Shakespeare and Death Metal aren't the most obvious of theatrical bed-fellows, especially when performed in Mandarin. Yet this is exactly the culture clash that ensues in Beijing People's Art Theatre's epic production of The Tragedy of Coriolanus, which opens as part of Edinburgh International Festival's drama programme next week. In a production which features some 100 bodies on a near-bare stage, veteran Chinese iconoclast Lin Zhaohua's version of Shakespeare's political tragedy makes the conflict between nations a noisy affair by having two of China's leading metal bands onstage.
Miserable Faith and Suffocated are stalwarts and leading lights of a fertile Beijing metal scene, but remain little-known outside of their own country. Miserable Faith were formed in 1999, and by 2001 were regarded by many as the best nu-metal band in Beijing. Consisting of vocalist Gao Hu, guitarists Song Jie and Tian Ran, bass player Zhang Jing, harmonica player Qi Jing and drummer Chi Gongwei, aka Dawei, released their first record, This's A Problem, in 2001, and have released six albums since then.
“Our music style is mainly about hard core rap.,” female harmonica player Qi Jing explains. “Since 2008, our music has become gentler as we need some different ways of expression.”
Despite their nihilistic-sounding name, Miserable Faith draw inspiration from literature, and are particularly attracted to the roving spirit of Beat novelist Jack Kerouac.
“On the road is the core spirit of our band,” Qi Jing says of Kerouac's seminal and most widely read novel. “We are always encouraging young people to travel around the world. Miserable Faith is now one of the most famous underground rock bands in China. We are invited to many music festivals every year.”
Suffocated have been around even longer than Miserable Faith, forming in 1996 around an axis of vocalist Liu Zheng, lead guitarist Kou Zhengyu, rhythm guitarist Wu Peng and drummer Wu Gang. Both the drummer and bassist previously played in another metal outfit, Regicide. Despite their longevity, Suffocated didn't release a record until 2007.
Since then, both bands have become peers, frequently sharing live bills together. It was a natural fir for both bands when first selected to appear in The Tragedy of Coriolanus back in 2008. The Edinburgh dates not only mark the production's European premiere, but should give Miserable Faith and Suffocated some of the widest exposure they've received outside China to date.
“We were firstly recommended by someone who working in the theatre and finally selected by Mr. Lin,” says Qi Jing, Miserable Faith's female harmonica player. “This is our first time getting involved in theatre. We are in charge of most of the sound effects and music onstage. When we got involved in this play the first time in 2008, we felt really excited by it all. Everything about it was fresh to us. This time round, five years later, we prefer to a more personal approach to the play. Before our involvement, we knew very little about theatre and Mr. Lin. We were worried about how the chemistry between us might work, but when we finally found Mr. Lin and [the lead actor in The Tragedy of Coriolanus] Mr. Pu Cunxin very kind and easy-going, and we felt pretty relaxed, because their respect for rock n’ roll makes us passionate.”
As far as Lin was concerned, co-opting the bands into his production was “In order to represent prominently the conflicting sides. I don’t really know much about the rock scene. After watching some bands play live, Mr Yi Liming (co-director, lighting and set designer) chose these two.” Given that both Shakespeare and metal music are particularly rare beasts in China, The Tragedy of Coriolanus was something of a double-barrelled novelty for both audiences and actors alike.
“Theatre actors are really curious about working with rock bands,” according to Qi Jing. “Putting two rock bands together on stage makes their acts more powerful.”
As a director, Lin Zhaohua has always done things his own way. Lin graduated from the Beijing Central Academy of Drama in 1961, and joined the Beijing People's Art Theatre as an actor, before finding his career stalled by the Cultural Revolution. Lin later teamed up with dissident writer and Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian for a trio of plays that began in 1982 with Absolute Signal. This marked the dawn of experimental theatre in China with Lin's trademark mix of confrontationalism and absurdism. Now in his late 70s, Lin refuses to be pigeon-holed by any particular style, and has never been shy of provoking his country's Communist authorities.
Coriolanus is based on the life of Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus, and tells the story of the rise and fall of a brilliant Roman general who, having conquered the city of Corioles and hailed as a hero, is persuaded to run for Consul. When he is rejected by the people, however, Coriolanus vows to destroy Rome, and joins forces with his enemies to mount an attack.
The play's themes of popular discontent with government are dangerously contemporary, and was briefly banned in France in the 1930s because of what was seen as fascistic elements in the text. In Communist China, one suspects the resonances of the play become explicit. Lin, however, has claimed not to be interested in politics or applying any particular agenda to his production. Although thought to have been written by Shakespeare some time around 1608, Coriolanus wasn't performed until after the Restoration in 1682. This was in a production by Nahum Tate, who rendered the play's final act as a blood-bath.
Throughout the twentieth century, a stream of charismatic actors took on the play's title role. Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton, Paul Scofield and Ian McKellan have all played Coriolanus, as have Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman and Ralph Fiennes. One of the most celebrated performances in the play came from Laurence Olivier, who played Coriolanus twice, first in 1937, then again in 1959. In the latter production, Olivier famously performed Coriolanus' death scene by falling backwards from a high platform and being suspended upside down without the aid of wires. This remarkable image recalled the death of Mussolini.
More recently, in 2012, National Theatre Wales melded Shakespeare's play with Coriolan, Bertolt Brecht's unfinished adaptation, in which he aimed to make the play a tragedy of the workers rather than the individual. The play was only completed after Brecht's death in 1956 by Manfred Wekworth and Joachim Tenschert, and was eventually staged in 1962.
As Coriolan/us, Mike Brooks and Mike Pearson's NTW production took place in a disused Ministry of Defence hanger, where the audience wore Silent Disco style headphones so the actors words could be heard as the action promenaded through the space.
In Lin's production, Pu Cunxin plays Coriolanus. Pu is a household name in China for his leading roles on film and television, sand is also Vice Chair of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, which is the equivalent of the National Theatre of Scotland or the Royal Shakespeare Company. As with the bands he is working besides, however, he remains little known outside of his home country.
The Tragedy of Coriolanus isn't Lin's first Shakespeare production. In 1989, Lin staged a stark production of Hamlet which pretty much ripped up the rule book of how to approach Shakespeare. Staged in a rehearsal room of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, Lin's production featured three performers, including Pu, dressed in their own clothes and performing in a room bare except for a barber's chair. By all accounts Lin's Hamlet more resembled something by Samuel Beckett than Shakespeare.
In stark contrast, the sheer scale of The Tragedy of Coriolanus means that only a stage as large as Edinburgh Playhouse can accommodate it. It was never Lin's intention, however, for his production to be on such a grand scale.
“I didn’t set out to make it epic,” he says, “but that’s how it turned
out!”
For Miserable Faith and Suffocated, the experience of working on the production has given them an artistic credibility which has left their underground reputations untarnished. Not that they seem overly fussed about where they fit in with the rest of the Chinese music scene.
“To be honest, we don’t actually care about it,” Qi says. “We only hope that Chinese rock music can go far beyond Chinese football.”
The Tragedy of Coriolanus, Edinburgh Playhouse, August 20th-21st, 7.30pm. www.eif.co.uk/coriolanus
The Herald, August 17th 2013
ends
When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid
Comments