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Chinese 'I Love You' Takes Manhattan
Later this
spring, West 43rd Street in midtown Manhattan may look a bit more like West
Nanjing Road in downtown Shanghai. Beginning May 9, the Mandarin Chinese
version of the off-Broadway musical "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now
Change," will premiere at the Westside Theatre in New York City. This will
be the first time ever a foreign production of an American musical will be
performed in the States.
The
English version of "I Love You" is presently off-Broadway's longest running
musical entering its 11th year at the Westside Theatre, where the Chinese
version will do its 23-performance engagement. The show, written by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts, tackles the hardships in a relationship through
a series of vignettes that touch on all of the stages of a relationship,
from first date until marriage.
The
Mandarin version premiered in Shanghai in December 2006 and recently
concluded an enormously successful Chinese run. The show was directed by
Joel Bishoff and translated by Nick Rongjun Yu, who injected the musical with
Chinese attitudes, jokes and themes. The Chinese, who have a comedic
tradition of corny relationship humor, lapped up the "I Love You" jokes and
filled the seats of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre nightly. On April
17, the show will do the honor of opening the 2007 Beijing Theater
Festival before moving stateside.
The Chinese cast of 4 includes Lin Yilun, a rising Chinese pop star and
winner of the Best Male Singer Award at the CCTV and MTV Music Awards in
2006. Lin and the lesser-known other actors play multiple characters
throughout the show. Although the actors speak Chinese during the
performance, the English will be supertitled above the stage at the Westside
(just in case a New Yorker of non-Chinese heritage wants to check out
the show).
While the
title will remain the same for the Chinese version, a more fitting title for
the Mandarin production might be "I Never Loved You, My Parents Think You're
Perfect, Now Let's Have A Kid." Following the New York stint, the
Chinese "I Love You" will return to Beijing to kick off a multi-city tour
throughout China.
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