Macau Art Festival
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‘A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM’ OPENS ARTS FESTIVAL
Tomorrow night and Sunday night, the Shakespeare Theatre Company will perform productions of the playwright’s famous “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as part of the kick-off for the Macao Arts Festival. Five guests from the Shakespeare Theatre Company spoke with the media yesterday to share their excitement over what is the company’s first production in China. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy portraying the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta. The events that unfold include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, known as the mechanicals, who are controlled and manipulated by fairies. It remains one of Shakespeare’s most popular works for the stage and is widely performed around the world. “The play has three themes, or worlds,” said Ethan McSweeny, the director of the production. “The world of fairies, the world of lovers and the court, [along with] the world of the mechanicals, including the working class people who [in the play] are preparing an amateur theater production. My goal was to make the show work well across all three rings of the circus,” he explained. Canadian performers Sara Topham and Dion Johnstone, who portray the characters of Titania and Oberon respectively, were present at the meeting. American actor Adam Green, who plays the notorious and mischievous character, Puck, and is described by McSweeny as “absolutely irreplaceable” in the role, also attended. “This [invitation] is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us,” said Green. Coinciding with the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death this year, the performance tomorrow night will mark the company’s debut in China. “Macau is so multicultural and our production will be translated into Cantonese and Portuguese,” said McSweeny in response to a question about the accessibility of the play to non-native English speakers. “Shakespeare’s plays are universal so it’s our job to just perform them and not to try to adapt it for the local culture.” “There is a universality of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and there are some comic aspects that I think you don’t need to speak English to understand. You could watch it on mute and understand what is going on. To be able to watch it with the sound off is very possible,” said actor Adam Green. Speaking in response to the same question, Sara Topham said: “I think the reason that we keep doing Shakespeare across cultures is because every girl has had the experience of having a boy not love her back. This is true of girls in Canada, China and Washington D.C. Unrequited love is the same around the world.” But whether the performers will get the same reactions from the play’s humor in Macau as they do in the United States remains to be seen, McSweeny said. “I think on Saturday we will learn a lot. Maybe some things that we thought were funny might turn out not to be…” he joked. Recipient of the 2012 Regional Theatre Tony Award, the Shakespeare Theatre Company is a leading classical production house in the U.S. Today it is synonymous with artistic excellence, according to a statement from the IC, and renowned for making classical theatre more accessible to audiences around Washington D.C., where the company is based. The company performs through 48 weeks of the year from late-August to mid-July, annually producing three Shakespeare plays and four adaptations by American writers of European plays and historical plays from around the world. IC representatives say that the show has been sold out during the “early period, within the first week or so.” Daniel Beitler
MAF UNVEILED, MARKS SHAKESPEARE, TANG 400TH ANNIVERSARY
The program for the 27th Macao Arts Festival (MAF), organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), was unveiled yesterday in the MGM Grand Ballroom. This year’s edition is themed “Time,” with the slogan, “Reshape your imagination. Experience the spirit of the Times.” The festival will run from April 30 to May 29, bringing more than 100 activities and performances to the MSAR. To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare this year, MAF will feature two Shakespearean productions, including a rendition of the romantic comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the U.S.A. Shakespeare Theater Company, and an adaption of “Macbeth” set in the warlord- run Democratic Republic of Congo, presented by South Africa’s Third World Bunfight. It is also the 400th anniversary of the death of the great Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu, and in his honor two of his acclaimed works will be staged. Excerpts of “The Peony Pavilion,” performed by the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe from Mainland China and the romantic tragedy, “The Legend of the Purple Hairpin,” performed by Macau Cantonese opera artists (among them renowned artist, Chu Chan Wa), will both be performed at the festival. Also introduced to this year’s festival is an innovative rendition of “Krapp’s Last Tape”, Samuel Beckett’s famous work directed and performed by internationally acclaimed theater director Robert Wilson. It is Wilson’s first appearance as an actor since 2000. The concert, “Coppia”, featuring a dance-music combination performed by Manuela Azevedo and Hélder Gonçalves (both members of Portuguese band Clã) on a tennis court, will also be performed. Additionally numerous children’s shows, outdoor performances and assorted events will be staged, including “In Chants”, suitable for children between six months and three years of age, the advanced ice skating and dance show “Glide” and Tao Dance Theater’s contemporary dance routines by choreographer Tao Ye. “The MAF is dedicated to introducing extraordinary international productions in order to widen the audience’s horizons and encourage local creativity while promoting art education, thereby adding a profound and sustainable element to Macau’s culture,” said Ung Vai Meng, president of the IC in his speech at the unveiling ceremony. “Thanks to everyone’s support, the Macao Arts Festival has already become one of the city’s most important cultural events,” added Ung. Tickets for the festival are available at the Macau Ticketing Network outlets from 10 a.m. on March 13. Reservations can be made by phone or online from 12 p.m. onwards on the same day. Early bird discounts of 30 percent, subject to certain criteria, are available for some of the performances.
