THEATRE REVIEW: Running the Silk Road, Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Jun 5 2008 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

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THIS unusual and ambitious play is brand new, having premiered in Newcastle just last week before making its way to the Everyman as part of a short national tour by Yellow Earth Theatre, which promotes British East Asian productions.

It tells the story of a group of four friends who undertake a challenge that tests their relationships, hopes and ambitions to the core.

Main character Ken reveals he has been dumped by his fiancée, and he has decided to run from Turkey to Beijing across an ancient trade route to raise money for charity and hope to win back his do-gooding ex in the process, as she has left for China to help victims of natural disasters.

Roping his pals in as a support team, he takes to the road. The sheer imagination needed to find ways to portray movement across thousands of miles provides an exciting prospect for the audience, as Ken gets noticeably more dishevelled and exhausted with each simple scene.

Ken is a student of Chinese mythology, and this is where the rest of the cast – traditional Beijing opera players – come in, as ancient characters illustrating the old signs and beliefs thought responsible for causes of drought and flood ravag- ing the country he is aiming for, mixing martial arts moves with traditional dance and song, as well as simple, inventive impressive puppetry.

Eastern styles of music and song are tricky on the uninitiated ear, simply because there are a different number of notes in the scale. But the mix in this performance sounded almost impenetrable.. As the characters sang, the recorded music of traditional Chinese melodies put to heavy Western dance beats not only sounded completely incompatible and too loud, but drowned out the subtle dramas of the verse.

Ken’s cousin Wei and the myth- ical figures the Thunder God, the Queller of the Floods and the god- dess Nu Ch’ou all speak Mandarin with surtitles for the audience. It works for the gods, but when the mortal characters all find them- selves speaking and translating it – English, and Farsi, at one point – it seems there could be clearer ways to illustrate the divide.

Back with Ken, his idealistic friends and their self-righteous studenty politics, the dialogue flows with all the awkwardness of some kind of lefty Dawson’s Creek.

In the end, so many troubles befall poor Ken as he runs towards his goal it becomes too far-fetched and any attempts at emotional tension or drama fall just short of the mark.

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vickyanderson@dailypost.co.uk