Shrew Story: A Battle of the Sexes

If you want insight into China’s collective consciousness, think about the cultural imports it consumes. Do your Chinese friends love TV shows like Friends and Prison Break? This might be their way of telling us: “China’s ready to groom a generation of codependent adult children, and I want to be one of them” or “We have a deep-seated obsession with escape strategies!”

So why was Mamma Mia! such a hit this summer? Why were audiences so enamored with a story about a woman’s illegitimate daughter, born of the free love of the ’70s, when China was undergoing its own far less frivolous revolution? The Financial Times tells us audiences were tickled because the dialogue was rewritten in their native language, though others tout the power of ABBA.

Now, a world-renowned ballet production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew comes to Beijing, with neither Mandarin nor Swedish pop to lean on. Instead, it will ask a modern Chinese audience to connect with a family in which two daughters – one a “shrew” with a desirable dowry, the other a beautiful, self-absorbed flirt – must find love and marriage despite their father’s restrictions.

On one level, these imports show us how Chinese tastes for global culture are maturing. The ballet’s assistant director Bettina Wagner-Bergelt tells us, “The Chinese have been familiar with 19th century Russian ballet tradition for decades, whereas the neo-classicism of [choreographer] John Cranko might be newer to them. Though it’s still based on the classical idioms, there’s more psychological background for each character and more acting. So, step by step the Chinese audience is following classical European dance into the 21st century.”

Last year in Shanghai, this Shakespeare play was localized to the city’s 1930s colonial glamour, enchanting audiences. For this Bavarian State Ballet version, though, there will be no localization. When asked how she thinks the One-Child Policy generation will relate to the sibling rivalry on stage, Wagner-Bergelt responds, “Well, I know that the Chinese have a wonderful sense of humor – they will hopefully just find it funny how [the daughters] Kate and Bianca fight because one is a superficial girly girl, and the other one a bright, clever woman standing up for herself.” In a time where China could certainly use more bright, clever women and fewer superficial ones hogging the international spotlight, we are curious to see how viewers will take to this latest cultural import.

Shrews will be tamed at the NCPA Opera House on Nov 10-12.

Click here to see the November issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo courtesy of the Bavarian State Ballet