Grease Paint and Chopsticks - Chinese Travelling Theatre
Narrated by ROBERT CUSHMAN
MADAME SOH is an exquisite artist, the star of a small theatre company which travels the roads of Thailand playing to audiences drawn from among the millions of emigre Chinese scattered throughout the,Far East.
The living is rough - meals and sleep are snatched between performances, which can last up to seven hours, every day of the year. Everyone helps to erect the stage, hump costumes and props; backstage is always cramped, chaotic and temporary. Yet once on stage they are performers as polished as any in the world.
Chinese Theatre defies western categories - melodrama, farce, opera, pantomime are all mixed to produce a spectacle with which companies like Madame Soh's dazzle their audiences and keep alive the culture and traditions of Old China.
Presented by CLEM VALLANCE Series editors ANTHONY ISAACS and CHRISTOPHER PARSONS