By Kely Lyons

Hollywood, CA 9/20/2012 (HollywoodToday) — You don’t need to be an expert in modern Chinese history to thoroughly enjoy “I, Ching”, the sensational new English-language musical comedy that opened at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse last weekend and continues its limited run at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica on September 21^st and 22^nd. The show has something for everyone, which is excellent news because this tremendously entertaining spectacle deserves as wide an audience as possible.

On the surface it might seem difficult – if not impossible – to sympathize with Jiang Ching, the blatantly opportunistic second-rate Shanghai actress who first became Chairman Mao’s wife, and later the figurehead of the infamous “Gang of Four”. Venal? Yes. Grasping? Check. Vituperative? You bet. And yet, such is the acutely observed nature of author Cecile Tang’s script that you find yourself understanding – if not entirely empathizing with – the self-serving and vainglorious yearnings of this notoriously vindictive woman, whose heinous crimes against her own people quite literally boggle the mind.

This is not to say that Tang lets Madam Mao off the hook. Rather, she allows the audience insight into the tangled emotional makeup of a self-invented woman who recognizes “truth” only when it serves her own often petty ends. As played by Hong Kong actress Marsha Yuan with breathtaking versatility, Ching veers precipitately from the glamorous Shanghai of the ‘30s – where she is an actress better known for her powers as a man-killer than for her talent – to the revolutionary grottos of backwater Yen’an, where she insinuates herself into Mao’s affections with well-honed feminine wiles. By turns coquettish and conniving, she moves through the momentous events of the Chinese Revolution in a self-obsessed bubble, reinventing herself time and again to suit the requirements of her surroundings; girlishly devoted revolutionary maiden, sex object for the fearless leader, who momentarily convinces herself she adores him, self-declared “brilliant” photo journalist who bitterly watches the Revolution from the sidelines.

Every calculated move Ching makes seems to turn out exactly the opposite of what she intends. Early in the show in the song-and-dance number “The New Age Woman”, surrounded by fawning acolytes, she asserts her absolute independence as a woman, declaring she’ll never be “just somebody’s wife”. Yet that’s exactly what she becomes, having been stripped by the Politburo of any political influence as a condition of her relationship with Mao.

With a voice that is by turns sweetly girlish and emotionally powerful, and a lithe physicality that allows her to do virtually anything, Yuan is revelatory in her embodiment of Jiang Ching’s changes. At every turn you believe her, from brocade-clad, tango-dancing heart breaker to uniformed, invective-spewing virago. It is an extraordinary performance.

At every step of the way, Ching is observed, mentored and manipulated by Comrades Kang, C.Q and Yao, a trio of strivers who are aggressively making their way up the corrupt and greasy ladder of party politics  A cosmopolitan smoothie with the swoony good looks of a matinee idol and a voice to match, Kang – the Soviet-trained Head of Chinese Intelligence – manipulates Ching with expert insight into her preening and ambitious nature, setting her up first as Mao’s concubine, and later as the public face of the Gang of Four. Actor Sung Boon Ho wonderfully embodies a man who, with his psychological insight and intelligence, is the smartest guy in any room – and knows it. It’s all a game to Kang; yet at the end of his life, confined to a wheelchair, Boon Ho’s magnificently emotional rendering of the song “Fate  Remains a Mystery” powerfully drives home the all-consuming regret of a man who realizes too late he’s created a monster.

When we first meet Comrade C. Q. as a journalist in decadent 1935 Shanghai, he is actress Ching’s self-avowed “biggest fan”. Sensing that Ching is key to his future within the party, C. Q. keeps tabs on her throughout her trajectory. When he sings that they’ll meet again “Up in the Highest Place” he doesn’t mean heaven; he means further up the political food chain. Rising to become head of the propaganda department in Shanghai, he is instrumental in helping Ching reinvent herself time and again. Actor Rick Lau – fantastic in the role – plays C.Q. as a classic Broadway song and dance man, suave and debonair, with Lau’s superbly versatile vocal talents on full display in numbers such as “She’s the Talk of the Town”.

Comrade Yao – the wonderful Samuel Yau – is the funny-man, a Nathan Lane-like sidekick whose comedic talents – both broad and subtle – are put to great use here. Watching Yao delightedly mimic Ching’s every move from the sidelines as she sings and dances her way through “The New Age Woman” is so deliciously funny, it’s worth the price of the show. At the same time, Yau chillingly shows us the shark behind Yao’s smiling demeanor, as when he encourages two young members of the Communist youth movement, a boy and girl, to brutalize a terrified woman, once a faithful friend of Ching’s, who is now on the dreaded list of Party undesirables.

The show’s dance troop and chorus – four men and four women – are equally adept at singing, dancing and acting. Whether they are acting as the Politburo – an eerie, insect-like goon squad of Mao clones who pronounce judgement on everyone and everything in a creepy monotone – or embodying the lush romanticism of 1935 Shanghai, they bring the stage vividly to life and are instrumental in setting the play’s sweeping emotional tone and scope.

The music – sixteen original songs created by five different composers, arranged by co-composer Jennifer Lindsay and conducted by co-composer Stoa Lau – is of the highest musical theater caliber. Performed here by a live orchestra, the songs and score insinuate themselves into the audience’s emotions as only the best music can, doing full justice to writer Tang’s brilliant lyrics.

The combined Hong Kong/LA cast displays a terrific synergy, working together seamlessly to create an entertainment worthy of a wide audience. There is truly something for everyone here, from jazz and disco to pole-dancing and classic Chinese opera. The staging by director Jacob Yu and his lighting director Bee Wan inventively delineates the play’s wide-ranging time-periods and moods, delivering a show that is both emotionally and visually satisfying. The glorious costuming, overseen by designer Kenneth Leung and ranging convincingly from evening gowns and stilettos to sandals and sackcloth, provide the perfect finishing touch to the momentous events unfolding on stage.

And, while the show has moments of wonderfully broad entertainment, at heart it is a sophisticated and complex examination of a devastating era in Chinese history. When, toward the end of the show, gorgeously-voiced 10-year-old soprano Justine Wang sings “Where is my heaven?” in the powerfully dirge-like number “Fool Me No More”, the heartbreaking naiveté and good faith of the Chinese people, who – hoping for a better life – followed Mao and his Madam into untold hardship and horror, is thrown into sharp relief.

If you enjoy entertainment that makes you laugh, think and feel deeply, you owe it to yourself to catch this superb original musical before it ends its limited run this weekend. You will never have seen anything quite like it before – and in the case of “I, Ching”, that turns out to be an extraordinarily good thing.

Information on tickets and show times is available at www.ichingthemusical.com.