Word: cabaret
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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NETHER A HONGKONGgirlie show on its way to New York or a cultural embassy from the PRC, Chinese Cabaret is the latest brain child of peripatetic director Paul Warner '84 and his musical cohort Peter Melnick '80 Taking 10 Bronze Age Chinese poems and one by William Blake-all scored in Melnick-musical-Warner has created a musical exorcism of doomed love...
Good music alone, however, cannot carry a show. And despite a healthy cast, Chinese Cabaret is still in intensive care...
...football you need a program to tell which players are doing what, but in the theater, most of the information should be accessible in the work itself. But because of the poems' complexity, this does not work for Chinese Cabaret. The imagery of the poems added to the blocking does not equal the total meaning of the piece. Like one of those cubist paintings that is discernable only if you read the title, the work is incomprehensible without the handy notes which explains the context of each song. Warner's intent is too ambitious for his means, though correcting this...
Warner admits that Chinese Cabaret is very much a work in progress: "I've changed it drastically three times, always trying to hone in on the heart of it. First it was a one woman show about her fantasizing through the Chinese poems. I...changed the blocking and changed the relationship. They only had almost one moment of contact and last week they had lots of contact, and the set was much more realistic...always the same heart, and the same backbone, but at different angels...
Despite the critical condition of many of its vital organs. Chinese Cabaret passes artistic triage. It needs more experimentation with the blocking and set, but the skeleton of an exceptional piece of art is visible under the blotchy skin...