Sound of Maosic, Far East Side Story, The Importance of Being Communist, CabaRED…

…welp that was embarrassing. In addition to puns, one of my great
fondnesses in life is zee THEATRE, specifically musicals, arguably
“the purest form of art.” What could be better than watching grown men
and women flying around in costume, spontaneously bursting into song
when the doldrums of dialogue can no longer support the unbridled SEAS
of emotion?? NOTHING THAT’S WHAT.

Unfortunately, like puns, I often find my enthusiasm for musicals is
not widely shared among my friends. This has led to many nights spent
alone watching my PBS DVD of Company. It’s okay, sometimes while I’m watching it, in the silence of my loneliness, I come up with some
great new puns.

BUT WHATEVER HATERS.

Anyways, maybe to make up for owning me so hard first week, Beijing
proffered the olive branch in the form of musical theater. First, I auditioned for a production of a hybrid Hamlet, to be performed both in Chinese and English, infused with dance and music, and I got a callback! BUT OH SNAP, too bad the callback was the same night I had
tickets to see a touring production of Kiss Me Kate at the Beijing
Exhibition Center!

I had thought my beloved roommates would want to revel in this
experience with me, because who in their right mind would turn down
the opportunity to see Kiss Me Kate in CHINA?!?! Apparently everybody,
and I wound up going to see it accompanied by my three TRUE friends, Me, Myself, and I. But oh well, that just meant more musical for ME,
haha!

Turns out no one in China was all that interested either, because only
about 150 people showed up to pepper the seats of this massive
theater. Again, your loss WORLD, because my nosebleed seats got
upgraded to FRONT ROW!!! Victory is so sweet.

The production itself was not too shabby, but the real joy was the
AUDIENCE. We were few in numbers but we had a lot of heart. I thought
it would be all foreigners, but it was overwhelmingly a Chinese
audience. And they were there to party!

There were huge Chinese subtitles projected on the sidewalls, but everyone seemed to be
focused onstage. Linguistically, it’s a huge step to be able to
understand another language when it’s performed and sung, especially
in the mid-1900’s rapid-fire banter of Kiss Me Kate. Either the people
in the audience were truly tickled, or they were eager to show they
understood the jokes, but they laughed UPROARIOUSLY all night. I was
the only one who laughed at a lot of the cultural references, but when
the woman behind me burst out laughing at a !!!!!!PUN!!!! I almost
turned around and gave her a hug.

In this seeming crowd of strangers, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD, I
had found my place amongst my true pun-and-theater-loving brethren.

PS. I took a lot of videos of the show on my iPod, but from previous
experience, I know a lot of you wouldn’t watch them and the quality is
like watching Blair Witch Project underwater, but if you really want
to see them, ask around at Christmas and I’ll be more than happy to
share :D