|
Les Miz is so magical in China
SHANGHAI — At the end of the first act, the magic took place.
Up until that point on Saturday evening, the opening performance of
Les Misérables at the Grand Theatre in Shanghai — performed in
English with Chinese surtitles — had gone well.
There had been laughter and applause, but nothing to indicate why
Cameron Mackintosh had laboured so mightily to make sure this show
became the first Western production of a musical to play in China.
And then it happened.
The first act of Les Misérables finishes with a big ensemble number
called "One Day More" where all the characters find themselves at
various crossroads. Prominently involved are a band of student
revolutionaries, and at a climactic moment in the song, the dynamic
Christopher Mark Peterson, as their leader Enjolras, began to wave a
huge red banner at the back of the stage.
All at once, a collective sound came from most of the 1,800 people
in the audience. A sudden intake of breath, followed by a long, slow
exhalation. For a split second, they thought it was the flag of
China up there, calling them to revolution.
Yet even though they were quick to realize that it wasn't, a link
had been forged between the Paris of 1832 and the Shanghai of 2002,
and the cast sailed into intermission on a deafening wave of
applause.
From then on, there was no turning back. Ma-Anne Dionisio broke
their hearts with the anthem "On My Own" and Colm Wilkinson's
prayerful rendition of "Bring Him Home" generated such a positive
reaction that it stopped the show cold.
But soon the past and the present became too perilously woven
together. The 13th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre had
just recently passed, and the famous barricades sequence where the
student revolutionaries are slaughtered in a hail of bullets was
received in hushed silence.
The release came a few minutes later, during the song "Empty Chairs
At Empty Tables" where Marius, the survivor, mourns his fallen
friends. Peter Lockyer delivered it with rare passion, knowing how
high the stakes were this evening:
"Here they talked of revolution
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came... "
As he sang that line, the woman behind me began sobbing. She wasn't
alone. Lockyer finally finished:
"Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more... "
There was just a spattering of applause from an audience too moved
to go through the conventional motions. But shortly thereafter, when
the show came to its emotionally wrenching conclusion with the
entire company joined together in "Can You Hear the People Sing?",
the people watching could contain themselves no longer. They stood,
they cheered, they clapped in time, they whistled, they wept.
Producer Mackintosh and authors Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel
Schonberg joined the cast on stage for a joyous curtain call that
went on and on.
Christopher Hum, the British ambassador whose career in China spans
more than 30 years, said, "I have never seen a reaction like this,
never," and Stewart Beck, the consul general for Canada, called
it "an extraordinary display from a Shanghai audience. Way above the
ordinary."
Not for the first time (and certainly not for the last) Mackintosh
has been the right man in the right place at the right time. He was
the producer behind Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest hits like Cats
and The Phantom Of The Opera, he led Boubil and Schonberg to
international acclaim with Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, and in
recent years he has been at the vanguard of the revisionist revival
movement with his enormously successful new evaluations of classics
like Carousel, My Fair Lady and Oklahoma! And now he's turned his
eyes to the East.
Mackintosh is not alone in wanting to make economic inroads in
China. Despite recent world uncertainty in the financial markets,
most countries (except Russia) have shown increased financial
activity with China (import as well as export) in this year's first
quarter.
Shanghai is anxious to position itself as "the Wall Street of
China," and in a recent interview, Liu Jinping, vice-director of the
Shanghai Foreign Investment Committee, predicted "huge development
over the next few years. Current figures indicate that the GDP in
Shanghai will reach $65 billion (U.S.) in 2005."
All over the city, luxury hotels are springing up, catering to
Western executives. The image that Shanghai wants to create is that
it is a sophisticated, exciting environment, friendly to European
and North American businesses.
At the centre of this lies the Grand Theatre. This stunning a
complex, containing three theatres and numerous restaurant and
banquet facilities, opened on People's Square in 1998.
Despite knowing great success with Chinese performances, Ye Zhikang,
president of the theatre, wanted something more: Les Misérables, to
be precise. He approached the United Kingdom's Department of Culture
with his request and succeeded rapidly.
Ironically, Mackintosh had been hoping to play Shanghai for years,
having visited as far back as 1992, but only when wheels started
moving on government levels did it move ahead.
"This opens one more window on the West," commented Zhikang.
By Richard Ouzounian
THEATRE CRITIC
|
