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The English version of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land Wholesale Vegas Golden Knights Jerseys , part of the current season of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, attempts to prove that a story of love, loss and longing can transcend cultural and historical barriers. Katy Bentz China Daily
Do US audiences get Chinese jokes? Do they have to read a 1,600-year-old Chinese classic novel and learn about the Chinese Civil War (1945-49) to fully grasp the nuances of a Chinese play?


It turns out that in the right hands, a story of love, loss and longing can transcend layers of historical and cultural complexities. Stan Lai's Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land Wholesale Winnipeg Jets Jerseys , the most performed and arguably best-loved contemporary Chinese play, recently opened in a regional theater in the United States, wowing audiences with its magical blend of tragedy and farce.


The English version, translated and directed by the master himself, premiered at Angus Bowmer Theater in Oregon on April 15, and will have a cumulative run of 75 performances through Oct 31. That sets it apart from other Chinese plays that tour the US for a handful of shows Wholesale Washington Capitals Jerseys , serving more as a showcase of cultural exchanges rather than as a sustainable run in a mainstream theater.


The production is part of the current season of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which received a grant of $125,000 from the Oregon Community Foundation "to test new ideas". "For a theater with Shakespeare at its very core, presenting great texts from around the globe represents a logical and profound extension of our mission," says OSF artistic director Bill Rauch.


Rauch says he has been trying to "expand our audience's sense of the classical canon to include classics from many parts of the world, not only Europe and the US Wholesale Vancouver Canucks Jerseys ," and that he was both enchanted and intrigued to read Secret Love and was eager to share it with audiences.


Lai is confident that many of his plays have the potential to resonate with overseas theatergoers. Other than Secret Love, The Village might be a "surprisingly easy crossover, despite the seemingly topical subject matter," he says. And despite the obvious challenges in length and stage configuration, A Dream Like a Dream perhaps has the greatest possibilities, he adds.

Stan Lai works with the cast at the rehearsal of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land. Photo provided to China Daily

Like Ang Lee Wholesale Toronto Maple Leafs Jerseys , Lai embodies the perfect synthesis of the East and the West, simultaneously immersed in both cultures and creating works that are Chinese to the core yet possessing "legs to travel across the globe", to borrow a Hollywood term. For the US production of Secret Love, Lai sets the story in the Bowmer Theater where the play is performed, but retains the context of the two plays within the play.


He added many lines to inform the local audience of what happened in China in 1949, a requirement to understand the "secret love" part of the story. The notion of "peach blossom land" is eerily reminiscent of Utopia or Shangri-La and it didn't seem to matter if nobody in the audience ever heard of Tao Yuanming. Local media reported that the opening show was attended by many Asians Wholesale Tampa Bay Lightning Jerseys , but none of them appeared to catch the humor easily.


Some of the comedy still worked, Lai reveals, but he had to adapt or delete other parts from the script.


Reviewer Angela Decker wrote in the Mail Tribune that Lai "peppers it with Ashland in-jokes, and simultaneously embraces and pokes fun at the festival's commitment to multiracial casting. For the most part, the play translates extremely well..."


This is what Rauch liked about the play and Lai's direction in the first place, "that it is set in whatever theater it was being produced". Changes are made to "have the play make sense in an American context" Wholesale St. Louis Blues Jerseys , which includes OSF's multiracial cast that includes five Asian-American actors. "It's been beautiful to watch Stan find ways to make the play clearer to an American audience, ... but also making sure that he didn't compromise the integrity of his story. He's done it in a very artful way."


Regarding the cultural balance in presenting a foreign work, Rauch says he wants the audience to "feel the differences in our cultures in as many ways as possible, but ultimately to be moved by our shared humanity." On his part, Lai brought in a Peking Opera specialist to train actors as percussionists, so as to make a lot of "noises". He made many directorial choices that push the play to new modes of expression Wholesale San Jose Sharks Jerseys , earlier untried in China, he says.


Lai is surprised by how easy some things are to get through and how hard others are. He feels that the reason this play clicks with a US audience is the same reason it rings true in China today－29 years after its inception.


As Roberta Kent wrote in Ashland Daily Tidings, the play "is sophisticated storytelling whatever its original language or particular storytelling technique. Lai makes the intricacies of Chinese comic opera as accessible as the Marx Brothers or The Three Stooges. Lai's cultural mash-up works on multiple levels. Some of the play's elements seem a bit strange at first but broad physical comedy and stories of heart-wrenching loss are universal".


Decker called it "entertaining, even goofily funny at times", and "also a thoughtful, layered work that explores the anguish of people separated from their loved ones Wholesale Pittsburgh Penguins Jerseys , the weight of a violent history and the way such emotional pain colors every aspect of life".


Building on its success, OSF plans to present two more plays that require more Asian-American actors next season－a new Vietnamese-American play, and an Asian version of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, in which half of it will be set in dynastic China and the other half in the Old American West, says Rauch.


Meanwhile, the classic Chinese production with Huang Lei and He Jiong in principal roles is revived every year and sold out for most shows. A new production featuring mo