MCLC: American history, through Chinese eyes (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Alison M. Friedman <alison at pingpongarts.org>
Subject: American history, through Chinese eyes (1)
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Along the lines of sharing America's messier side with Chinese audiences,
we brought the docudrama about the Pentagon Papers to tour six cities in
China in May/June -- just as the Snowden story was breaking. The play
sparked discussions in theatres, classrooms, and online about how
America's system allows for this kind of debate.

Below find two reports about the tour.

Alison

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Source Wall Street Journal, Scene blog (5/31/13):
http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/05/31/top-secret-plays-out-in-china/

With a title like “Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers,” one
might expect a bumpy road to the stage in China, where government
manipulation and press freedom remain sensitive topics. But when L.A.
Theatre Works toured the country for the play’s debut run in 2011, it
performed to full houses in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing. Discussions
between the audience and a panel of American journalists and lawyers
followed most performances, arranged through production company Ping Pong
Productions.

What was building up to a resounding success hit a snag during a
performance at Peking University, when Ping Pong founder and director
Alison Friedman received a text message during the second act warning of
“unforeseen consequences” if the post-performance discussion were to
continue as planned. The abrupt cancellation made international headlines.

But the show goes on. Ping Pong and L.A. Theatre Works last week kicked
off another tour of “Top Secret,” including three nights beginning Tuesday
at Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts—also known as the Egg
for its oval shape.

How did an American docudrama about the struggle between press and state
make it to one of China’s top performance venues? The answer, Ms. Friedman
told the Journal, is all in the money. Edited excerpts follow.

WSJ: “Pentagon Papers” discusses press freedom, state manipulation, the
struggle for information—all sensitive topics in China. What were you
thinking when you decided to bring it here?

Ms. Friedman: Our mission is cultural diplomacy. We do performing-art
exchange—but not just any art. It’s got to show another side or aspect of
a country, or a culture that is maybe a little unexpected or a little
unknown. The power of the arts is to do that, it’s to show nuance, it’s to
show diversity, it’s to show something that you don’t see, say, in the
press or on television or through commerce like buying Starbucks or Nike
products.
What first appealed to me about the docudrama was not that it was some
extreme topic, but that it showed a side of American history that,
frankly, a lot of Americans don’t understand, let alone Chinese.

It showed America in all of its complex messiness. It was not a
pro-freedom-of-the-press, pro-America, anticensorship play. It showed just
how complex that whole issue was, and it showed it very clearly. My
hesitation was commercial. The venues need to make money.

WJS: Did you have to approach state bureaucracy first, or did you directly
approach the venues?

AF: In China, you definitely do the venues first. Every show needs a
performance permit that’s approved by the Ministry of Culture, but that
goes through the venues, or through an independent agency that provides
that service. But that has to happen after you’ve got a show booked. So
it’s really risky, because it’s really chicken-and-egg. You get a whole
tour booked, the dates are set, the contracts are signed, but until you
get that permit, the show might not happen.

So it’s very touch-and-go, very nail-biting up until the minute you get
the permit. Depending on who you’re working with and in which city, the
permits can take anywhere from one month to six months to get. And yet
venues often don’t make decisions about what plays they want to do until
very late.

Technically you’re not supposed to advertise unless you have the permit,
so then that makes it very risky for ticket sales, because you can’t start
selling tickets until you have the permit, but you can’t get the permit
until you have the contract, and you can’t get the contract until…it just
starts backing up and up and up.

WSJ: Why not shoot for the National Center for the Performing Arts right
away?

AF: We did reach out to the NCPA in 2011, and they were sort of
interested, but they were worried that, commercially, it wasn’t viable. I
don’t think at that time they expressed any concern over the content. It
was simply they didn’t think they could make it happen.

WSJ: Are the logistics different this time?

AF: Sometimes, working with larger institutions in China is worse, as it
is in any country, because you’re dealing with a bigger bureaucracy, and
sometimes it’s better because it’s a smoother process. That’s how it’s
been with them this time. The permit came through so quickly. Everything’s
been very clear, the communication’s been very good. Knock on wood, so far
things are great.

