NPR: "In China, director Meng Jinghui is famous for testing theatrical boundaries. In one of his plays, a glass wall separates the audience from the actors. In another, the actors repeat the words 'I love' several thousand times. And a third play focuses on the obsessive love of a rhino keeper.
Now, Meng takes a stab at reinventing the musical. And true to form, it's no ordinary musical."
6 comments:
This article is great at showing this director I have never have heard of . I have never have heard of this type of directing style and the things that he dose and the sets that he has. The material in which he use is strange to like one of his peaces people just say love you a lot of times. I just find this director rill cool and I would go see some of his work . so I found this rill cool.
its always great to see what new innovative things directors are doing especially in terms of taking their work in different directions like Meng Jinghui, who has a lot of valuable messages his work is expressing like people's spiritual loss and obsession with material things, but in totally different ways. works of theatre always contain social commentary on the current times but its great to see the way that these works are executed in different countries by very atypical works such as Meng's
I'm really happy to hear about theater from around the globe. It only makes sense as Meng Jinghui says, that different cultures are going to have different issues and problems. In this case than different cultures should be telling completely different stories, and this should be celebrated. How boring would it be if every culture was playing Rent or the Lion King? At the same time i love musicals, and there's no reason that the Chinese should be solely limited to Chinese Opera or more traditional chinese forms. I think the blending of Western and Eastern theatre is a really fascinating and amazing experience. I really hope to one day be a part of such global theater.
Having been to China, and seeing a number of Chinese shows this one is completely different in every respect. It isnt structures, historical, chinese culture dominated and as the director says "isn't political". Although I question his statement about how the show lacks a political message it is clearly aimed at a certain group of people, and what they would do for fame and wealth. The story uses different methods to show meaning in society, and materialness of society, but not in a direct way but an indirect way. I would love to hear the music, or know what the orchestra is composed of. I wonder if it is the rock and roll that has started to dominate broadway now or the old school chinese music?
I think it's great that China is developing their own style of musicals and that it is a genre they want to add to their culture. Meng Jinghui is expanding his artistic purpose by taking something that is so western in it's history and making it useful and relevant to the Chinese culture.
Besides the story and content issues another large reason a traditional "American" type musical would not do well in a place like China is the need for so much translation of the story into another language. Often while taking away the original intent of the piece translation can also muddle a message and make it less accessible to a non-traditional theatrical audience.
I am really excited to see what this new interpretation of the musical will end up creating.
This article provides a great view of how art (and specifically theatre) varies from country to country and culture to culture. I think that his show sounds very interesting, and even though it is different from other shows, I believe the director's statement that it does not have a political statement. If you look at some more recent Broadway shows, like Rent or Wicked, it is possible to pick out a political message from the show, but that isn't necessarily the intent of the artist.
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