A protesting art student who is on a hunger strike faces a soldier who is pointing a gun at him. The student offers the soldier some food. They are in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, while an official with a bullhorn is ordering all the students to stop their hunger strike, leave the square, and stop trying to engage the soldiers in discussion: “Do not offer them flowers or food.”
The soldier, whose name is Wang Yang, says nothing. The student, Shuyin, asks him whether he is aiming his rifle at his heart. “Mine is beating strong,” Shuyin says. “It knows what it wants!” What it wants is Wang Yang. The student and the soldier are lovers.
This pivotal scene occurs about half-way through “Tiananmen Requiem,” a promising new play on stage at the Players Theater through March 27. There is inherent drama and sudden timeliness in this story of a struggle against the odds for both love and democracy.
It feels important enough as a work of theater to have attracted Wang Dan and Jinjin (Jim) Li, two student activists involved in the seven-week-long student-led pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, to participate in a panel discussion before the performance on opening night.
It’s also intriguing: It is written by a Chinese immigrant who wishes to remain anonymous, fearing repercussions for family back in China. As the playwright explained to me: “I wrote ‘Tiananmen Requiem’ as a tribute and commemoration of the Tiananmen Massacre. In China, commemorating Tiananmen is considered subversion, and the laws carry a penalty of up to life imprisonment.”
The play is set in Beijing in 1989 and in present-day New York. In 1989, Wang Yang (Charles Pang), as a soldier in People’s Liberation Army, is under pressure from the get-go to hide his relationship with Shuyin. For his part, Shuyin (Michael Benzinger) has been accepted into the Master of Fine Arts program at New York University, and fantasizes going there with Wang Yang and Wang’s toddler daughter from a previous relationship. When a police officer catches the two men dancing to a waltz on an old cassette player, Wang is sent to an Army “special education camp” – for having listened to Western music. (It’s unclear whether the arresting officer was simply too clueless to recognize a gay relationship, or whether Wang’s supervising Officer Li is giving Wang a break; perhaps it’s both.)
The pressure only mounts after the death of Hu Yaobang, the top reformer in the Chinese government, leads to mourning and then mass student protest at the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square. Shuyin decides he must give up his dream of America to stand with the protesting students…and, when the Chinese Communist Party senior leaders declare martial law, Wang Yang is called up to be part of the massive force to disperse the students. Matters escalate.
In present-day New York, Wang Yang lives alone with his now-teenage daughter Alyssa (Karina Wen), who is applying to college, and baffled by the behavior of her father, who’s evidently kept most everything from her.
“Tiananmen Requiem” is a first public workshop of a play by a first-time playwright, and it shows. The pacing is off, the acting is uneven, the progression of the scenes can be confusing, especially when the characters from 1989 and from the present day are on stage at the same time. While the New York scenes add a bit of suspense (We wonder: Where is Shuyin?), a touch of irony, and ultimately some closure, too much in them feels like padding. One possible change: Right now, Alyssa is working on her college application essay, “My Father’s Journey to America.” Instead, she could be writing a paper about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which could provide details that the playwright perhaps assumes theatergoers already know (but many of us don’t.)
“Tiananmen Requiem” feels fixable, and worth doing so. That’s clear for some of the very same reasons that the current production falls short: Two of the seven cast members quit before opening night out of fear of reprisals by the Chinese government.
Tiananmen Requiem
At Players Theater through March 27
Running time: 90 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $57
Directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li
Lighting by Jessica Choi, costume design by Hao-Yun Emily Hsieh
Cast:
Charles Pang……………………………………………………………. “Wang Yang”
Michael Benzinger…………………………………………………………… “Shuyin”
Karina Wen…………………………………………………………………….. “Alyssa”
Jeremy Rafal…………………………………………………..”Officer Li / Soldier”
Joyce Keokham ……………………………………………………….. “Julie / Lulu”
John Chan………………………………………………………”Zeng Feng / Officer”
Shan Y. Chuang…………………………..”Julie / Lulu / Alyssa” – understudy
