介绍:
Audience, prepare yourselves for a new zany twist on a tale that's as old as time – well, as old as medieval times.
Following Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest and his band of merry men in their mission to save Maid Marian from the devious Sheriff of Nottingham, the Robin Hood Christmas musical by Beijing Playhouse brought a whole new level of laughs and cheers for children and adults.
Filled with parodies of hit songs including "Let it Go" from Frozen, the play is an interactive comedy, modeled after traditional pantomime from the UK, in which the audience is invited to get involved in the story. In this case, they can cheer and boo and hiss as characters like Robin, Maid Marian and Friar Tuck through their clumsy blunders and heroic feats.
Dressed in a flower-patterned gown with a crown on her head, Ellen Lickman plays Lady Marian, the female lead in the story and Robin Hood's love interest.
"It's a fun role because she's not a typical damsel in distress. She has some attitude about her and she's kind of feisty as well."
Of course, no story is complete without its villain. Donning a cowboy hat and wearing what seems like a vampire cape, Samuel Turahe is the Sheriff of Nottingham, the most hated person in Sherwood Forest. For Turahe, playing a baddie is much more fun than being a hero.
"I get to be angry the whole time I'm on stage. I get to shout at people and they boo me. It's fun. It's good for me to be evil. It's not really who I am in life and I get to be the opposite of who I am on stage."
According to director Chris Verill, to make the play more relatable to a Chinese audience, new characters are added.
"Robin Hood takes place in Sherwood Forest, of course. There's the Sheriff of Nottingham. Now he has an assistant that we introduced to the show. The Sheriff of Nottingham's assistant is the sheriff of the sister city of Nottingham. That is the Sheriff of Ningbo."
And these two miscreants work together to create mischief and wreck havoc on the poor peasant of the Sherwood Forest. Ray Robles is the actor who portrays the comical Sheriff of Ningbo. He says his perception of the character changed over time.
"In the beginning, I had a complete different character in mind. I considered myself a young, intelligent Chinese student fresh from Ningbo. That was my first approach. I'm intelligent. I'm too smart for everybody. As the play went on, as it started to take its own life, I started to realize that I'm silly. With some of my lines, I just had so much fun being kind of a nitwit."
Another character added to the show to give it some Chinese flavor is the Monkey King. An intelligent and powerful creature in the Chinese literary classic, Journey to the West, he joins the band of merry men to fight off evil and bring justice to the land. And did I mention that his English is TOEFL level 2?
Liu Chang, who portrays the Monkey King, says he got his inspiration from one of his favorite Chinese actors.
"When we did audition, when I saw the words 'my English is only TOEFL level 2, I immediately thought of Ge You. He spoke like that: 'my English no good.' So I came up with (the accent) and I'm selected. I'm happy and very lucky."
All of the shows run with Chinese and English subtitles. But to truly transcend cultural barriers, director Chris Verill says he used more physical rather than language-based humor. But at the end of the day, Verill doesn't expect the audience will find something deep and meaningful by watching the show.
"The best part about it for me as a director is watching the audience while they watch the show. It takes us 18 months to do one of these shows so it's a very long process to produce a professional quality show. And the best part for me is at the end of the show and you see the family walk out, the moms and dads are happy and they're laughing at the humor. The kids are laughing at the wonderful story. That's why any actor or any director does theater. It's to make the audience happy."
And Christmas is the perfect season to be happy and jolly.
For Studio+, I'm Doris Wang.
大家还在听
