The third act of ShanghaiPRIDE’s Theatre festival began with announcements from One World Theatre’s Lelia and Ibsen International’s Fabrizio, theatrical groups that helped produce Tall Tall Mountain & Strange Birds as part of their Basement Play series. The audience were also warmly welcomed by ShanghaiPRIDE before this bilingual production began.
Under a cold blue light, the actors took their positions as the Tall Tall Mountains of Hong Kong, while the unnamed protagonist moved a toy double-decker bus through this living backdrop, gripped with child-like wonderment. We are introduced to the boy at a young age as he eats dinner with his mother. In a scene rich with subtext, the audience is able to comprehend the troubles the mother faces, while the boy in contrast remains innocent and unaware. These flashbacks to the boy’s childhood trip to Hong Kong pepper the play with context and provide a window onto one of the play’s most compelling and tragic figures: the mother.
After graduating from university, the boy is in Hong Kong for only twenty-five hours, a premise from which the entire play was produced. He meets another unnamed character, the man, in a restaurant by chance. The man is married to a successful business man who often has to travel for work, leaving him to spend his days at Betty’s restaurant, drinking. The boy and the man form a complex relationship, allowing the audience to decide for themselves whether romantic intent or loneliness has drawn these two together.
The boy takes the man on the tram, a fixation he has from childhood as this is the last time he remembers seeing his mother happy. Due to the man’s drink-damaged constitution, however, the experience leaves him deathly ill. In that moment of vulnerability, the man invites the boy to run away with him to the Philippines, only to immediately regret his decision the moment he recovers. He abandons the boy in a cafe rather than face the issues pulled into the light by his journey on the tram.
Furious, the boy hunts for the man at Betty’s restaurant, only to encounter the husband. Assuming the boy is having an affair with the man, the husband describes all that he imagines is happening between them. The boy explains that they merely rode the tram together so he could show the man the Tall Tall Mountain & Strange Birds. Recognising the expression as something that the mother used to say, the husband suddenly realises that the boy is actually the man’s son. The play ends overwrought with anticipation just as the man walks onto the stage with his son, their fate unknown.
The night ended with a question and answer session with the play’s author, Oda Fiskum, who wrote the play based on her experiences making short trips to Hong Kong to update her visa, as well as drawing inspiration from the people that she met in her time living in China. The audience were particularly interested in the bilingual aspect of the show and the difficulties the cast faced performing in both languages. The session culminated in a presentation of gifts from ShanghaiPRIDE for their hard work and participation in the Theatre Festival.
A special thanks to One World Theatre and the Theatre in Tianzifang for making all this possible. Additionally, many thanks to the show’s sponsors: Cambio Coffee and Brander Urstoff.
上海骄傲戏剧节：高高的山和奇异鸟
