Feast of hairy crabs and poetry

THEATRE

THE CRAB FLOWER CLUB

Toy Factory Productions

Esplanade Theatre/Last Friday

When The Crab Flower Club - about five feisty women in the Qing Dynasty who form a poetry club - was first staged in 2009, it received rave reviews for its strong and sensitive portrayal of women.

Grounded by poems from Chinese writer Cao Xueqin's literary masterpiece Dream Of The Red Chamber, the English production featured an all-female cast.

A Straits Times review noted then that being performed in English flattened out the nuances of the original Chinese poetry.

Now returning for its first Mandarin iteration in Singapore, the drama-opera has not only addressed the language issue, but also gone a step further by fusing contemporary theatre and Chinese opera.

Commissioned by Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay and produced by Toy Factory Productions, it features Chinese opera performers and live musicians on stage.

In the play, the characters reunite on the eve of their father's 60th birthday to prepare a feast of crabs and set up a clandestine all-women poetry club.

Their preoccupations with foot-binding, food preparation, marriage and children are typical of the period's patriarchal society, when women lived under the care and at the mercy of men.

Yet, the work's success lies in uncovering the micro-aggressions, frustrated dreams and desperate fears behind the characters' thin veneers of refinement and gentility.

Calm Wu Yu (Sunny Yang), an expert on Chinese herbs, is married to a notorious merchant who has power over her.

Go-getter Wu Jie (Sharon Sum) paints, writes and learns English, but feels curtailed by social expectations of how a traditional woman should behave.

Emotional Han Bing (Jodi Chan) is addicted to cleanliness while the sex-curious Liao Liao (Emma Zhang) is caught between guarding her chastity and fearing she will die a virgin.

The steely Wu Chang, who fears ageing and detests her chancellor husband, is a complex riddle of insecurity. In a twist, she is played by male actor Ren Weichen, who has been active in Singapore's Peking opera scene for more than 15 years.

This masterful casting decision presents gender as performative and suggests how all the characters are similarly performing the roles of "proper" women in ancient Chinese society.

In this world of hairy crab and poetry, words can scald like boiling water and a stain on a spoon can damn someone with shameful imperfection.

Having a Mandarin version allows the delicate flavours of its text to shine.