MACANESE CREOLE PATUÁ SEEKS CONSENSUS ON ITS WRITING
The endangered Patuá language (a Macanese creole) is going to change its orthography in order to seek consensus among the community. This statement was made by the president of the board of the Macanese Association (ADM) and president of the Association for Macanese Education (APIM), Miguel de Senna Fernandes yesterday on the sidelines of a conference on language contact in Asia and the Pacific held by the University of Macau (UM). The so-called “spelling agreement” is based on the fact that the current orthographic system is based on the Portuguese language and not all people who are interested in the language are able to read it. “Maybe this will shock some people a bit but I propose a new orthography for the Patuá,” he said. “There current writing does not convey the phonetics that should be in the language for people interested in learning,” he added, concluding that the task will involve “new mental gymnastics and a new technique to approach the language.” However, he reaffirmed that the adoption of a new system should not be “that difficult” as other forms of creole language have successfully undergone similar transitions, such as in Cape Verde. There is currently no concrete timeline for the plan that is supported by Alan Baxter, who recently returned to Macau and is an expert in Portuguese-based creoles in Asia. Senna Fernandes – one of the faces of the Patuá dialect revival and member of theater group “Dóci Papia?ám di Macau”, which has performed on stage for every Macau Arts Festival to date – recalled that the language “fell into profound disuse” but had its importance shifted from practicality to a “deeper meaning related to the identity [of the community].” In his opinion, the importance of the language is not restricted to the Macanese people but also for many others who are “interested in the multiculturalism of Macau.” The motivation for the preservation of the language is not in terms of retaining its “utility ” or even any “nostalgic feeling”, he said, but as “something that we preserve from our ancestors, the same way we keep some of their objects to recall where we came from.” Senna Fernandes claims that there is a rising interest in the language, even among those who are not learning it to regain their own heritage. “There are people totally new [to the language] that want to learn it. Naturally they learn [from] it a totally different perspective of the Macanese people,” he said, commenting that for the time being, “my answers to these people are never satisfactory, since we do not have much resources and hardware to offer them in order to support a learning method as I wish to do.” For the stage director of the “Dóci Papia?ám di Macau” group, “if people laugh [in our shows, it] is because somehow they got touched by the message and they understood it and that’s very important.” For him, the efforts to protect the creole language are necessary and become even more important in times when the “[Macanese] community is shrinking and losing its characteristics.” In order to protect that language, he added, “collective memory” is more important than any “ textbooks, grammar or even pronunciation.” “Our community is a statement and should prevail. We want to give to the young generations enough materials so they can ‘dig up’ about their roots,” he said, when asked about the goals of the theatrical group. Elisabela Larrea, who is studying the shift of the Patuá from a “home language to a performing language”, addressed the same topic. According to her study, there are fewer than 50 confident, fluent, Patuá speakers. TEACHING CANTONESE IS A MATTER OF ‘GOOD SENSE’ Miguel de Senna Fernandes, the president of the Association for Macanese Education (APIM), said that the decision to teach Cantonese at the D. Jose da Costa Nunes Kindergarten – a Portuguese school – this year was “a matter of good sense.” “It’s a strategy … focused on people’s integration into the [local] environment,” he said. “I’m going to propose that the Macau Portuguese School (EPM) do the same [implementing the language teaching] and I’m certain that there will be no arguments against it.” The APIM president explained that the classes have been planned as an extracurricular activity, which he thinks is the best approach. “[The] campaign in favor of the Cantonese is not a matter of position or attitude, but an imperative matter, so the communities that do not have the Chinese language as their mother tongue can help integrate their children.” Senna Fernandes added that not teaching a dialect spoken by the majority of the population would be the loss of “a golden opportunity”, as the students are at the right age to learn new languages.
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1 The Macao Arts Festival (MAF) is an annual event held in Macao during the month of May, which consistently enriches the cultural and artistic life of residents as well as visitors.
2 Organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao S.A.R. Government, this year under the slogan ‘Enjoy Life through Art’, the MAF actively promotes the arts and artistic education, in an effort to encourage residents to engage in artistic activities and welcome the arts into their daily lives.
3 The MAF programming adheres faithfully to the three-fold principle of ‘fostering the development of local arts, showcasing outstanding performances from around the world and propagating the Chinese culture”.