By Kely Lyons

Hollywood, CA (HollywoodToday) 9/12/2012— Los Angeles audiences are in for something truly marvellous this month, when “I, Ching”, a live musical extravaganza depicting the life and times of Chairman Mao’s wife, Jian Ching, opens for a limited run at the San Gabriel Mission Theater and The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

The idea of a highly entertaining musical based on the life of Madam Mao may seem counter-intuitive, but in the case of this Hong Kong/US co-production, nothing could be further from the truth. The book and lyrics – written by groundbreaking Chinese/American film director Cecile Tang Shu Shuen, who is also the project’s executive producer – treat the subject with sharply sophisticated wit, insight and imagination. Tracing Jian Ching’s path from Shanghai starlet to head of the notorious Gang of Four, the story is as riveting as it is well-told, supported by a superb smorgasbord of 16 original musical numbers that range in style from 1930’s jazz to disco and everything in between, interspersed with power ballads that drive home the political and emotional turmoil of the characters, the country and its people in moments that are surprisingly and deeply affecting.

In decadent 1930’s Shanghai, Ching was known as the “Blue Apple”, a proud and arrogant actress who made up in style and attitude what she lacked in talent. Batting away the men who fall smitten at her feet, she hungers for fame, fuming and jealous when she is passed over for actresses with more substance.

When the Revolution comes, Ching shifts her ambitions and determines that she will be the best, most faithful, hardest-working revolutionary her comrades have ever seen. Laboring in the backwater province of Yen’an, she sets her sights on Chairman Mao, seeing him as the key to the power and recognition she craves.

When she finally succeeds in supplanting Mao’s wife she does so with the most blatant of feminine wiles, represented here by a pole dance executed with stunningly sensuous power by lead actress Marsha Yuan. The Politburo, a creepy cadre of “mini-Maos” who speak in an eerie monotone chant, declares their disapproval – but their fearless leader will have his Ching no matter what. Bending to Mao’s desires, the Politburo grudgingly allows the union, but forbids Ching from holding any power or position within the party – essentially constraining her to the role of Mao’s concubine, seen but never heard, recognized as the First Lady of China, but powerless to have any effect.

Throughout the play, Ching’s progress is monitored by Comrade Kang (Sung Boon Ho), Comrade C.Q. (Rick Lau) and Comrade Yao (Samuel Yau), social-climbing Politburo members who are destined to become three of the Gang of Four.

From the sidelines, Ching watches momentous historic events unfold with increasingly vituperative frustration, determined to make everyone who has slighted her – real or perceived – pay for their sins. When Kang, C.Q. and Yao approach her with a scheme to install her as the titular head of the country, she is more than ready – and the Gang of Four is born. The gloriously satirical song-and-dance number “The Gang of Four” shows Madam Mao at her vindictive worst; having been shut out of a fancy dress party years ago, she punishes a glamorous, pearl-wearing party guest she’d been jealous of by making her wear a necklace of ping pong balls, a dunce cap and a sign denouncing her “crimes”.

This show, quite literally, has something for everyone – and it’s all superbly done. From ballet and jazz to contemporary dance, disco, hip hop and traditional Chinese opera, the combination of styles, original songs and live orchestral music works seamlessly. The music is infectious – hummable, danceable, melodious, moving and funny in equal parts. Performing in English, the hugely talented cast of combined Hong Kong/Los Angeles performers sing, dance and act with enormous skill, energy and finesse.

And, while satire is clearly the dominant tone, the truth of the underlying human condition is always close to the surface. When, near the end of the show, a soaring child’s voice plaintively asks “Where is my heaven?” – the worker’s paradise promised by Mao and his revolution – the movement’s devastating effect on the people and the country is brought into stark relief. And when the dying Kang, the chief architect of Ching’s rise to power, finds himself horrified at the bloody nightmare he has helped to create, Boon Ho’s knock-out rendition of the ballad “Fate Remains a Mystery” is a hair-raising lesson in the damage wrought by clever but unthinkingly blind political ambition.

The production opens with three shows at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse on Friday, September 14^th, at 8 p.m., Saturday September 15^th at 2 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  The following weekend the show moves to The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, for a performance on Friday September 21^st at 7:30 p.m., a 2 p.m. show on Saturday September 22, and a final performance at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets and further information are available at www.ichingthemusical.comSpecial volume pricing is available on the website, and special pricing is available for students and seniors as well.

My recommendation is that you run, don’t walk, and catch this extraordinary show while it’s here. You are in for a real delight, something new and different you will never have seen the like of before.