The scent of Granny's Gumdrops is lingering in the sullied Beijing air. Sitting watching the critically acclaimed British theatre company 1927's performance of The Animals and Children Took to the Streets last Sunday night at Beijing's epic National Center for Performing Arts, or the egg, as it is affectionately known, I was struck primarily at how the hell it was allowed past the notorious Chinese theatrical censors (I'm sure the censors themselves aren't actually theatrical) but also at how relevant it was.
The piece is an allegory of all things that simmer under the surface of a seemingly repressed society, the under-class resorting to running rampage on their middle-class counterparts; living in squalor as outcasts and attempting rebellion. Astonishing, then, that here in a country not renowned for embracing the subversive that here, a stone's throw from the seat of Chinese power and adjacent to Tiananmen Square, that an auditorium packed full of Chinese nationals with a smattering of expats, that we would be tapping our feet along to what feels like an underground Berlin cabaret act, following a narrative that surrounds a girl gang plotting revolution, only to be quashed by the mayor of a sprawling metropolis through any means necessary- one being poisoning the subversive with Granny's Gumdrops, sedating the children over a period of a week.
The sub-plot concerns a woman who believes that the troubles of the area can be solved through art! Oh the Ai Wei Wei irony. Seriously, either the British Council paid a shed load of cash to get this one in or the censors were maybe blind? Deaf?
Michael Billington last year commented that the piece proved prophetic in light of the riots which swept the UK in the summer. Can we prophesise of similar things happening out East? Well maybe not quite, but interesting in light of various political scandals rocking the Zhongguo politburo and also the Western artistic drought that plagues these shores- maybe some leniency is coming?
Producers here, on the other hand, are still forced to give full readings of their intended productions, even if it is Oklahoma!, months before permission is granted to a board of surly prudes. It is refreshing therefore, and yes bewildering, that the 1927 lot were let through the gate. Might it just be that the tides are turning? Disney are waiting in the wings after all. Kung Fu Panda saw unprecedented box office returns in China last year, that's art right? Keanu Reeves is here! The Transformers (3) are coming! What will be the fate of my 10 Kuai knocked-off DVDs though?
In other "news", in a pathetic attempt at emulating my own Christopher Isherwood inspired artistic endeavours, yesterday I joined a bilingual improv group. I was admittedly useless but in doing so I am hoping to broaden my social horizons a little and escape the clutches of the hardening expat bubble that appears to be encasing me. I was like an excitable child, maybe some gumdrops would sort me out.