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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
A reworking of Daniel Keene's 1984 musical Cho Cho San. Based loosely on Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly. Set in Shanghai.
Production Details
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A collaboration between the National Theatre of China, Playking Productions and Arts Centre Melbourne. A bilingual musical, script in Mandarin and English (with surtitles). The cast comprises Chinese and Australian actors/singers/puppeteers/ musicians.
Opened at the National Theatre of China, Beijing, in January 2013. First Australian performance at The Concourse, Chatswood, 24 September, 2013. Director Peter Wilson.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
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y
Cho Cho San
1984
Sydney
Melbourne
:
Currency Press
Playbox Theatre
Company B Belvoir
,
1987
Z75435
1984
single work
musical theatre
'CHO CHO SAN was powerfully moving. The tragedy of a delicate, naive girl caught between two cultures, hopelessly trapped, hopefully yearning and with all hope destroyed, was told through resonant music and lyrics. Singer/actors and life-sized puppets manipulated by visible puppeteers played dual roles. Cho Cho San herself was represented by an actor, and by her alter ego puppet, Butterfly; Goro, the Japanese marriage broker, by an actor and a grotesque puppet of himself; Pinkerton, Kate and Sharpless, Westerners and the Chorus were actors, and the child of two cultures was a white-faced, innocently featureless baby puppet, smothered to death at the hands of its despairing mother in this new version of the story.'
Source: Handspan Theatre (http://handspantheatre.com.au/info/Cho+Cho+San).
Works about this Work
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Enabling Butterfly to Take Flight
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 28 September 2013; -
Puppets Enchant, but Butterfly Fails to Soar
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 27 September 2013; (p. 18)
— Review of Cho Cho 2013 single work musical theatre
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Puppets Enchant, but Butterfly Fails to Soar
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 27 September 2013; (p. 18)
— Review of Cho Cho 2013 single work musical theatre -
Enabling Butterfly to Take Flight
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 28 September 2013;
Awards
- 2013 inaugural winner Australian Arts in Asia Awards — Theatre
