New production combines Shakespeare and Peking Opera

Alex Gomar (left) as Christopher Sly and Swati Simha as Queen Mab Photo: Courtesy of Alex Gomar

A group of international students from Shanghai Theatre Academy are staging their theatrical production Queen Mab by weaving excerpts from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into a narrative inspired by Chinese Kunqu Opera The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu, the ancient Chinese playwright often referred to as "the Shakespeare of the East."

Songs, speeches and movements from Peking Opera are blended with Shakespearean storytelling to contrast the aesthetics of Eastern and Western theatrical traditions. The project seeks to explore how different styles can be combined to bring out the best theatrical effects.

The play starts with a Peking Opera performance by a mysterious supernatural figure called Pan Guan (Wang Jiannan). A drunken expatriate named Christopher Sly (Alex Gomar) accidentally breaks in and ruins the performance. The infuriated Pan Guan calls for the help of fairy-like creature Queen Mab (Swati Simha) to disorient Sly by trapping him between dream and reality in revenge.

Sly falls in love with the beautiful Queen Mab, who has entered his dream and offers him everything he wants. He becomes so confused that he ends up mistaking another woman for Queen Mab and tries to force himself on her. On realizing what has happened, he is so under Queen Mab's control that he has to make a decision: stay in his dream, or return to reality?

Dream vs. reality

"Queen Mab is effortlessly menacing and unassumingly powerful," Simha said. "She has been employed to effect her magic on a man who has been insulting and unreasonable. She seduces him with the very art he insulted and provokes him to make choices that will fulfill her task."

Queen Mab is described in Romeo and Juliet as a scary miniature sprite who plants in her victims' heads objects they desire: lawyers dream of money, soldiers of slaughter, women of kisses and courtiers of flattering their lords. Similarly, in The Peony Pavilion, young maiden Du Liniang misses her dream lover Liu Mengmei so much that she falls ill. Therefore, Queen Mab, as an incarnation of dreams, plays a central role in relating the two masterpieces in the new production.

The theatrical project is built upon the tension between dream and reality. "The idea of chasing one's dreams as a cause of his demise seems to be a palpable link between the two plays, and it is the thread by which our production intends to link the two," Gomar said.

Verse and song

The artists use the contemporary style of Shakespearean performance based on theatrical realism to express the real world, while employing Peking Opera conventions based on a stylized expression to portray the dream world. "I think the most engaging part of our production is the striking contrast between these two different means of expression," Wang Jiannan said. "However, such experimentation is a big adventure, especially in the relatively conservative traditional theater in China, where making theatrical contrasts might invite severe criticism. This project provides a good opportunity to create in a comparatively open and free environment."

Fitting the English verse to the melodies of Peking Opera is exacting work, according to Wang, with rehearsals involving much discussion and improvisation. "We pooled wisdom from various sources like our teachers, friends and experts from the outside. It's been a very difficult six months of trial and error."

In the production, Gomar plays roles other than Sly, including laosheng (a middle-aged or old man) and xiaosheng (a young man), which is typical in Peking Opera, and quite different from his usual performances in Western plays.

According to Gomar, all this would have been impossible without Wang, who also served as their Peking Opera specialist. His more than 10 years of experience helped the performers retain the authentic qualities of Peking Opera. According to Wang, the consistency and flexibility of Shakespeare's iambic pentameter also fits nicely with the verse structure of Peking Opera tunes.

Intercultural communication

The performers agreed that participating in the project has itself been a lesson in intercultural communication. Each member comes from a different theatrical background, such as traditional British theater, classical Indian performance and Peking Opera.

The project started when Gomar and Simha, who were studying in an intercultural communication program, felt frustrated that many non-Chinese people did not understand or would refuse to try to understand Chinese opera.

"They stood back, mocked it and ridiculed it. The main reason for this, we saw, was the linguistic barrier between art and audience," Gomar said. "We wanted to find ways to break down that barrier because we really like Chinese opera."

They went further than merely removing language obstacles, and discovered that the two forms can complement each other in a new synthesis.

While borrowing elements from different traditions, the new piece is neither a Peking Opera production or a Shakespearean work, but rather draws on the similarities and contrasts of the two, and stands somewhere in between.

"In some way, we use the most beautiful things in both the English and Chinese traditions to express ourselves, but our main effort is to create a performance enjoyable and understandable to both Chinese and non-Chinese audiences," said Gomar.

The play is being staged at Shanghai Theatre Academy U1 Space (630 Huashan Road) from 7:15 pm to 7:55 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday for free, and at the Pearl (471 Zhapu Road) from 8 pm to 8:40 pm on Thursday for 100 yuan ($16) per person, and 50 yuan per student. For bookings and inquiries, e-mail to east.west.info@gmail.com or visit http://www.eastwesttheatre.com/.