Amateur theatre and acting workshops in Beijing help foreigners hone their performance skills, and more importantly, become involved in local life, as Erik Nilsson finds out.

 

The curtain is rising on a new type of cultural exchange between foreigners and locals in Beijing.

 

An increasing number of foreign-founded amateur theatre performances and acting workshops popping up throughout the city could create a dramatic shift in the capital city or at least on its amateur performance stage.

 

"For the expat community, I think that making some sort of art, theatre or satire about ourselves and the city allows us to be a real part of this place, not just the transients we so often are, dipping our toes into China, but never really getting in," said American Jonathan Haagen, 25, of Durham, North Carolina.

 

Haagen recently played the role of a lusty laowai in the recently performed comedy, "I Heart Beijing." Written by 26-year-old American Elyse Ribbons, of Detroit, the satire deals with the typecasts of characters often found in the capital: the sassy American woman, the American-born Chinese (ABC) who constantly complains about being caught between two worlds, the domineering Chinese man, the Western womanizer who picks up harems of Chinese girls at English corners and the young Chinese woman trapped between modernity and tradition.

 

However, as the plot unfolds, these stereotypes are built up only to be torn down like a pre-Olympics Beijing skyline.

 

American Frances Chen, 36, of Chicago, who played the ever-complaining ABC, believes that the performance's mixed cast made the show more powerful.

 

"It reached out to a broader audience," she said. "Audience members could relate more to the cast and characters. Although Chinese audiences seem to watch 'Friends,' they don't really relate to it and think it just represents Americans and an American lifestyle."

 

Xiao Lu, of Beijing, who played Liu Tingting an independent Chinese girl who lives under the authority of her older brother said that performing with a mixed cast created new platforms for cross-cultural exchange.

 

"It is a special and useful way to get foreigners and locals to think about life in Beijing and talk about life in Beijing," she said.

 

This is exactly what Ribbons said she had in mind when she wrote the script.

 

"Beijing is not a Chinese city any more and its culture is more than just Beijinger or Chinese, but rather, a mixture of the world," she said.

 

While "I Heart Beijing" used a multicultural cast to portray the internationalism of China's capital city, American Chris Verrill's production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" uses such a cast to perform a Western classic.

 

However, the 46-year-old executive director of the Beijing Playhouse from San Francisco said that even though the storyline is rooted in Western culture, he believes the show will still appeal to Chinese audiences.

 

"The storyline is universal. It's about human kindness, about helping your fellow man. That applies in China, that applies anywhere in the world," he said.

 

While the play is performed in English, it is accompanied by Chinese subtitles to ensure that Chinese audiences can also enjoy the tale of Tiny Tim and the super-stingy Scrooge.

 

Verrill said that while street performances and professional acting were deep-seated facets of Chinese culture, the month-long staging of the show was a "grand experiment" in the staying power of semi-professional theatre.

 

"Semi-professional theatre is dependent upon ticket sales. In order for that to work, you have to have a society that has enough disposable income to support it. China hasn't had that until the last generation," he said.

 

Acting laboratory

 

While many of Beijing's foreign-founded amateur acting initiatives are taking the form of formal shows, the building blocks of good performance are being put together in the city's foreign-founded acting workshops.

 

Participants in the Beijing Actors Workshop use improvisational exercises to hone their performance skills and try new acting techniques.

 

"It's sort of a laboratory for ideas," said Canadian founder Patrick Pearce, of Montreal.

 

Pearce said that while about 80 percent of the participants were foreigners, the workshop sought to involve more Chinese.

 

"One of the reasons we want more Chinese to join is because they bring direct experience with the city and the culture," he said. "To have more Chinese participating would bring us closer to a real Beijing workshop experience rather than a bunch of foreigners doing their thing."

 

However, while the number of Chinese participants is growing, a few barriers stand in the way.

 

"Some Chinese people hear about the workshops but might be afraid to come because they think it's some foreigners doing something strange. They might think it's too free for them to feel secure; they might want a structure that is more strict," Pearce said.

 

This is one of the concerns of 21-year-old Li Mo, of Beijing, who is considering joining.

 

"We (Chinese) have a pretty out-of-date idea, that if you're a professional and you do something that is not professional, you are lowering your level," said the second-year student at the prestigious Central Academy of Drama. "After this, I see that anyone can act. It's a completely different idea. That's great."

 

Li said that she had never before seen anything like the Improv Night the workshop group staged at the Xinjiang Music Bar last Friday when different sets of workshop members put up a variety of improvisational skits.

 

Language barrier

 

Although the workshop was a bilingual environment, the language barrier was the biggest obstacle to garnering more Chinese participation, Pearce said.

 

"Perhaps, some of our Chinese members who are a little less comfortable with English are a little more inhibited in giving feedback to other actors," he said. "We have improvisation sessions in Chinese, and Western audiences are watching, but they don't understand the lines. The language barrier can become a kind of experimental element."

 

Zhao Xue, 21, of Beijing, recalled the time she performed a skit about National Single's Day in Mandarin with two other Chinese at the workshop and her mostly foreign audience did not understand.

 

However, for Zhao, the workshop provides the opportunity to learn more about foreign acting styles and culture.

 

"For the Chinese, it opens the window to the world," Zhao said. "For example, last summer I remember there was a woman who did a skit about a bus being very crowded. I've been living in Beijing for 20 years, so I'm used to that, but when she did her performance, I became more conscious of it."

 

While many challenges stand in the way of including more Chinese participants, American Neema Moraveji, of Washington DC, said an increasing number of students from the Central Academy of Drama were coming to the workshop.

 

"It's a free, easy way to experience Western acting norms," she said. "I think that Chinese and Westerners acting together will become a growing trend because both sides are really interested in each other's art."

 

For Feng Fulong, 37, of Inner Mongolia, participating in the Beijing Drama Queens' acting workshop has helped him better understand foreigners.

 

Cultural exchange

 

"As Chinese employees, we always make formal contact with foreigners in the office," said the string manager for Nokia's China operation. "But during this acting course, you get to know foreigners' expressions, their emotions and you get to see them as people. You get to go beyond foreigner and local and get to know them as human beings."

 

Malaysian Angele Sokyee Low, 30, who founded the Drama Queens with Chinese partner Jian Weigang in May, said that the pair decided to play on the strength of their different backgrounds when running the workshops, which are attended by equal numbers of Chinese and foreigners.

 

As a result, the bilingual workshops' activities range from Western-style improvisational games to Peking Opera movements, and mix foreign and local humor.

 

"The audience has to explain these bits to each other, just like in real life Beijing," she said. "It's a great participatory process for all."

 

Sokyee said she believed that the multi-cultural model used by the workshop would become more widely used in the capital city as more foreigners become involved in amateur acting.

 

"I think this is the future of the drama scene in Beijing a kind of theatre that is accessible to an audience of evenly mixed Chinese and foreigners," she said.

 

Haagen agreed.

 

"This," he said, "is theatrical globalization."

 

(China Daily December 11, 2006)