REVIEW: Shanghai Doll - World or I? That is a Question

Through the prism of an intimate female friendship, Amy Ng’s 80-minute historical drama Shanghai Dolls aims to boldly capture five decades of political turmoil and personal transformation. Set between the 1930s and the 1980s, Shanghai Dolls chronicles the friendship between Sun Weishi, China’s first female director and the adopted daughter of Premier Zhou Enlai, and Jiang Qing, an actress but more famously known as the wife of Chairman Mao. Combining fact with drama, Ng presents two women caught between friendship, ambition, and philosophy.

Jiang Qing and Sun Weishi meet in a Shanghai theatre, auditioning for Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and calling out the question “World or I”. Though politically at odds from the start, they have an artistic vision and a dream of freedom and a better future, but in different ways. Their friendship experiences war, revolution, and personal metamorphosis. But historical events have other ideas. Sun Weishi follows her Communist cause and is always devoted to it. Restricted by many factors, Jiang Qing stays behind only to resurface unexpectedly as Mao’s wife and years later becomes a major player in the Cultural Revolution. By the end, the two women stand on opposing sides of history: Sun Weishi dies in prison, a victim of political oppression, and Jiang Qing is sentenced to death for killing millions of people, whose body is eventually surrounded by lifeless dolls.

Excellent performances by Gabby Wong and Millicent Wong highlight clear changes in age, philosophy, and emotion. Their dynamic charts a reasonable development from warmth to suspicion to tragedy. Their roles, which show several decades and inner conflicts, have both physical and emotional demands that are handled with sensitivity and conviction.

Visually, the output is quite amazing (Deigned by Jean Chan). Three big, bronze Chinese traditional doors on the stage change freely from theatre wings to their small home to prison walls, from intimacy to barricades of betrayal. One particularly memorable event occurs when Sun Weishi sets off for Moscow in pursuit of political and artistic aspirations. As she leaves via one of the doors, a shaft of golden light, the only warm, hopeful lighting in the whole play, falls on Jiang Qing, left behind and broken.

©️ Photo by Marc Brenner

©️ Photo by Marc Brenner

©️ Photo by Marc Brenner

Despite these, Shanghai Dolls struggles to make sense of its complex content within its short runtime. Jiang Qing’s transformation in particular is abrupt and undeveloped. Her shift from a sceptical outsider to Chairman Mao’s wife and a political enforcer is characterised more by costume changes than mental depth. In one scene, she questions the party’s treatment of Chairman Mao’s wife at the time, and she marries Mao and embraces power in another. The lack of natural connection between these moments weakens the play’s emotional logic and also suddenly subverts the character’s preference for I instead of the world.

Still, Shanghai Dolls is a valuable and ambitious piece. It sheds light on a lesser-known but important relationship in modern Chinese history and does so in a stylistic manner. Its visual storytelling and committed performances offer a compelling experience, even if the script at times falters under the weight of its own ambitions. It may not fully unpack the intricacies of its characters’ transformations, but it invites audiences to reflect on females’ costs of political conviction and the situation where they face the question of navigating their identity between themselves and the outer world.

©️ Photo by Marc Brenner

Cast

Gabby Wong as Lan Ping/Jiang Qing
Millicent Wong as Li Lin/Sun Weishi

Creative Team

Playwright – Amy Ng
Director – Katie Posner
Designer – Jean Chan
Lighting Designer – Aideen Malone
Composer & Sound Designer – Nicola T. Chang
Video Designer – Akhila Krishnan
Movement Director – Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster
Associate Lighting Designer – Holly Ellis
Kiln-Mackintosh Resident Assistant Director – Imy Wyatt Corner
Costume Supervisor – Natalie Jackson
Wigs, Hair and Make-up Consultant – Jackie Saundercock

Production Team:

Production Manager – Charlotte Ranson
Company Stage Manager – Katie Bachtler
Deputy Stage Manager – Roni Neale
Assistant Stage Manager (Book Cover) – Rain An
Technician – Mae Elliott
Sound Technician – Tim Jan Eichelbaum
Wardrobe Manager – Sharon Bourke
Production Carpenter – Matt Day
Production Electrician – Paul Samon
Production Sound Engineer – Matt Russell
Video Content – Georgia Clegg; Akhila Krishnan
Video System Designer & Engineer – Richard Wells
Video Programmer – Richard Wells; Stanley Orwin-Fraser
Lighting Programmer – Tamykha Patterson
Rigger – Jess Wilson

Venue Address: 269 Kilburn High Road, London, UK, NW6 7JR
For more Information: https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/shanghai-dolls/