The White Snake
Dec. 21st, 2012 15:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyThe White Snake. Written and directed by Mary Zimmerman. Performed by Berkeley Rep.
I have previously enjoyed shows by Mary Zimmerman at Berkeley Rep, and this show was a significant part of the reason that I subscribed this season. I was not disappointed.
I was not familiar with the story (the program calls it a fairy tale; not sure I agree with that) of the white snake, which apparently originated in the Tang Dynasty as the tale of a snake-succubus in the form of a woman who entrapped an innocent man into marrying her but was eventually imprisoned beneath a pagoda on the West Lake. By the time the story reaches us, things are significantly different, and much more feminist.
I was still slightly tipsy from the department holiday party in the first half of the show, which is partly the source of the strength of my initial conviction that it really reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swan_tower, I think you would like it a lot too.) It's an American take on a Chinese story done, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, with wit and respect, and a lot of heart. Although the story is a romance between White Snake and her chosen pharmacy assistant Xu Xian, for me the real heart of the story was the bond of devoted friendship between White Snake and Green Snake, who decide to go down from their mountain together to the world of humans, just for one day. We all know how that goes.
The cast was uniformly excellent, and the Chinese pronunciation was pretty good--I especially liked one of the intervals in which they read from a Chinese theater manual and projected the text onto the back wall and I was able to read most of it!--and the staging was really interesting and innovative, but again, White Snake and Green Snake. They were just so awesome. The play was hilarious until the end, when, in that way that Zimmerman has of rolling all of life into a mingled yarn, the fore-ordained ending for the story played out and then I found myself weeping into my scarf at the last lines. I'm not being very coherent here, but it was excellent, and if you can see it--the current production has been extended until December 30--you totally should.
I have previously enjoyed shows by Mary Zimmerman at Berkeley Rep, and this show was a significant part of the reason that I subscribed this season. I was not disappointed.
I was not familiar with the story (the program calls it a fairy tale; not sure I agree with that) of the white snake, which apparently originated in the Tang Dynasty as the tale of a snake-succubus in the form of a woman who entrapped an innocent man into marrying her but was eventually imprisoned beneath a pagoda on the West Lake. By the time the story reaches us, things are significantly different, and much more feminist.
I was still slightly tipsy from the department holiday party in the first half of the show, which is partly the source of the strength of my initial conviction that it really reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender. (
swan_tower, I think you would like it a lot too.) It's an American take on a Chinese story done, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, with wit and respect, and a lot of heart. Although the story is a romance between White Snake and her chosen pharmacy assistant Xu Xian, for me the real heart of the story was the bond of devoted friendship between White Snake and Green Snake, who decide to go down from their mountain together to the world of humans, just for one day. We all know how that goes.The cast was uniformly excellent, and the Chinese pronunciation was pretty good--I especially liked one of the intervals in which they read from a Chinese theater manual and projected the text onto the back wall and I was able to read most of it!--and the staging was really interesting and innovative, but again, White Snake and Green Snake. They were just so awesome. The play was hilarious until the end, when, in that way that Zimmerman has of rolling all of life into a mingled yarn, the fore-ordained ending for the story played out and then I found myself weeping into my scarf at the last lines. I'm not being very coherent here, but it was excellent, and if you can see it--the current production has been extended until December 30--you totally should.
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Date: 2012-12-21 21:23 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-22 17:52 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-23 19:25 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-22 17:50 (UTC)