Tony Award-winning director Mary Zimmerman returns to Berkeley Rep for the world-premiere production of The White Snake, which stars (l to r) Amy Kim Waschke and Emily Sophia Knapp. Photographer: Jenny Graham
THE WHITE SNAKE: Mystical Chinese Folktale. Adapted and directed by Mary Zimmerman. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street @ Shattuck, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.
November 9 – December 23, 2012. EXTENDED UNTIL DECEMBER 30
THE WHITE SNAKE at Berkeley Rep is stunning.
The love affair of Berkeley Rep with Mary Zimmerman continues with their latest world premiere production of The White Snake that saw the light of day at this year’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) and was installed here with that cast minus only member. According to one reviewer who saw the OSF staging, Berkeley Rep’s staging is much more opulent. Before even reviewing the acting there must be three cheers for the production staff of designer Daniel Ostling (sets), Mara Blumenfeld (costumes), T.J. Gerckens (lighting), Andre Pluess (sound), and Shawn Sagady (projections). They create fantastic effects on a simple bare bamboo stage that comes alive with the performers handling puppets amidst light, sound, music and visuals to keep you entranced for one hour and forty minutes without intermission.
Zimmerman wrote the show for specific OSF actors and continued rewrites up to the opening weekend. It was the overwhelming hit of their season. Not only is she the author but also the director and deserves awards in both categories. Her fertile mind resurrects an ancient Chinese folktale and creates a charming humorous storyline introduced by Oriental Stage Managers in the style of Thornton Wilders’s OurTown with distinctive twists. They inform us that like the forked tongue of the snake the story line is also forked and we the audience can decide which to believe. This is typical of Zimmerman who is noted for not filling all the gaps allowing the audience to use their imagination. It works.
We meet our protagonist, the white snake living in the mountains where through diligent study the Tao, occupying seventeen hundred years of her time, to develop her shape shifting supernatural skills. She appears as a small snake puppet manipulated by the lovely Amy Kim Waschke and even as a line of white parasols creating sinuous movements as the story progressed. She is curious about human world and with the urging of the inept but trusted friend, the Green Snake (Tanya Thai McBride) transform themselves into humans for a brief visit to the West Lake. White Snake becomes Lady White and Green Snake becomes her loyal servant Greenie.
They meet an impoverished kind young man, Xu Xain (Christopher Livingston) and true love blossoms with a bit of trickery by Greenie. Xu Xain presents Lady White with his umbrella to protect her from the rain creating by a plethora of white silk streamers falling from the heavens. It is one of the first gorgeous special effects to fill the stage.
With more than a little larceny in her heart, Greenie raids the tax collectors safe to get enough money to set up
Love Blossoms: Christopher Livingston & Amy Kim Waschke
apprentice pharmacist Xu in his own apothecary shop where Lady White concocts miraculous potions to cure one and all. Happiness and love flourish along with the good life and Lady White becomes pregnant.
All goes well until the treacherous Buddhist Monk Fa Hai (Jack Willis) notes that Lady Whites healing powers are of the supernatural and she is really the white snake of the mountain in a human body. Good begins to battle Evil and the stage is filled with projections, sound and light that are spectacular and dazzling.
Although Amy Kim Waschke is the star and is perfect in the part, it is Tanya Thai McBride who steals the show with fantastic body movements, voice intonations and energy that cascades across the footlights. Our own Jack Willis, formerly from ACT, and now a OSF regular is the
Tanya Thai McBride as the Green Snake
meanest Buddhist monk you will ever see and will forcefully convince you to be a vegetarian . . . even if you do not wish to do so.You will have to go and see this must see production to find out the rest of that story. Highly recommended.
Kedar K. Adour, MD
Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com
