The Longbow Papers

We won it all, folks! First Place in the Third Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival, hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We are going to London and Stratford-Upon-Avon for the Shakespeare tour as only one of the several wonderfully generous awards bestowed upon Beiwai's "Othello." I cannot even begin to tell you how proud I am of the three BFSU student-actors--Othello (Cui Xinyu), Desdemona (Li Jing) and Emilia (Liang Xingyi)--who gave this rapidly aging director a chance to finally get "Othello" right after almost four decades of trying in one form or another.

I am almost as excited and happy that I can again post to these pages. It's been six weeks or so since "New" Blogger glitches bit us in the ass the moment Blogger arbitrarily switched us to the "improved" format, and kept us the hell off the Internet. While that was undoubtedly a boon to my many detractors, it just about drove me off a cliff, for two primary reasons: I could not post the dramatic, day-by-day events and lunacies that culminated in Hong Kong last Wednesday night (May 23*) as "Beijing Foreign Studies University" was finally pronounced by CUHK Professor Jason Gleckman at the zenith of an achingly slow ascending order of "winners" from 4th runner-up to...to...to...us!


And, surely as importantly, I could not post new pictures of Baby Joseph A. Bosco, my first grandchild. Now that I suddenly can again, I will post much more--photos and article links--on both joys very soon. I now have to rush off to rehearsals for "The Crucible."

There wasn't even a day for us to rest upon our laurels. In theatre, like almost all of the commercial fine arts, What have you done for us lately? is the operative dictum. And it should be.

But, for the moment (belatedly, for certain; it took awhile for me to gather the pictorial evidence) we will relish the memory with photographs from that wondrous time in May 2007, when clocks and calendars stopped, and theatre and its unique camaraderie held sway for 9 days in Hong Kong.

Liang Xingyi, (Emilia) chose the order of our appearance over the three days of final performances--she picked a winner.

Cui Xinyu (Othello) delivering the opening remarks for the BFSU troupe at the feast which began the festivities.

Li Jing (Desdemona) and her "Othello" on opening day getting camera-ready for whatever was to come their way.

The finale group picture of all winners (there were no losers, regardless of prizes declared).


Loading us up with awards (Li Jing was at Immigration Bureau; red tape follows us everywhere).

"I need a Scotch," I said; and it was soon forthcoming, in abundance.
Opening day in the theatre lobby with impressive competitors from Chinese universities hallowed and normal: Fudan University, Qujing Normal University, Yunnan, and BFSU.
Fudan University accepting 3rd Runner-up Award; if we had not won, I believe their performance of "Macbeth" should have won First Prize.
Fudan and BFSU troupes together at awards dinner.
For reasons unknown to me, performance photos for the winning troupes are not yet available.

 

5:55 PM / Editor / permalink    6 comments

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6 Comments:

Congratulations, Joseph!

By  ??????, at 7:30 AM  

Thank you, so very much. I am sorry that my Blogger software can't reproduce Chinese characters, but you are not a series of question marks to me: )

All the best,

Joseph

By  Editor, at 11:29 AM  

Congratulations! I hope the trip to Stratford is equally successful.

Chris Waugh

By  bezdomny, at 2:51 PM  

Dear Chris,

Thank you. I am really looking forward to Stratford-upon-Avon; most folks I know have been there. With my life-long love of Shakespeare, I am ashamed to say that the closest I have been to his sacred turf is Heathrowe Airport! Always coming and going, never having a chance to tour even a bit of England. I will be a weepy, awe-struck tourist at the sites of the greatest writer of them all, in any language--in my opinion, of course.

All the very best,

Joseph

Joseph

By  Editor, at 12:15 AM  

Joe,

Congratulations of the highest order are due. Sometimes I tend to think of the Hong Kong citizens who compete in Mainland Spoken English competitions as braggarts and show-offs. Never in my wildest imagination have I contemplated a Mainland Chinese troupe stolling into Hong Kong and placing in the top three, much less winning it all.

You sir, as my children put it, ARE THE MAN!

Brgrds,

the Admiral

By  LaoLao, at 8:43 PM  

Dear Frank,

Thank you. In truth, we went to Hong Kong with me believing that we should win--which is a far different sentiment than believing we would win. The reason for the first, however, was the reason we did win: 3 very talented student-actors, only one of whom had acting experience, and that was in Chinese Language drama.

In my words: they ARE THE LADIES & THE MAN!

All the very best,

Joseph

By  Editor, at 6:09 PM  

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