What’s New?!

Due to perform the role of Trigorin in NAATCO’s Production of the “Seagull”, directed by Gia Forakis.

Prince Oshima in John Coltron’s “The Shanghai Gesture” directed by Robert Kaflin.

The Mirror Repertory Company will present John Colton’s THE SHANGHAI GESTURE, an epic story of love and revenge — and the Culture Clash of blood and ethnicity, April 21, 2009 thru May 17, 2009 at the Julia Miles Theatre, 424 West 55th St. Previews begin April 23rd and the official opening will be on April 30, 2009 at 7PM.

Written in 1918 and last produced in New York on Broadway in l926 THE SHANGHAI GESTURE is a 100-year-old historic American play that has always been controversial for its bold confrontation of still-relevant issues. For the first time in a full production, it will star an ethnically correct actress, Tina Chen, playing the lead role of Mother Goddam. Under the direction of Robert Kalfin, THE SHANGHAI GESTURE confronts issues of women’s rights, the sex trade, child abuse/slavery, and what happens when one country imposes its culture upon another.

THE SHANGHAI GESTURE was first given to Mirror Repertory Company in 1985 by the late actress Geraldine Page, who was interested in the legendary role of Mother Goddam, a part so coveted by Bette Davis that she entitled her autobiography by that name. It takes place in China in the roaring twenties when Shanghai was a truly cosmopolitan city filled with Russian refugees, its people exploited by opium traders and adventurers from all over Europe and Great Britain, and visited by American entrepreneurs. Played by Tina Chen, Mother Goddam is a Manchu princess shamed and discarded by an aristocratic English merchant and sold into sex slavery who can never return to her home. A survivor, she has risen to great power and reputation within a complex society where she runs an elegant brothel frequented by governors, mandarins, and princes who chose amongst women who are beautiful and tastefully dressed. Tonight there is great excitement, for she is having a dinner party – and society folk, the British and other European aristocrats and their wives are coming to dinner. What transpires during the dinner is hypnotic, humorous, erotic, terrifying, shocking, surprising, sad, and utterly fascinating. Many secrets – those of each guest – are revealed, and the ultimate secrets – those of Sir Guy Charteris – literally change lives. Even Mother Goddam must face an unanticipated revelation of a secret of her own.

Unlike Madame Butterfly, Mother Goddam chooses not to view herself as a victim. Instead she outwits and punishes her male oppressors. This single fact made this play (produced so soon after women had gotten the vote) a great favorite with female audiences as well and it was taken up as a popular feminist tract. It played the Martin Beck (now the Hirschfeld) for an extraordinary 210 performances and then moved to the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers) where it continued to play for many months more.

John Colton was the author of the equally long-running Rain which starred Jeanne Eagels and which was an adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s short story, Miss Sadie Thompson. Colton wrote THE SHANGHAI GESTURE from personal experience during his Grand Tour of the Orient following his matriculation from Oxford. A classicist, he wrote THE SHANGHAI GESTURE to take place within twenty-four hours, and intended it to be a serious tragedy. To his surprise, a post Victorian world was shocked by the open sexuality and a strong plot in which a woman defeated a powerful, educated man, and critics of the time reacted in a variety of ways. Some, like the famed Alexander Wolcott and the popular Walter Winchell responded with acclaim, and some, like the esteemed Brooks Atkinson, with grudging admiration, but audiences loved THE SHANGHAI GESTURE and kept it running for three years and many more on the road. 

Director Robert Kaflin is founder of New York’s Chelsea Theatre Center, [winner for it's work of 5 Tony Awards, 4 Tony nominations and 21 Obie Awards], Mr. Kalfin has directed over 150 productions and workshops in venues that include Broadway, Off-Broadway, major American regional theaters, internationally in Europe, the Middle East and as far abroad as Siberia. His Broadway credits include STRIDER, HAPPY END [starring Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd], YENTL [starring Tovah Feldshuh], TRULY BLESSED [A Celebration of Mahalia Jackson]; and as Chelsea Co-Producer of Harold Prince’s production of CANDIDE. Other productions include RASHOMON and THE MISTRESS OF THE INN [starring Tovah Feldshuh] for the Roundabout Theatre Company, and the television production of THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG starring Frank Langella for PBS Great Performances “Theatre in America” Series.

Tina Chen (who plays the role of Mother Goddam) is herself descended from an aristocratic Chinese family whose ancestry can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn period in Chinese history, which dates from 770-476 BC. A Golden Globe, Obie, and Emmy nominee, you can see her in Three Days of the Condor in which she plays Robert Redford’s beautiful girlfriend. In The Hawaiians she plays Charlton Heston’s love interest and ages from sixteen to eighty. For this role, Variety termed her “a Chinese genius.” Veteran actor Larry Pinewill be playing Sir Guy Charteris, and the rest of the cast will be announced soon.

Michael Anania is the Set Designer, Gail Cooper Hecht is the Costume Designer, Margaret Pine is the Sound Designer/Composer, Paul Hudson is the Lighting Designer and Manny Kladitis is the General Manager.

