DRAGON LADY – The Many Lives and Deaths of ANNA MAY WONG.
Writer Helen Yotis-Patterson, Director: Michael
Fulcher. Musical Director. Andrew Patterson. Original songs by Simon Hall and
Andrew Patterson. Featuring Fiona Choi as Anna May Wong. The Space Theatre. Adelaide
Cabaret Festival Adelaide Festival Centre June 7-8 2019.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Fiona Choi as Anna May Wong Photo: Matt Kimpton. Verve Portraits |
Few may have heard of or remember
American Chinese actress and singer, Anna May Wong. Hers is a fascinating tale of humble beginnings as the poor daughter of a Chinese
laundry operator in LA before her rise to stardom as a Hollywood film actress.
Inevitably cast in oriental roles, she worked alongside the likes of Douglas
Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. Her decline in popularity forced her to reinvent
herself as a stage actress in Berlin. A
victim of ethnic prejudice from Westerners and Orientals alike and spurned by
China, Anna May Wong’s life is a
rollercoaster ride of highs and lows in which Chinse ethnicity is regarded as
only skin deep by her cultural homeland and as a deterrent to roles that were
assumed by white actors made up as Chinese. The faces of Luise Rainer, who
deprived Wong of the lead role opportunity in The Good earth, John Wayne,
Marlon Brando, Scarlett Johannsen flash up on the screen. Wong, born in the Year of the Dragon and
imbued with the spirit of resilience and defiance constantly re-invented
herself in her perpetual bid for professional
and personal survival. Dragon Lady - The
Many Lives and Deaths of Anna May Wong is a stirring saga of survival,
appearing as a pervasive prejudice of its time, but serving as a sober reminder
of the ongoing struggle to preserve one’s cultural identity in the face of
ignorance and prejudice.
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| Fiona Choi as Anna May Wong. Photo: Matt Kimpton |
Dragon Lady – The Many Lives of Anna May Wong follows a traditional
structure of an account of Wong’s fascinating life chronologically presented by
writer Helen Yotis Patterson interspersed with projected images of the time and
her experiences and songs from the period, sung with charm and feeling by Fiona
Choi. Choi captures the essence of Wong’s struggle, her need to move on,
despite the obstacles set in her way to thwart her ambition. There is a matter of
fact pragmatism to Choi’s performance. She accepts Wong’s fate as a natural
consequence of stereotypical attitudes of the era with a suggestion that the
struggles persist today as actors confront the heavy price of ambition and the
bitter sting of cultural rejection. In her films, which included her first
talking and singing picture Tow of the
Sea and The Thief of Baghdad with
Douglas Fairbanks, Wong’s characters died many times. With more lives than a
cat, Wong bounced back and Choi with director Michael Fulcher and musical
director Andrew Patterson presents a strong woman ahead of her time and yet
compelled to rely on her resourcefulness to overcome the obstacles endemic to
the industry and the age.
Dragon Lady receives its World Premiere at the Adelaide Cabaret
Festival. It is a fascinating story, performed with charm by Choi, but worthy
of a more developed stage or screen
work. It is a work of interest
and information waiting to be revealed as an absorbing and moving drama of Anna
May Wong’s fascinating life.