Reviewed by James Karas
Pu Songling: Strange Tales is a visit to an unknown world, at
least for me. The play is based on the stories of Chinese writer Pu Songling (1640
- 1715) who wrote more than 500 stories. The production by Theatre
Smith-Gilmour with Crow’s Theatre invites us to “enter the spellbinding world
of Pu Songling, the visionary writer whose tales of the supernatural have
captivated audiences for centuries.”
The
play is based on eleven of Pu Songling’s tales adapted by (hold onto your seat)
Michele Smith, Diana Tso, Steven Hao, Madelaine Hodges, John Ng and Dean
Gilmour. In addition to them, they give
thanks to Michael Man, Lindsay Wu, Jeff Yung and Rosie Simon. That is a lot of
people devising a show that lasts about one hundred and ten minutes. The result
is amazing.
The
play is performed by five actors and it consists of the
retelling of some of Pu Songling’s tales by Dean Gilmour, Steven Hao,
Madelaine Hodges, John Ng and Diana Tso. The five are talented, imaginative,
vigorous, and able to represent many characters in quick succession. They
scream, screech, laugh and go through gamut of theatrical positions that amaze
and entertain. They represent humans (dead and alive), horses, dogs, foxes and
others with virtuoso alacrity. You witness bravura acting of the highest order.
According to the program, the play is based on the following eleven tales: Past Lives of Mr. Liu, The Corpse, Sharp Sword, Southern Wu-tong Spirit, An Earthquake, Wailing Ghosts, Wild Dog, Temple Demon, Judge Lu, Wei Gongzi and King of the Nine Mountains. As the titles suggest, the stories and the play based on them deal with the supernatural, the miraculous, the awesome and always entertaining. The actors tell us part of the story and act or make the sound of the animal that they represent.
The
opening tale is about a woman whose daughter-in-law has died. The stage has a
table with five chairs and the corpse is lying at the edge of the table. Three
men seek shelter and the woman permits them to sleep beside the corpse. As they
fall asleep, the corpse begins waving its arms
She throws off the paper covering her and chases
the men around the stage in a scene of terror, murder and mayhem.
There
is the story about the man who loves his wife but does not like the fact that in
old age she is not as attractive as she was in her youth. A man promises to
give his wife a new face. He takes the head of a pretty woman and transplants its
face onto the unattractive wife. Who was
the owner of the pretty face and how did it get on the unattractive woman’s head?
There
is pantomime, creation of numerous sounds like that of sinner who is sent back from
hell to work as a horse, and then as a snake. We hear the sound of a horse neighing
and the slithery snake is squeezed until it disgorges one of its victims. The
sinner gets remission of his sins from the devil after receiving his due
punishment.
Ting
– Huan and Christine Urquhart are the Set & Costume Designers and they have
the play done on a virtually empty stage except for a table and chairs. The
table and the chairs are moved to suit different scenes. There are four fluorescent
lights over the playing area that are used imaginatively and effectively to
provide a variety of atmospheres for the real and the supernatural. Noah Feaver
is the imaginative Lighting Designer.
___________________
Pu Songling: Strange Tales, a Theatre Smith-Gilmour production in Association with Crow’s Theatre, adapted by Michele Smith-Gilmour et. al. based on the tales of Pu Songling will run until February 8, 2026, at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. http://crowstheatre.com/
James Karas is the Culture editor of The Greek Press, Toronto
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