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What: The Golden Lotus by Wang Yansong and Liu Chun (Lyrics by Wang
Yansong),
directed by Wang Yansong, translated by Josh Steinberg and Nan Zhang
When: October 29-November 1, 8 p.m.; November 1-2, 2 p.m. for One Week
Only.
Where: Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center, Smith College, Green St.,
Northampton, Mass. Tickets: $8 general public, $5 students/seniors, $1
for students only on October 30.
Tel. 413.585.ARTS (2787). Web Site: www.smith.edu/smitharts

Northampton: Prominent Chinese director and writer Wang Yansong will
direct the world premiere of his new play at Smith College. The Golden
Lotus is based on a classical Chinese novel, Jin Ping Mei, which was
written during the late Ming Dynasty. The book, declared pornographic
and banned for centuries, was secretly read by many educated elite
Chinese. The play reinterprets many of the book’s familiar stock
characters, including Golden Lotus-beautiful, cold, scheming adulteress;
Ping’er-pure, calm, loving wife; and Wu Song-upright, unflappable,
heroic tiger slayer.

Also on Friday, October 31, from 4-5:30 p.m. in T207A in the Mendenhall
Center, Mr. Wang will give a presentation of his professional work,
especially his productions of plays written by Cao Yu, one of the most
influential playwrights in China in the twentieth century. He will then
respond to questions from the audience.

Mr. Wang, who often employs choruses in his theatrical productions,
plans a chorus of six for Lotus each representing one of the main
characters. The chorus will move the action along, forming a bridge
between the living and the dead, and create soundscapes.
While exploring sexual politics and gender roles in traditional Chinese
society, Mr. Wang’s play is also an allegory of human corruption whose
characters grapple with love and seduction, loyalty and treachery,
ambition and revenge-and ghostly intervention.
Mr. Wang has written and directed over thirty plays, musicals and
operas and published several articles on the theories and practice of
stage direction. His production Da Cuo Che (Taking the Wrong Train) is
considered to be the first modern musical in China. It premiered in 1984
at a 12,000 seat stadium for three sold-out nights and went on to enjoy
a run of 1460 performances at various venues. His most recent
productions include two critically acclaimed interpretations of plays by
Cao Yu, considered to be one of the most significant playwrights of
twentieth-century China. Wang Yansong’s directorial works have won
numerous awards in China and abroad, and he has been invited to direct
and teach in Russia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the United States. He
received his Master of Fine Arts in directing from the Shanghai Academy
of Drama in 1982.
This summer Smith Theatre faculty members Kiki Smith, Professor of
Theatre, Costume Design and Ed Check, Senior Lecturer, Set Design
traveled to China to meet with Mr. Wang and Nan Zhang, Lecturer,
Lighting Design, to discuss the staging of the play. Ms. Zhang, who is
also one of the play’s translators, spent much of the summer in China
designing the lighting for another of Mr. Wang’s plays, Meirenjiao (or
Canna Lily). It premiered on July 23 in Beijing at the new National
Centre for the Performing Arts. Designed by French architect Paul
Andreu, the Centre is an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass which is
surrounded by an artificial lake and seats 6,500 people in three halls.

Ed Check, set designer for Lotus, recently worked as art director for
the film Sex And The City: The Movie. During the HBO series of the same
name he art-directed the first four seasons of the
show for which he
received two Emmy nominations for Best Art Direction. Professor Kiki
Smith, costume designer for Lotus, also works as a professional costume
designer for Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Massachusetts, where she is a
founding member and for The Talking Band in New York where she won a
Village Voice OBIE award for her designs for the 2003 premiere of Ellen
Maddow’s A Painted Snake in a Painted Chair. Penny Remsen, who will
design the lighting for the show, is a Professor in Lighting Design at
UMass/Amherst. Ms Remsen has designed for theatre productions throughout
New England, Houston, Philadelphia, Reno, and Las Vegas to name a few.
Cast members include: Abbie Chase, Smith ’10 as Golden Lotus; Draper
Harris, UMass’09 as Ximen Qing; Doug Zhang, UMass Grad Student as Wu
Song; Emily Lennon, Smith’09 as,Mother Wang; Meredith Mitchell,
Smith’10 as Ping’er; and
Sam Rush, production coordinator for Smith College Theatre and founder
of New Century Theatre as Wu Da.

The play will run for one week only, October 29-November 2. Tickets can
be purchased by calling the box office, 413.585.ARTS. For information on
this and other performances at Smith, please visit our Performing Arts
Web Site, www.smith.edu/smitharts