London's benevolent Chinese invasion
Prepare for a Chinese revolution. Three productions by east Asian theatre companies have opened this month in London. And though they are more usually off-West End than on it, there may be bigger things on the way.
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"I do think we're about to reach a boom time," says David Tse, founder and artistic director of Yellow Earth, whose production of The Nightingale has been touring the country. "There's so much interest in south-east Asia."
The comedienne Anna Chen, whose solo show Taikonaut! How to Save The World, Part One ran this week at Battersea Arts Centre, agrees. "People want to be engaged," she says.
And in south London Ben Yeoh's Yellow Gentlemenis the first original play with an all-British Chinese cast and crew.
All three productions figure in the mayor's "China in London" campaign, and their coincidence represents a landmark. The story of east Asian theatre in the UK is short and not always happy. "The interest of that group in theatre has only recently emerged, compared to the British black minorities," says Yeoh, who is also on the board of the black theatre company Talawa. Yellow Gentlemen is his first play to tackle issues of east Asian immigration, with a central character who, like his own father, came to Britain in the 1950s and pursued a university education. "I've always seen myself as mainstream," he says. "Probably my harder challenge is engaging with this other community."
The first fledgling companies of east Asian practitioners established themselves in the late 1980s but both British Chinese Theatre and Mu-Lan, set up by Tse's friend and colleague Glen Goei, have since folded. Goei has returned to Singapore where he has found fame. "He and others struggled because it was much harder to break into the arts here than they realised," says Tse. "But it was different for me. I'm British, so I had an investment in developing the work in this country."
Language and culture have been barriers. "People coming over from east Asia don't tend to engage with theatre. It's a problem for immigrants, full stop," says Yeoh, who points out that even traditional performance forms can be inaccessible. "Beijing Opera is still done but it's rarefied, and quite hard to comprehend in its own language." Equally, "not a lot of people know what it's like inside a Chinese community. To some degree we are one of the most isolated and insular."
Family expectations, too, have played a part. "The emphasis in the community is to become a stockbroker, an accountant or a doctor. Becoming an actor or a director would be a 'black sheep' move, although that is also changing," says Yeoh, who is himself a pharmaceutical analyst by day. David Tse took a law degree before re-training as an actor: "Our grandparents came over and worked in catering; there's always been a pressure there to become professionals."
Tse founded Yellow Earth in 1995 as a direct response to political incidents in east Asia. The intention then was to give a theatrical voice to the voiceless. Now, he says, the aims are to encourage and develop east Asian theatre both for east Asian actors and directors and for a new, young audience.
"We have suffered from an invisibility in the mainstream," he explains. "The black and south Asian populations are pretty well represented now, but you turn on television and see scarcely any Chinese faces. Look at Coronation Street, look at EastEnders." He points to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books as an example of how easily that can be corrected. "Just by introducing Cho Chang as a love interest - one mainstream mention like that can effect a huge change overnight."
The other problem is that without a body of work to stage, there has been little to tempt east Asians into a theatrical career. Anna Chen wanted to be an actress as a teenager. "But when I was growing up, all I could have been was the evil sister in Fu Manchuor Suzy Wong, the Hong Kong hooker with a heart of gold." Though things are changing, she still wishes there were more British Chinese in comedy. When her satire about stereotypes of east Asian women, Suzy Wrong - Human Cannon, became a hit at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994, she was the only British Chinese woman in stand-up. "That was really scary. But comedy is about mastering cultural codes. I'm hoping we'll reach a critical mass and it will become normal."
Unfortunately, says Yeoh, "there are not enough plays dealing with things from an east Asian perspective." And "when you do write a play and try to put it on, you find there aren't that many people who can play it. The central character in Yellow Gentlemen is a Chinese man of around 70. There's no one of that age who can play the part."
Chen's shows play mostly to white faces, although she is hoping things will change. Yeoh believes that second-generation British east Asians are an untapped market, and is staging a special schools matinee: "My producer rang round a few schools and the tickets were immediately taken up. They hadn't been asked to anything like that before."
Yellow Earth, whose work "incorporates eastern traditions and influences", has had great success with mixed audiences. "We have black, white, east Asian, old, young, disabled," says Tse. "We're tackling universal themes, reflected through our own experience."
Funding organisations are becoming more aware of east Asian theatre, although Yeoh is uncertain how helpful the Arts Council's forthcoming report into minority ethnic theatre will be. "The questions they asked theatre practitioners were so vague . . . I'm not sure of the quality of the data," he says. "The first step is to ask audiences and communities what they'd like. Then we need to come up with ideas and projects that will engage with that."
Yellow Earth already benefits from Arts Council funding. Programmes such as the annual Typhoon season of staged readings bring together east Asian actors, writers and directors. "It's exciting to be in a room with people who look like you but have accents from everywhere," says Chen.
