FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW--
"CHINA-THE WHOLE ENCHILADA"
Is the way to political correctness through political incorrectness?
“China: The Whole Enchilada” might lead you to believe so.
This “Olympian Musical” at the New York International Fringe Festival is an irreverent survey of 5,000 years of Chinese history running coincidentally at the same time as the spectacular events in sports history in Beijing.
Featuring Peking man, Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Mao, Fu Manchu and Ricardo Montalban...
Wait,,,how did HE get in there?
Well this is a true vaudeville show in which anything goes, Skits spoof not only of what is in China, but what is in people’s minds about China, most notably as planted by Hollywood. Song and dance is interspersed with puns, the sounds of off stage disasters, and summersaults at a frantic pace.
Philip Nolen, Eric Hissom and Brad DePlanche star in this offering from the Orlando Shakespeare Festival. Their split-second in sync with each other timing and farcical skills are so smooth in making the quite literary script seem effortlessly. Even when one of them forgets a line, they make that part of the act.
Mark Brown--the writer, lyricist and composer--has set up to polar ends of views on China. One character believes China is all bad---the Yellow Horde out to dominate the world--while another character confuses China with Japan. A straight man (an “expert”) tries to keep a balance between the two by pointing out China’s contributions to civilization and correcting misinformation.
When this circus reaches its zaniness, Brown inserts serious songs that recounts how the Chinese have suffered. Brown has spoken about how he became aware of people’s perceptions about the Chinese and racism after he and his wife adopted a Chinese baby girl, making his lullaby “Lotus Shoes” about foot binding of girls particularly poignant.
So why sub-title this Google-search-like stew “The Whole Enchilada” instead of something more Chinese-y like sweet and sour soup?
A possible answer is that it was guaranteed to make the top dozen nuttiest names of Fringe-shows-to-see list.
Another thought is that maybe some of what people think about the Chinese could be applied to other people, like the Mexicans. Certainly the five-minute skip through the changes in immigration policy in the last two centuries toward Chinese workers would give one pause to consider the dissonances in the immigration debate.
That is the charm of this silly-serious show--how it is wandered through every possible stereotype of Chinese, and ended up so thoughtfully (politically) correct.
MORE INFORMATION AT www.chinathewholeenchilada.com
-- CELIA SHARPE
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