Asian Pirate Musical!!

All photos by Mike Skelton

Six years ago, a group of Asian composers, thespians and theatre kids asked me for some guidance on a musical featuring Sek Yeung, the Qing Dynasty pirate leader, and Admiral Zheng He, the Ming dynasty maritime explorer. I was delighted, as I’d been thinking about ‘Madam Ching’ for a while. When the BBC’s Doctor Who pitted the folk hero against the Sea Devils (With cringe-inducing outcomes) I took the opportunity to bring my research and thoughts together, and included an interview with Nemo Martin, about the newly solidified Asian Pirate Musical. Unable to catch the first round of performances, I was nevertheless, impressed by the soundtrack. I’d kept in touch with the team over the years, so it was with great excitement that now, six years later, I finally got to see the now polished version of the project.

Hidden within the leafy London suburbs and the Tudor pub exterior is Highgate’s indie theatre Upstairs at the Gatehouse, where a minimal set (junk sails and a collection of wheeled boxes decked out in techy greebles) were enough to create multi-era shipscape, representing the Waterworld-esque nautical survival setting of a 2049, where the land is lost, the skies are poisoned, and the seas are at their limit. Directed by Zhui Ning Chang, produced by Florian Lim and Nemo Martin, this musical tells the story of Sek Yeung (Amanda Maud), Zheng He (Ynaqui Tuason-Inocian), Keliling and Riang (Rai Endah and Nabilah Hamid), two space pirates from the far future, all of whom are transported via a temporal storm, to a dying Earth, and a ship single-handedly crewed by Captain Nazar (Ashley Goh). The disparate group (dispirates?) must settle their differences, working together to track down the storm so they can return to their own times, while haunted all the time by personal loss and the unseen sea monsters.

Lead Composer Jade Leamcharaskul tells me that the creative team wanted to make sure the show would appeal to all contemporary audiences, and in doing so, they’ve created the perfect silk punk world, blending traditional costumes with Mad Max aesthetics, Ship’s wheels with circuit boards, and musically, elements of blues, electro and pop with Eastern melodies and traditional instruments such as the guzheng.  Pieces such as Hai Onwards, the haunting Nirvana and Our Earth and Water reflect multi-regional influences of sea shanties (as I write, I’m remembering our initial struggles finding Chinese sea shanties available as a reference).

I love how the salient points about the historical figures, Zheng He, his background and seven sea voyages, Sek Yeong, her origins, skills of leadership and later life are touched upon concisely by the lyrics and snippets of dialogue, without labouring the point for audiences just there for a good time. Still, the accuracy and understanding satisfies a writer like me, who has fought for the pirate queen’s historical legacy to be recognised. This is one of the only pieces I have seen in the West, outside my own writing, to refer to Madam Ching by her own name, rather than in relation to her husband.

With such a small cast, the show focusses on pairing the players in vignettes, with some of the duets not only capturing the essence of the characters, and dynamics between them, but advancing the story. The playful I Know You Know, sung by Sek Yeung and Zheng He, sets them as the most unlikely allies in Chinese maritime history, Whiles Zheng’s K-pop elegy to Emperor Yongle, Without You, definitely draws from history takes like Lucy Moss’ Tudor tale Six. As a fan of Captain Herlock and Firefly, I love space pirates, Keliling and Riang both stand out as well-rounded characters whose back stories and relationship provide connective relatability to the audience, while the fierce and stubborn Nazar, tormented by memories of their lost crew, cuts a striking figure.  In their undaunted spirit and adolescent androgyny, they seem almost like an interpretation of the god Nezha.

As the songs do most of the heavy-lifting, and while the venue wasn’t the best compliment  acoustically for Leamcharaskul’s multi-layered compositions, having the subtitles projected onto one of the sails, provided not only an exceptional point of accessibility, but really helped with not missing important details which occasionally got buried in the competing reverberations.

Theatre is a very special experience, being live, and I was happy to see people who looked like me on stage, telling the stories that are part of my heritage. This is something that as minority writers, we’ve never been able to take for granted. These pirates eat rice, bok choy and practice Duanwu rituals, but it’s not just the trappings. Whether we’re in an apocalypse or the space age, this is an Asian story. As the tale progresses, Keliling becomes a kind of apprentice to Sek Yeong, and finds emotional support in Zheng He. The old guiding the young, the young deferring to the old, and calling them aunty and uncle, you can’t get more Asian than that. In a work so wonderfully multicultural in terms of creators, cast and characters, I’m fully aware I’m writing from a Sinophone cultural perspective. In fact, I would be fascinated to find out about the references to other Asian histories and cultures in the musical.

Asian influences are not the only inspiration, my English editor found resonances with Disney archetypes and the team’s love of Les Miserable could be felt in certain numbers, including the rousing finale. When I first heard how the project had coalesced, I admit I was doubtful of how dynastic pirates, sci-fi and Les Mis could come together. But it has. The near future setting intrigues me, and with the amount of damage we see, the idea of a brighter future based on the crew’s decisions seems a little bit of a stretch, especially when the Mcguffin of the time storm exists. I wonder how things would fare if other time periods got the APM treatment. APM: Qing Dynasty, APM: Ming Dynasty, APM: Space Odyssey…so many possibilities, perhaps for future developments.

The show, continues until the 2nd of August with a post-show panel discussion on the 1st.

 

 


Posted in Events and tagged , , , ,