Aside: the content warnings for plays are getting crazy
This was a new play that premiered at the Stratford Festival, about Arthur Miller's staging of Death of a Salesman in China in 1983, starring Adrian Pang as Ying Ruocheng, a Chinese actor, director, translator and later Vice Minister of Culture.
This being the Stratford Festival, the standard of the production was top notch (even Rent, which I didn't like, was well-produced, with my dislike having nothing to do with the production itself). Adrian Pang continues his winning streak - the scripts of all the plays I've seen him in are excellent, and this one was no exception. The contrast between them and Alfian Sa'at trash is very obvious.
A third of the play was in Mandarin, and they leaned fully into this: there were bilingual announcements and even the land acknowledgement was partially in Mandarin (the first time I'd seen this, naturally). Interestingly, it was also the first time I'd gotten details of the relevant treaties in a land acknowledgement. The English and Mandarin lines were almost fully translated for the audience via surtitles (excepting a few throwaway bits and the street performer [see below]).
I was impressed they found so many ethnic Chinese to act in this. Surely, they will have challenges staging it in many parts of the world, since language and ethnicity are both barriers. The Mandarin of the Chinese characters was good, except for one who sounded a bit awkward. I think this was my first time seeing Pang act in Mandarin (probably my first time seeing him speak it too).
It was a bit odd to have some of the Chinese characters often talk to each other in English. It wasn't so that other Chinese people around them would not understand. Ying Ruocheng's father Ying Qianli spoke English with a British accent, which I found a bit strange, but he studied in the UK, so that makes sense.
The play explored issues such as the Cultural Revolution, then-contemporary Chinese politics, musings about translation, adaptation and the theatre (a play about putting on play - how meta), fathers and sons (this tied into both main characters' stories too).
Despite my having no familiarity with the original play, key bits were well explained and performed, so this was not a barrier to understanding and enjoying this play.
It was interesting to learn that at the time, Western characters on the Chinese stage put on makeup and prosthetics (including noses), as well as wigs: whiteface! The play talked about the intent of it, cultural practices and authenticity, which I found interesting. The play also explored cultural nuances, like the American ambassador calling Qing Ming auspicious (I didn't hear any laughs other than mine). This was called out later in the script for the non-Chinese audience.
Amusingly, Miller dissed comparative literature, with people in the field claiming his play said various things, despite his disagreement. It was interesting to learn that China at the time was still sexually conservative; I have been told that post-Cultural Revolution, China was sexually liberal due to old habits and culture being tossed out. I guess not.
Just after the intermission, an actor playing a street performer with a fan and hollow gourd (Kuaibanshu/快板书) came up onto the stage and started his route. There were no surtitles for this bit, which I suppose was fitting, given the spontaneous nature of the medium. He said something like "you don't understand me so go and watch Netflix", with the last 2 words in English, and the audience laughed. Even as someone with some level of Mandarin understanding, it was hard to understand him as he spoke very quickly. He told us to say "特棒" ("very good") but very few repeated after him.
The last line of the play, 一路平安 ("have a safe trip"), spoken by Ying to Miller, was not translated, but from the context the audience could tell what it meant.
After the curtain call, archival photos of the events portrayed in the play were flashed in the background, which was a nice touch.
