6. 3,000 Troubled Threads.

A Play By

Chie Siah Tei.

This was the final performance of this play at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. The theatre is situated on the right side of the Usher Hall and I have been there a few times before. In fact I had a small walk on part in a foreign language version of Macbeth - that was a few years ago. Back stage surprisingly roomy but the corridors felt a little cramped and we were all warned to keep quiet when the performance had started.

The theatre itself is actually very comfortable and is a great place to take ones family or friends. The theatre is small and in the upper circle I felt almost as if I were in one of those old cardboard play sets so beloved of Victorian and Edwardian children. The stage can feel a little twee depending on the set design and the performance but that is just a minor quible. The front of the theatre is open and feels spacious - no chance of cramped theatre goers manhandling each other as they jostle for their seats. The bar facilities are top notch with plenty of seating, I am surprised that it hasn't proved more popular like the bar and cafe facilities at the Dominion Movie House on Morningside. As for the staff they are friendly although a little disorganized and some had the demeanor familiar of many staff here in the capital; I'm a student and I'm too good for this temporary job. I noticed two girls who slouched while talking loudly about their university course and accommodation while disinterestedly selling Hagen das icecream. One cocked her hip whenever any one passed by and she had tied back her shirt so as to exaggerate her natural curves. Her slightly dumpy first year friend seemed to think this was very cool. I knew all about this as they were talking at the front of the stage so it was almost impossible not to listen in.

The design of the theatre is good; the stalls are a little cramped but this time I was up in the upper circle which was almost empty. The decor is rich in the style of the 18th century Gothic revival with intense medieval decorative bits although the balcony fixtures were, to me, a little rococo with its flourishes.

Before I begin, I must mention an annoyance. My watch had stopped and the result was that I just missed the curtain so I was compelled to sit at the back of the stalls and was seated next to the sort of couple I detest; they were in their late 30's or mid 40's but dressed much younger. The man had a permanent smirk as he was obviously proud of the woman to whom he was attached to. Her white revealing dress and over powering perfume were hard not to notice but, like the country of Bangladesh, lots of people may know where it is but that does not necessarily mean they want to go there. She giggled coquettishly while she put her feet up high against the pillar; I guess she learned her girlish charms from those Emmanuel movies. Her boyfriend was not much better, his mobile phone went off and instead of putting it off he answered it! Such people, I have learned from experience, seem to enjoy the show they put on for others. It is as if they want to be seen as daringly sexy and successful; their craven need for such attention proves the contrary.

SO I do not know if it was my darkening mood or the play itself but I did not enjoy the performance. The Lyceum Theatre seems to cater to minimalist set design and relies more on specialist lighting, image projection and sound effects. The acting was passable but seemed stilted but that matched the set piece dialogue which I thought jarred with the contemporary setting and the characters remained two dimensional. The plot was obvious and the ending could be deduced once one realized what "melodrama by numbers" story this play was about. The review blurb mentioned that this was about Eastern culture and identity; it was more like the T.V Eastenders plot of the week.

Certainly there were things of value that needed to be mentioned; there has been little exposure concerning what it means to be Chinese here in Britain. When the media talk of Asians they mean Pakistanis and Indians, Muslims and Hindus. The Chinese community certainly have had a strong presence in this country and have been here longer but yet the impact upon popular consciousness has been minimal and only recent. Hong Kong and Bruce Lee are strong iconic images but they are also distant alien ones.

Despite my disappointment, I am glad that this production went ahead and I hope to hear more and see more of this woman's work. There are voices and experiences that need to be brought to our attention and I think that this playwrite is one such person. It is interesting to note that her family were Malaysian Chinese and that she herself settled for a time in Glasgow; it is from this experience that this work strongly draws upon.

I have already mentioned my thought on the acting; it didn't work for me. It was constipated and too self-conscious. Jennifer Black, who played Gioia the Hairdresser who finds her Italian roots and contrasts against the "rootless" young Chinese Ying, is a competent player but was let down by the stilted dialogue she had to work with. The two main players, the mother-daughter Pik-Sen Lim and the young Ms Sara Houghton, played well as Madam Chan and Ying respectively but again only in isolation. None of the characters or the actors seemed to work together, perhaps that was intentional, but overall I felt that something more could have been said and done. There is still a voice not heard and the characters did not go far enough. This playwrite is going in the right direction but I felt some point was being highlighted at the cost of something else, which all makes it rather inscrutable - don't you think?