Tickets to THE SHANGHAI GESTURE are $67, $52 and there is a student and senior ticket price of $21. They can be ordered by calling Telecharge at 212.239.6200. Group Sales are handled by Carol Ostrow at 212 265 8500.

Performances are Wednesday through Sundays. Wed – Sat at 8PM. Matinees are at 2PM on Saturday and 3PM Sundays, with additional Sunday performances at 7PM.

Shogun Macbeth by William Shakespeare
adapted by John R. Briggs
at the Julia Miles Theatre, 424 W 55 Street 
November 2– 30, 2008
for Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
http://www.panasianrep.org

Also

Principal Photography completed on “Ten Stories Tall” a film by David Garrett; at the end of March.  Role: Dr. Liu.

Synopsis: TEN STORIES TALL is an ensemble story about two New York families struggling with overwhelming loss. When one family’s matriarch dies, Grace, a widow with two grown daughters, eulogizes her by confessing their lifelong lesbian relationship. On the heels of Grace’s revelation comes Charlie, the matriarch’s son, born with a heart defect that’s finally caught up to him. He’s always known his heart would give out early but never did anything about it, preferring the certainty of a short life over a life lived in hospitals, locked in a desperate struggle for more time. His sister Jackie, already grieving for her mother; and hurt and confused by Grace’s secret – now has to face the fact that she’s going to lose her brother, too. These families’ roots run deep in the city, and their trials run from the catastrophic to the mundane in the midst of huge loss and grief, they must carry on with their daily lives. Inspired by Thornton Wilder’s, ‘Our Town’, TEN STORIES TALL examines how we react to loss and what we must to do to survive it.

Press

THEATER REVIEW; Any Way You Look at It, The Story Is Not Pleasant

By WILBORN HAMPTON
Published: March 5, 2001, Monday

Few works of fiction have explored the relative and elusive nature of truth with such force as ”Rashomon,” a tale of sex and death first told in stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, made into a classic film by Akira Kurosawa in 1950 and turned into a Broadway play in 1959 by Fay and Michael Kanin. Under the taut direction of Tisa Chang, the Pan Asian Repertory has mounted a commendable revival that is all the more striking for its simplicity.

The story takes place about 1,000 years ago in a bamboo forest outside Kyoto. A samurai and his wife are set upon by a bandit. The samurai is killed, and the woman and the bandit have sexual congress.

What happened? Was the death a murder? Or was it suicide? Or just an accident? Was it preceded by a rape or a seduction? If the latter, who seduced whom? And those questions don’t even address the puzzle of what happened to the samurai’s horse.

There are four versions of what took place: those of the samurai, his wife, the bandit and of an innocent bystander, a woodcutter who was in the forest and observed it all unbeknownst to the other three. The different accounts have been told at a trial of the bandit for murder and rape, with that of the samurai’s delivered through a shaman who summons his spirit to testify.

But in a clever use of double flashback, the variant stories are acted out as the woodcutter and a Buddhist priest give an account of the trial to a wigmaker, an irreverent, grubby everyman who scavenges corpses for the hair to make his wigs and who is, in effect, us, eager for the salacious details of the crime, laughing with gallows humor when he learns them and doubtful about justice ever being served.

What sets ”Rashomon” apart from a routine murder and rape is the psychology of those involved. Each witness’s description of what transpired is colored by his or her social background. And, curiously, each claims to have been the one by whose hand the samurai died. Ms. Chang avoids any attempt at underlining the play’s socioeconomic aspects, leaving it to the audience to glean what lessons it can from the divergent accounts. As the wigmaker observes, ”People see what they want to see.”

Ms. Chang has put together a solid cast with first-rate performances by Rosanne Ma as the wife and Ken Park as the Bandit. Ms. Ma seamlessly moves from demure wife to seductress to rage as her character assumes different traits in each of the versions. Mr. Park keeps his boastful, amoral bandit within rein and real sparks fly in an exciting sword fight with Marcus Ho, who plays the samurai. Ron Nakahara is convincing as the Woodcutter and Les J. N. Mau is coarsely funny and knowing as the Wigmaker.

Original music of bells, gongs, drums, wood blocks and chants by Shigeko Suga and Tom Matsusaka successfully evoke the haunting mood of the play.

RASHOMON

Written by Fay and Michael Kanin; based on novellas by Ryunosuke Akutagawa; directed by Tisa Chang; sets by Kaori Akazawa; costumes by Molly Reynolds; lighting by Victor En Yu Tan; sound design by Shigeko Suga and Tom Matsusaka; fight choreography by Michael G. Chin; stage manager, James W. Carringer. Presented by the Pan Asian Repertory Theater, Ms. Chang, artistic director. At West End Theater, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, 263 West 86th Street, Manhattan.

WITH: Orville Mendoza (Priest), Ron Nakahara (Woodcutter), Les J. N. Mau (Wigmaker), Tom Matsusaka (Deputy/Musician), Ken Park (Bandit), Marcus Ho (Husband), Rosanne Ma (Wife) and Shigeko Suga (Mother/ Shaman/Musician).