But they want cross-fertilisation, not an artistic ghetto, and Tse's greatest hope is to see his company go out of business. "In 10, maybe 20 years, the ultimate aim is that Yellow Earth would not exist. We're only here because we have to be."
'The Nightingale', Polka Theatre, London, until March 11, tel 0208 543 4888. 'Yellow Gentlemen', Oval House Theatre, London, until February 25, tel 0207 582 7680
华人戏剧在伦敦开演
准备迎接华人的革命吧。东亚剧团的三部作品本月已在伦敦拉开序幕。尽管演出更多是在伦敦西区以外，但影响更大的演出可能正在到来。
进入繁荣期
“我确实认为，我们就快进入繁荣期了，”黄土地剧团 (Yellow Earth)创始人兼艺术总监谢家声 (David Tse)说，“人们对东南亚的兴趣非常大。”谢先生执导的安徒生童话作品《夜莺》 (The Nightingale)正在英国巡演。
女喜剧演员安娜?陈(Anna Chen)对此有同感。 “人们想参与其中，”她说。她的单人剧《太空人！如何拯救世界，第一部》(Taikonaut! How to Save The World, Part One)本周在巴特西艺术中心(Battersea Arts Centre)上演。
而在伦敦南部，本?叶 (Ben Yeoh)的《黄种绅士》(Yellow Gentlemen)是第一部全部由英籍华人担任演职人员的原创剧。
所有三部作品都被纳入了伦敦市长的“伦敦中国年”(China in London)活动中，它们的同时上演是一个里程碑。东亚戏剧在英国的发展时间不长，而且并非一帆风顺。 “与英国黑人少数族群相比，对族群戏剧的兴趣是最近才出现的，”叶先生说，他也是黑人剧团塔拉瓦(Talawa)的董事会成员。《黄种绅士》是他第一部探讨东亚移民问题的戏剧，剧中主角和叶先生的父亲一样，50年代来到英国，并念了大学。“我一直把自己视为主流，”他说，“我更大的挑战也许是与这个另类族群打交道。”
80年代末，东亚戏剧从业人员成立了首批稚嫩的剧团，谢家声的好友兼同事魏铭耀(Glen Goei)创办的英国华人剧团(British Chinese Theatre)和木兰剧团(Mu-Lan)此后都关门歇业了。魏铭耀回到了新加坡，在那里出了名。“他和其他人都苦苦挣扎，因为在这里打入艺术界比他们想象的难得多，”谢说，“但我不一样，我是英国人，所以我在这个国家进行了投资，用于开发作品。”
语言和文化都是障碍
语言和文化都是障碍。“从东亚来的人往往不太想干戏剧。这是移民的问题，就这么回事，” 叶先生表示。他指出，甚至传统表演形式也可能会难以被人理解。“京剧还在演，但曲高和寡，而且很难去用它自己的语言理解。”同样，“没多少人知道华裔族群里是什么样子，在某种程度上，我们是最孤立和与世隔绝的族群之一。”
家庭期望也有一定影响。 “华裔族群侧重于成为股票经纪人、会计师或医生。成为演员或导演则是一种‘败家子’行为，尽管这种观念也在改变，”叶先生表示，他在白天的正式职业是药物分析师。谢家声在重新培训成为演员之前拿了法律学位。“我们的祖父母来这里从事餐饮业，成为专业人员的压力总是存在。”
谢先生于1995年创办了黄土地剧团，作为对东亚政治事件的直接回应。当时的目的是在舞台上为无发言权的群体说话。他说，现在的目标是鼓励与发展东亚戏剧，既是鼓励东亚的演员与导演，也是吸引新一代年轻观众。
“在主流文化中，很难见到我们的身影，我们因此深受困扰。” 他解释说，“目前，黑人和南亚人群都得到了很好的体现，但打开电视却几乎见不到任何中国人的面孔。看看《加冕街》(Coronation Street)，再看看《东伦敦人》(Eastenders) 吧。”他以J?K?罗琳(J K Rowling)的《哈利?波特》(Harry Potter)作品为例，说明了这种情况可以多么简单地得到纠正。“只要在影片中让哈利?波特对中国女孩张秋 (Cho Chang)产生好感，像这样在主流文化中被提及一次，就能在一夜之间产生巨大改变。”
另一个问题是，没有大量作品上演，很难吸引东亚的演员把戏剧当作事业。安娜 ? 陈十几岁时曾想成为演员。“但我在成长过程中，所能演的只有像《Fu Manchuor Suzy Wong》里的邪恶姐姐，这个戏是讲拥有金子般心灵的香港妓女的故事。虽然情况在改变，她仍希望在喜剧中能出现更多的华裔英国人。当她关于对东亚妇女刻板印象的讽刺作品―― Suzy Wrong
