With China high on the news agenda, Amy Ng’s play is timely, and though it’s not a great piece of drama it tells a great story briskly and efficiently. Spanning six decades, it tracks the interwoven history of two women who were pivotal in the political and cultural upheavals of Mao Zedong’s revolution, but whose stories are little-known here.
An 80-minute two-hander, directed by Katie Posner in a co-production between the Kiln and Paines Plough, it necessarily features more exposition than character development, and it begins in a Shanghai theatre in 1935. Lan Ping (Gabby Wong) has hoiked herself out of poverty to become an actress famed for her performance in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Li Lin (Millicent Wong) is a young communist seeking sanctuary from a government crackdown.
An improbable bond is formed, which warps and twists but never breaks. Lan transforms into Jiang Qing, Mao’s fourth wife, cultural enforcer and attack dog. Li is revealed to be “red princess” Sun Weishi, the adopted daughter of Mao’s lieutenant Zhou Enlai who went on to become China’s first female theatre director.
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Though Ng has invented circumstances and dialogue, the astonishing thing is that the facts here are broadly true. These women existed: they were bonded by art but promoted, thwarted or pitted against each other according to the brutal whims – often sexual – of a male-dominated political system.
You can see why the story appealed to Ng. The arguments about the importance of theatre as a social force at the cutting edge of radical change pretty much write themselves. But there’s also a stark and brutal dynamic at work here.
The balance of power and honesty between the two women shifts throughout as they try, like Nora in A Doll’s House, to escape the roles the patriarchy imposes on them. Ng gives Jiang a speech where she says there’s no point giving women guns or axes if they don’t enjoy sexual or reproductive freedom.
However, one of the most vicious confrontations between the two occurs after Jiang acknowledges that her serially unfaithful husband has raped Sun. This incident becomes just another tool, to be exploited for influence.
The play is staged by Posner on a set of rotating panels faced with slatted doors, while a screen behind displays headlines and then footage from 60 years of turmoil. The two actresses are imperfectly matted into old press and propaganda pictures.
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There is something undeniably impressive about the way this sweep of history is expressed and explored through the underappreciated story of two women. The opening, establishing moments are the most awkward, with the wryly eye-rolling Lan explaining the setup to the timorous Li, and thereby to us.
Later devices, such as having the two women dance together at Mao’s communist hideout – Jiang leading Sun and jerking her off-balance – are obvious but effective. Some real elements seem too absurd to be true: Jiang really did make dolls in prison after she was convicted of persecuting artists, among other charges.
The performances get stronger as the duo’s interactions get harsher. Gabby Wong’s Jiang grows a hard and implacable carapace, while Millicent Wong’s Sun retains a touching vulnerability. I remember watching Jiang’s defiant 1980 court appearances as a 14-year-old, but knew little else about her, and nothing at all about Sun Weishi. Whatever its flaws as a piece of drama, I came away from this both informed and stimulated.
Shanghai Dolls at the Kiln Theatre, until 10 May, kilntheatre.com.
