If I was state arts commissar with an unlimited budget I'd make sure there was a traditional and avant-garde production of everything every year, so if it was your first time seeing, say, Hamlet you could go see a straightforward doublet-and-hose production and if it was your fifth time you could see the one set in a psychiatrist's office on the moon.
You know, your description made me think - maybe this production is engaging in a deliberate bit of anti-orientalism? Like, you've seen plenty of opera loaded with stereotypes of "The East." You could imagine a savvy staging of "Nixon in China" where the Chinese are "unmarked" and the Americans are all be Asian actors in whiteface and Nudie suits. I don't know if that's particularly interesting or *deep* (this seems like child's play relative to, e.g., David Henry Hwang's whole oeuvre), but hey, that would be pointed.
Of course, this is before I googled this production further and saw un-see-able photos of Jabba the Mao, after which I retract my "maybe this is savvy," lol. (Perhaps, even, L-MAO?)
"Savvy" is certainly not the word I would use for this production — I would put the calibre of critique at about "student film by edgelord 22-year-old" level — but I do think it's a legitimate approach to try to puncture some of the national mythologies that show up in this work. The brief explainer for the production said that the directors wanted to examine the role of propaganda in the visit, which is certainly a rich vein to mine! I just wish that it had been smarter and not just trolly.
If I was state arts commissar with an unlimited budget I'd make sure there was a traditional and avant-garde production of everything every year, so if it was your first time seeing, say, Hamlet you could go see a straightforward doublet-and-hose production and if it was your fifth time you could see the one set in a psychiatrist's office on the moon.
Have you experienced a Florentina Holzinger production yet? https://amp.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/jun/10/bring-on-the-naked-rollerskating-nuns-the-wild-visions-of-florentina-holzinger
I have not! I think I would be into this.
You know, your description made me think - maybe this production is engaging in a deliberate bit of anti-orientalism? Like, you've seen plenty of opera loaded with stereotypes of "The East." You could imagine a savvy staging of "Nixon in China" where the Chinese are "unmarked" and the Americans are all be Asian actors in whiteface and Nudie suits. I don't know if that's particularly interesting or *deep* (this seems like child's play relative to, e.g., David Henry Hwang's whole oeuvre), but hey, that would be pointed.
Of course, this is before I googled this production further and saw un-see-able photos of Jabba the Mao, after which I retract my "maybe this is savvy," lol. (Perhaps, even, L-MAO?)
"Savvy" is certainly not the word I would use for this production — I would put the calibre of critique at about "student film by edgelord 22-year-old" level — but I do think it's a legitimate approach to try to puncture some of the national mythologies that show up in this work. The brief explainer for the production said that the directors wanted to examine the role of propaganda in the visit, which is certainly a rich vein to mine! I just wish that it had been smarter and not just trolly.