ASJ: Coming back to that canceled talk in 2011, what happened there?

AF: The second act had just started. The text said that they wanted to
avoid any unexpected or any uncontrolled results. Basically, they didn’t
know what kind of conversation would happen, and what they said afterwards
to me was that “Well, Bei Da [Peking University] students are very smart.
They ask very difficult questions, and we just didn’t know what direction
the conversation would go in, and we thought it would be safer not to have
it.”
Generally speaking, universities in China are a little more conservative.
It’s the opposite of the States. In the States, universities are the sites
of crazy open thinking and in China they are too, and therefore the
administration gets a little more nervous sometimes with more public
things.

The day after the canceled talk, [Geoffrey Cowan, “Top Secret’s”
playwright] gave his lecture at the law school to a room of 200 to 300
students. The most open, nuanced, sophisticated conversation about the
press and the government and the relations therein, with both China and
the U.S., that I’ve ever been privy to. And it was an all-Chinese
audience. Unfortunately the press wasn’t there that day, so they didn’t
write about that one.

WSJ: Are you planning any discussions this time around?

AF: We’re not. The difference between 2011 and 2013 is this year we’re in
Hangzhou, Suzhou, Tianjin, Beijing, Chongqing and Fuling. So we’re in six
different cities. All are big, prestigious, mainstream venues. Because
we’ve been here before, it’s a much higher-profile tour, it’s much more
mainstream, it’s much more visible, and so we’re still doing discussions,
but we’re going to do them with partners in classrooms.

WSJ: What’s your take on the media coverage of the cancellation?

AF: This is a hard one, because I’m never going to bite the hand that
feeds me. We were thrilled for the coverage, we were thrilled for the
attention and the amazing articles…but I wish they had also been there the
next day at Geoff’s lecture at the law school and to witness the polar
opposite of the night before. The takeaway from the very dramatic headline
was “Oh, more censorship in China,” and that really wasn’t our experience
in 2011.

I understand these newspapers and magazines need dramatic headlines. It’s
back to the same issue China is dealing with, you’ve got to sell, you got
to push product. It was a dramatic event, and I get that. That’s
story-worthy. But I guess it’s back on us to tell the other stories that
happened.

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Source: New York Times:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/an-unusual-theater-revival-in-
china-american-play-about-press-freedom/

An Unusual Theater Revival in China: An American Play about Press Freedom
By Edward Wong

BEIJING — One night in December 2011 I found myself sitting in a freezing
theater south of Tiananmen Square in the Chinese capital watching an
American play about press freedoms and government control. The play, “Top
Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers,” portrayed in fictional terms the
legal fight by The Washington Post to publish the Pentagon Papers over the
vigorous objections of the Nixon administration. It was written by
Geoffrey Cowan — a former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication
And Journalism at the University of Southern California and former
director of Voice of America — and Leroy Aarons.

The publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 by The New York Times and
The Post, which revealed official misjudgments and cover-ups in the United
States government’s war effort in Vietnam, is a touchstone in modern
American journalism, alongside Watergate and battlefield coverage of the
Vietnam War. All those events put a spotlight on what many see as the most
important mission of the news media in American society — challenging
authority at the highest levels and pushing back against government
censorship.

So of course it was a bit of a surprise to see the play performed in
China, where the Communist Party goes to great lengths to try to corral
domestic and foreign journalists and disseminate propaganda. The tour had
had its difficulties — objections had been raised in some official
quarters in China. Nevertheless, the night I saw the play, reaction from
the audience, mostly young Chinese with some foreigners, was enthusiastic.
Several Chinese undergraduate journalism students said afterward that they
had thoroughly enjoyed it.

Even more surprising is the fact that the play is back again in China, and
this time it is being performed in Beijing at the National Center for the
Performing Arts, which, just west of Tiananmen Square, is the most
prestigious venue of its kind in China. . . .