THE PEASANT PRINCE
THE PEASANT PRINCE, Monkey Baa Theatre Company at the LendLease Darling Quarter Theatre, 9-20 April 2016 then touring nationally to 38 venues. Photography by Heidrun Lohr
JAMES DAYHEW with a bit of input from OLIVER SPINKS
This was an amazing play with great choreography in the ballet sections. The story is about Li Cunxin, a Chinese boy who becomes a famous ballet star. At the start Li is 10 years old and is selected for a special dance program at the Beijing Dance Academy. He is one of only 15 kids out of 7000 all over China, chosen for the six-year program.
Spoiler Alert – later Li is the only one picked to go to America and perform with the Houston Ballet.
The set was wonderful with graphics used to change scenes (the video designer is David Bergman and the lighting is done by Sian James Holland). It opened with a big graphic of Mao Tse-Tung who was the leader of China at the time. The beginning is set in America when Li is about to perform the Nutcracker. It then cleverly fades back in time to a remote village in China and clearly shows how poor some people in that age were. After that it follows on to Beijing with only a few props like a ballet bar in the Dance Academy.
A bit we really enjoyed was at the start when they did a “Kite Wish”. This ceremony involves tying three bows on to a kite string, as you make a wish for each bow. The kite is then released and the more the kite flies the more chance of your wishes coming true.
Li is the sixth out of seven boys in his family and was only 10 years old when he had to leave them. We noticed how hard it was for Li to leave his village to go to Beijing, because he had to leave behind his family and friends. This shows how determined and brave he was to have a better life.
There were only four actors Jonathan Chan; Jenevieve Chang; John Gomez Goodway; Edric Hong and the director is Tim McGarry who all did a wonderful job. They all played a number of different characters, with speedy change of costumes. The costumes were astonishing and represented how poor they were in the Village to the fancy Nutcracker costumes in America.
It’s a pretty emotional play and shows that if a human is determined enough, they can do anything.
It is a 50 minute play with no interval and we recommend it for anyone 6+ years. I (James) enjoyed it especially having read the book at school.
