Theater

English language theater in Beijing

heart_beijing.jpg
Click to enlarge
While Beijing Playhouse has just concluded auditions for a September performance of Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, a separate troupe of actors is in the middle of a run of performances of an originally written play about life in Beijing. This is their blurb:

I Heart Beijing is a rowdy sendup of life in the capital: Naughty nymphette Ting Ting is a Beijinger by birth but a cosmopolitan girl at heart, she and her headstrong American roommate Sylvia have just moved into an apartment and find themselves hosts to the antics of their friends; John a womanizing laowai who names all his girlfriends Apple, and Lucy a schizophrenic ABC who has an orgasm at the merest of mention of Stephen Colbert's name. And life in Beijing seems as it should.

That is, until Ting Ting's arrogant and protective older brother Liu Ming joins the group and fireworks fly. But not the romantic fireworks that sparkle happily in a Hollywood movie, rather those that explode dangerously nearby as you stumble home after dumplings and beer.

There are perfomances on the 15th, 16th and 17th at 7.30 pm at BCIS. Email Elyse at tickets@iheartbeijing.com to reserve tickets. You can also visit the I Heart Beijing website, or read an SCMP article republished on the I♥北京 blog.

There are currently 13 Comments for English language theater in Beijing.

Comments on English language theater in Beijing

Those girls are hawt.

Laughably bad.

Sounds as good as The Power. Is Nina Liu in it?

Why not post a link to the review by Chris Dalby, published by the China Daily? It's highly accurate:
link

Critics are bottom feeders. Write your own play! I liked it and I haven't seen any other play that addresses the issues of Beijing expatriates and Chinese people who know them. Good on you Elyse.

The play is written in broad strokes (like half mile wide broad strokes) but is a good first attempt at this kind of thing and deserves credit for that, although I can understand why many would dismiss it as one-dimensional. It's not going to make much of an impact in anybody's life, but the doesn't claim it will. By the way, that review posted above is pants: "attempts an Orson Welles tour de force"? It does? I missed that.

HEART HEART

"Critics are bottom feeders. Write your own play! I liked it and I haven't seen any other play that addresses the issues of Beijing expatriates and Chinese people who know them. Good on you Elyse. "

So because no one ever did this subject before that makes it good?

Chinese people who know expatriates? Shouldn't a Chinese person write the play then?
YAWN has to be right.

Sounds like the title has nothing to do with anything. Generic too.

Any play I would ever write wouldn't be propaganda enough to get into that theatre. Its all about hating the male laowai it seems.

I hope her next one is: "Maggies! The Musical."

Great, from what the above article say I can see this play is going to be another one of "those". We got one ABC "who has an orgasm at the merest of mention of Stephen Colbert's name", one "naughty nymphette" Chinese-Chinese, one "womanizing laowai", one strict Chinese guy and one headstong American girl. So much sexual tension, and I am willing to bet none of them involve elder brother and the European American girl. I read on the comments that the play wasn't written by a Chinese national? What a surprise. Hey, I may be wrong and the play might actually be good; however the synopsis just leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I am missing the deeper meaning here. On a personal note, Colbert is a funny guy. :)

All you haters: you write nasty things and you haven't even seen the play!

Puhlease yo. I know you aint talking about me dawg, I already said da play may be good. I only hit up on the syno yo. The syno mad weak yo. I didnt told you I saw the show. I done saying it man. You need to read man. Now holla back at yo boi. Out. :)

That was +sum+ weak sauce G.T.L.


Attempts an Orson Welles tour de force meant that Elyse Ribbons wrote, directed and starred in her own play, something Welles was famous for.

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30