Review: SECRET LOVE IN PEACH BLOSSOM LAND: OZASIA FESTIVAL 2018 at Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Pam Watts, Thursday 9th November 2018.

Stan Lai, created Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land in 1986. This is the first successful Modern Stage-play in Taiwan. It has been adapted as a movie and has been revised three times. This is an important work of contemporary theatre and really worth the effort of language translations via the subtitles. A comedic and a romantic story, with a powerful message, it tells the story of two performance troupes who are mistakenly booked into the same theatre space. One troupe is rehearsing a romantic play about a couple torn apart by the Chinese Revolution, while the other troupe is rehearsing a period comedy, Peach Blossom Land, the two plays within a play creating an experience far greater than the sum of the two plays.

Despite initial confusion and frustration, the cast of these two wildly diverse troupes alternate rehearsal time with each other, with growing interest in each other's performance. In the conclusion, the audience ultimately is left to contemplate the similar themes of memory, love, and loss. The first play is about a man who flees China for Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s, but cannot let go of the lover he has left, although he builds a new family and life. In the second play, a fisherman leaves his cheating wife and finds his way into Shangri-La. Although he has found paradise, he is still unable to release himself from his past and wants to return to his wife.

Although memory is a curse to humans, it also allows us to understand meaning and values. Both lead characters share the dilemma of memory that they wish they could forget. This is the central focus of this legendary play by Taiwanese theatre guru, Stan Lai.

Both plays also propose questions about memory. In Peach Blossom Land, people have no in-depth past memory. Ancestors are referred to as being "refugees of ancient wars", but there is no mention of who these ancestors are. Amnesia provides a state of peace, but their situation is also patently absurd.

The most poignant underlying message this play offers is in the questions, 'Is forgetting better than remembering?', and 'Is memory necessarily better?'. Old Tao cannot forget his wife and returns to a mortal world where everything is rotten, ugly, and corrupt. Jiang clings to the beautiful memory of an old lover, and this results in a stubborn withdrawal from his present marriage.

With an English-speaking audience, the struggle for understanding between spoken Cantonese and subtitles often blurs the finesse of these actors, and the subtleties of the comedy can be lost to the overtly long jokes. The intricacies of the script at times seem clumsy but, with an open mind to what is being presented, the rewards are a rich tapestry of culture and legend.

The designs of costumes and set elements are complemented by the lighting design. Visual aesthetics are, surprisingly, beautiful both in serious scenes and, especially, Tao's comedic journey to Shangri-La. The actors are equally surprising in their diversity of performance style, from poignant gestures to physical exuberance. The transition of the stage from a rehearsal venue, to a traditional elaborate performance space with all of the visual elements, is a delight.

This production is the Australian debut of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, a modern classic that holds a special place in the hearts of Chinese as the most popular contemporary play in China.