Mr. Shi and His Lover proves seductive
Every couple has little secrets they keep from each other, but rarely is it a whopper of the magnitude explored in Mr. Shi and His Lover, the elegantly crafted work of music theatre that opened at the National Arts Centre on Thursday.
The production is based on the true, 1980s story of a French diplomat (Bernard Boursicot, played by Derek Kwan) based in China who began a relationship with a Peking Opera singer (Shi Pei Pu, played by Jordan Cheng) who performed as a woman, in accordance with Chinese opera tradition.
As the story goes, Boursicot believed he had fallen in love with a woman, and Shi nurtured that perception throughout their 20-year affair. Only after Boursicot was accused of espionage and the case went to court did he find out that Shi was actually a man.
Or did he? Although that’s how the tale played out in the headlines 30-plus years ago, the truth may not have been so clear cut, as we suspect in this retelling of the doomed romance, which was also famously explored in the 1988 Broadway hit, M. Butterfly.
Created by Macau Experimental Theatre with Production Company Music Picnic and Macau’s Point View Art Association, this rendition consists of seven, non-linear scenes on a stage outfitted with the bare essentials, including a rug, chair and Chinese robe, and flanked by two large instruments.
Musical director and co-producer Njo Kong Kie, the longserving musical director of La La La Human Steps, sits at a grand piano at one side of the stage, while percussionist Yukie Lai U Kei and a full-sized marimba occupy the other side.
The setup ensures the musicians are in plain view, framing the two actors, and serves to underscore the intimate connection between the music and dialogue, or rather, singing. Virtually all the lines are sung in Mandarin, with English surtitles projected overhead.
The first non-English play mounted by the NAC’s English theatre department, it’s a wordy piece and you have to pay attention (for 80 minutes straight, no intermission), but the translations are straightforward, not at all like the confusing Chinese translations sometimes found in fortune cookies.
As for the music, it’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of the production. A brilliant composer, Kie weaves together Western opera (Puccini, take a bow) with Chinese traditions, referencing both folk music and Chinese opera, and drawing on his own avant-garde sense of melody. It’s never overbearing and always perfectly suited to the drama unfolding on stage. The interplay between the piano, marimba and assorted gongs makes for a fascinating musical conversation.
The story is told mainly from the perspective of Mr. Shi, the opera singer, and Cheng owns the role, without, it’s important to note, dressing in drag.
While his singing voice is pure and strong, as it has to be, even more effective are his delicately executed mannerisms and sly demeanour, as if Shi knows he got away with the performance of a lifetime.
Indeed, one of the themes central to the play is the notion that “performance is life” to those who spend their careers on stage.
In Boursicot, Shi has a captive audience, but does Shi love him because he appears to have fallen for Shi’s performance, or is it true love, whatever that is?
Next to Cheng’s sensitive, gender-fluid portrayal, Kwan is the supposedly straight man, a hapless bureaucrat forced to question everything he knows about love, truth and identity.
Adding to the mystique is the masterful lighting design by Fung Kwok Kee Gabriel, plus the fact that both men are costumed in exquisitely cut suits, another minimalist detail that allows their acting to shine without distraction.