MCLC: Pentagon Papers play tours China

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: alison friedman <alison at pingpongarts.org>
Subject: Pentagon Papers play tours China
***********************************************************

The timing of the piece on journalists being government mouthpieces is
interesting, given the play about Freedom of the Press and the Pentagon
Papers we just toured to Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. Here's a NYT's
report about the tour.

Alison Friedman

===========================================================

Source: NYT (12/2/11):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/theater/play-on-pentagon-papers-goes-on-i
n-beijing-but-not-a-talk.html

Chinese Allow Play on Pentagon Papers, but Not a Talk About It
By ANDREW JACOBS 

BEIJING ‹ As far as dramatic timing goes, the text message from the powers
that be announcing the sudden cancellation of a post-performance
discussion of ³Top Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers²
<http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/theater/reviews/10top.html> was,
well, perfectly timed.

The message, sent to the cellphone of the play¹s producer on Friday night,
warned of ³unforeseen consequences spreading beyond the theater,² should
the audience at Peking University be allowed to openly discuss the work,
which delves into delicate matters like press freedom, power-hungry
political leaders and the Nixon administration¹s desire to quash
information it deemed embarrassing.

³It was rather ironic but it drove home the issues in the play,² the
producer, Alison Friedman, said moments after the house lights came up,
and the crowd, many of them students at Peking, China¹s most prestigious
university, drifted away. ³I can¹t say we were surprised.²

Perhaps the bigger surprise was that this spare, fast-paced docudrama,
performed in English and financed partly by the American Embassy, was even
staged in a country whose skittish cultural czars regularly block movies,
books and plays they find objectionable.

In late August, for example, the authorities canceled ³Dr. Sun Yat-sen,² a
sumptuous new opera about that Chinese revolutionary that was weeks away
from opening at the National Center for Performing Arts. Officials
described the action as a ³postponement,² but they told its producers that
the opera was politically problematic.

Susan Albert Loewenberg, the producing director of L.A. Theater Works,
which shepherded ³Top Secret² to China through a thicket of logistical,
financial and bureaucratic obstacles, said there were many times during
the two-and-a-half-year odyssey when she thought the production was dead.

³Frankly, I¹m amazed we got this far,² she said. ³Then again, we still
have two nights to go.²

If the journey of ³Top Secret² holds any lessons for Western theater
producers seeking to reach Chinese audiences, it is this: Have a seasoned
guide, avoid the country¹s most high-profile performance spaces and be
prepared for countless frustrations and disappointments. American
companies that had supported L.A. Theater Works in the past refused to
back its China production; permits did not materialize until the last
moment; and an earlier panel discussion planned for Guangzhou was also
scotched.

But the rewards, as Ms. Loewenberg and Geoffrey Cowan, an author of the
play, tell it, have been immense. During its 10-day run ³Top Secret² has
played to sold-out audiences in Shanghai and Guangzhou, with many
performances punctuated by shouts of approval from the audience and
standing ovations.

Perhaps most gratifying for the producers was that those audiences were
almost entirely Chinese and young, many of whom learned about the
production through weibo, the Twitter-like microblog service that has
revolutionized the way Chinese communicate with one another ‹ including
expressions of displeasure over government malfeasance.

³It was a refreshing contrast to the U.S., where you¹re always playing to
60-year-olds and struggling to reach younger audiences,² Ms. Loewenberg
said.

Communist Party officials could be forgiven for viewing the play through
their gimlet eyes as an unalloyed slice of American propaganda, even if
the creators of ³Top Secret² had no such intentions. Written by Mr. Cowan
and Leroy Aarons, who died in 2004, it was first produced by L.A. Theater
Works in 1991 as a radio play. Spanning several days, it dramatizes the
showdown between the White House and The Washington Post as that paper
balanced the threat of criminal prosecution against its desire to burnish
its journalistic chops by publishing the Pentagon¹s secret history of
United States¹ involvement in the Vietnam War.

The story begins on June 17, 1971, after a federal court has enjoined The
New York Times ‹ which had already published three installments based on
the documents ‹ from publishing any more. The Post promptly gets its hands
on copies of the papers, and what follows is an exploration of the role of
the press in keeping a secretive and manipulative government in check.

After a judge rules in the paper¹s favor, a reporter gives a rousing
valedictory about press freedom as a hedge against tyranny as John
Lennon¹s rousing anthem ³Power to the People² bathes the house.

³I¹ve played in a lot of theaters, but to have 1,400 people in China
cheering for the little guy is subversive,² said Josh Stamberg, who plays
Ben Bradlee, the Post¹s hard-charging editor.

To get as far as it has, L.A. Theater Works relied on Ms. Friedman, whose
company, Ping Pong Productions, specializes in taking international
performing arts to China and Chinese troupes to the West. After nearly a
decade living and working here, she has learned how to navigate a maze of
permits and egos, when to massage cultural bureaucrats and, perhaps most
important, whom to call when roadblocks suddenly appear.

Even though the unmistakable message of ³Top Secret² is the importance of
a free press and an independent judiciary in the face of a bullying
government, the producers gingerly pitched their production as a Vietnam
War-era contretemps between President Nixon and the press.

³They put the play in the ŒAmerican history¹ box,² Ms. Friedman said of
the many officials who gave the production a green light. ³We also chose
low-profile partners. We didn¹t want the government to think too heavily
about the play.²

In the end it was low-level bureaucrats who stood in their way, especially
when it came to the troupe¹s final performances in Beijing, which end on
Sunday. Although arranged months in advance, the Peking University show
did not receive its required permit until the day before showtime.

Even then, the producers were stunned to learn they could not sell
tickets. The permit, they were told, also limited the audience to 1,000,
ensuring the theater was less than half full.

Although she had been told to steer clear of ³sensitive topics,² Ms.
Friedman said she was assured that the post-performance discussion would
go ahead as planned, as it had in Shanghai. It was just after intermission
when she received the disappointing text message. Later, as the cast was
taking its bow and she was announcing the cancellation of the discussion,
she could hear a university official exhorting a technician to kill her
microphone.
It was too late. A sigh rose through the members of the crowd, but as they
filed out of the theater, few expressed surprise.

³I thought the play was very meaningful,² Yin Wenhong, 27, a book editor,
said with some hesitation as she left the building. ³It would be nice if
our government could open their minds and learn something from this play.²