Joint-Show White Snake Performed in WTEA 2019 International Theatre Festival

On October.15th, the joint-show performance of White Snake was held after the opening ceremony of WTEA 2019 International Theatre Festival in Proscenium Stage Theatre. The story is based on the traditional Chinese drama Bai Shezhuan, which is a love story between Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen. The script is written by American screenwriter, director and scholar in performance, Mary Zimmerman and directed by Snejina Tankovska, professor from National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts, Bulgaria. The actors are students from China, Japan, Korea, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Spain.

In the process of adaption, the director showed great respect to the Chinese elements based on the script. The stage is both realistic and poetic. There is a broken bridge set on the stage, while the scene was also sometimes switched with the use of projector. With a dam-board as the medicine shop, they created an atmosphere of family with only one table and two chairs.

Besides, the interpretation of the text is not only in the view of traditional Chinese culture but also perfectly mixed with the performance art from western theatre. The director added parts of musical theatre into the performance. For example, in the part when Lady Bai was asking for the herb for Xu Xian, narrators used singing to express the difficulty and her faith. Besides, the three narrators were also posing questions as well as telling the story to audience, which set up a gap between audience and the story, helping the audience think about the “White Snake” in their mind. As the scriptwriter wrote in the end of the story, “you must not feel sorry for Xu Xian. With enough time and distance all forking paths come to the same place.”

Now, the globalization is breaking the wall between the Orientalism and the western culture. But it is still difficult to realize the fusion of both, which makes the experimental theatre like White Snake so precious and important.