MADAME MAO’S MEMORIES
Artists are even attacking each other. Consider the Miss Saigon affair: British producer Cameron Mackintosh decides to bring his blockbuster update of Madame Butterfly to New York, complete with West End star Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian pimp. Actors’ Equity says no to Pryce, a white man, playing a Eurasian character. Mackintosh responds by threatening to cancel the whole multimillion-dollar production. Equity caves in on Pryce–but not, it insists, on the principle of the thing.
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The controversy was reported in the papers, and sparked some argument about reverse racism versus the depiction of minorities onstage versus artistic freedom versus the plain fact that Asian actors don’t get much work. Together with everything else that’s been going on, it intensified the sense of a community in thick turmoil.
Unfortunately, Ong’s play isn’t the best place to go for a clear vision of Jiang’s macabre accomplishments. Like just about every other solo show about a public figure–from Give ‘Em Hell, Harry to Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein–Madame Mao’s Memories reduces vast historical, cultural, and economic forces to problems in elementary psychology. Why was there a Cultural Revolution? As near as I can figure, Ong thinks it was because Jiang’s dad hit her mother when she was a kid. Why did thousands die in purges? Apparently because Jiang wanted revenge on unkind directors.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jennifer Girard.
