settings where a large number of smaller scaled figures would play exterior scenes or large group scenes. The effect was as if the camera would pull back for a long shot or come in for close-up shots allowing the audience to experience the whole performance like a film. One of the cleverest scenes was when the Emperor’s consort was visiting with her servant girl while sitting at her dressing table. The audience viewed this scene from above, as if the lens were directly above the puppets and table looking down onto the scene. The use of foreshortened puppet torsos and forced perspective (along with an amazing use of a little Shitzu dog puppet) garnered a collective gasp of astonishment and wonder from its audience.
The second story, further along the timeline, centered on a small child “Little Worm” and his family just prior and following the Japanese occupation of China during World War II. Here the technique shifted to an amazing variation of shadow puppetry where the puppets were not completely opaque like traditional shadow puppets, but made with semi-translucent plastic that cast a tinted image with painted detail onto the projection screen. Here, as in several other moments, the use of digital projected imagery was combined with the puppetry to create a highly cinematic fluid style. Little Worm wonders what will happen if the Japanese invade and is forced to run away during a Japanese air raid. This sequence is another testament to Ping Chong’s vision as the shadow characters are juxtaposed with digital images of squadrons of bombers flying over the Chinese countryside combining angle and visual perspective for the audience. Little Worm, separated from his family and community, is forced to flee on foot to safer locations. A Japanese soldier corners him. During the pivotal moment, the Japanese soldier fires his rifle leaving the audience to wonder the fate of the little boy.
The final story once again opens with our two dragons, but this time, they awaken to the sound of rocks falling and a brief glimmer of light from the outside world. We now see a digital image of the word “New”—the title of the last piece. We hear a soundscape of a hotel lobby and as the panels begin to open to reveal this story’s characters, we immediately realize we have now caught up with today. We are introduced to a brusque, obnoxious American businessman and his wife. We then glimpse an older gentleman who arrives at the hotel for a clandestine meeting with another older gentleman that we find out is Japanese. Interspersed with the vignettes are moments of sly commentary as a Chinese Rap artist MC Tang raps about modern Chinese culture.
This last vignette brings the two older characters together as we learn they are Little Worm and the Japanese soldier who tried to kill him in a poignant commentary on reconciliation. One of the younger male characters we meet in this section also comes to realize that the beautiful female hotel registration clerk is undeniably someone that he knows or perhaps met in a previous life. Ping Chong not only cleverly uses the device of the terracotta dragons as bookends to the story, but threads all three together with the trope of reincarnation that poetically brings the two star-crossed lovers from the first story—the Lady and the Emperor—together with the discovery of the male and female ingénues in this last story.
The play ends with a whimsical change of scale and perspective as the lights come up to reveal the setting visible at the top of the show with the addition of the two terracotta statues onstage. We are now in the hotel lobby. The puppeteers then make a couple of passes in costume with large puppet head/masks covering their own representing several of the characters from the last story. The commentary is filled with irony and humor, and leaves the audience with a sense of questioning the possibilities of our own lives and our own culture.
The evening proved moving and filled with wonderful moments of stylistic beauty. The only major detriment to the production was in the first story where we are given a scene between the Lady and the Emperor in their bed chamber when the two finally consummate their love. It was humorous in a very uncomfortable way and brought back images of the vulgar and base puppet sex-scene in the film Team America. All of the voices in the entire evening were pre-recorded—and to hear these two voices give an interpretation of breathless love, really brought the whole audience out of the moment. I began to wonder how this production would play to younger audience members since the last stop for the production would be the New Victory Theatre in New York City, a venue dedicated to theatre for young audiences. The moment mentioned above was so jarring and without merit, I fear that the rest of the story in section one would be lost to the twittering and whispers of a younger crowd.
The beauty in this completely theatrical event, was witnessing the artistry of the puppeteers from both cultures working in collaboration. Such an extraordinary cultural collaboration does not happen that often and it is to the credit of the Kennedy Center for commissioning the piece. Perhaps this is evidence to a growing awareness and appreciation for the puppetry arts beyond the Muppets or citizens of Avenue Q to a more refined and ancient art form that is given such exquisite expression in Ping Chong’s Cathay: 3 Tales of China.
Director Ping Chong's latest work, Cathay: 3 Tales of China received its world premiere September 10 - October 9, 2005 at Seattle Repertory Theatre, then continued on to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. as part of The Festival of China then to the New Victory Theatre, New York City. Photo © 2005 Seattle Repertory Theatre.
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