A twisted tale of intrigue

Once again, it's necessary to evoke the phrase East-meets-West in anticipation of a performance at the National Theater.

This time, the show is Raise the Red Lantern (大紅燈籠高高掛) interpreted through the body art of ballet and is directed by renowned Chinese film director Zhang Yimou (張藝謀), who made the film of the same story.

The show, staged by the National Ballet of China (中國中央芭蕾舞團), will begin a five-day run with seven visually stunning performances starting Wednesday.

Like Zhang's award-winning film, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1991 and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film, the ballet of Raise the Red Lantern is based on the novel Wives and Concubines by Su Tong (蘇童). The story is full of vivid description and criticism of the subjugation of women and feudal attitudes in early 20th-century China.

In the ballet, the story will be more succinct, enriched with profound symbolic expressions and powerful visual representations, according to the show's organizer New Aspect Foundation (新象文教基金會).

Set in a deep, quiet courtyard home in the 1920s, the ballet's tone is less haunting than the film's. The focus has been shifted from depicting the inner politics between the wives and servants to the forbidden romance of the concubines and the ensuing sacrifice. And the role of the fourth wife, played by Gong Li (鞏俐) in the film version, has been cut out in the ballet. Instead, the story centers on the third wife who has a lover outside the concealed courtyard.

In the performance, a young girl is forced into a bridal palanquin. She is to be the third wife, the second concubine of the master of the big house. Before getting on the palanquin, she recalls her lover -- a young male actor in a Peking Opera troupe.

As the first and second wives welcome her with complex emotional undertones, she quickly learns the true nature her new life. If a red lantern is raised at night outside her apartment, it signifies that, of the three wives, she will be honored that night by a visit from the master. And on her wedding night, the young bride is finally overpowered and submits to her new husband after desperate resistance.

At a mahjong session between the master and his two other wives, the third wife flees to meet her lover only to soon be discovered by the second wife. The master then catches the lovers red-handed.

The second wife, who had hoped to regain the husband's favor through her minor detective work, is instead punished by the outraged master along with the lovers.

"This story is very suitable to present in the stage performance, as it contains folk architecture, Peking opera and very traditional folk-flavored elements," said Zhang in an interview in Beijing prior to the ballet's premiere.

He said the film was already very much like stage performance, the four seasons represented in the film appearing as the four scenes of a stage play.

The ballet begins with a segment of Peking opera music, and a female Peking opera character singing high-pitched songs along with the music.

The second scene of the show is a complex mixture of ballet, Chinese acrobatics and percussion. In a technical and physical challenge, the dancers perform Peking opera gestures and movements at the same time as they dance ballet steps.

In the third scene, the mahjong playing in the house juxtaposes with the secret lovers courting outside the house and the settings and props made with fabrics such as red silk and cotton paper magnify the dramatic effect.