Shalom Shanghai

Production History

An earlier, shorter version of Shalom Shanghai, titled North Bank Suzhou Creek, was staged on 22 March 2012 at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, by Jeffrey Sichel and Michael Leibenluft. That version was also staged on 3 May 2012 at the New York Film Academy by William H. Sun. The expanded and evolved version published here opened on 17 October 2013 at the Shanghai International Arts Festival, directed by Lee Breuer.

Production Credits

Shanghai International Arts Festival, October 2013

Director: Lee Breuer

Assistant Director: Michael Leibenluft

Composer: Eve Baglarian

Dramaturge: Faye C. Fei

Producers: Lou Wei, Han Sheng, and Guo Yu of the Shanghai Theatre Academy

Associate Producers: Sharon Levy and Zhou Qi

Set Designer: Shi Hao

Lighting Designer: Yi Tianfu

Costume and Makeup Designers: Xu Jiahua and Shao Min

Video: Eric Marciano

Music Director: Li Jia

Gu Zheng musician: Wu Yang

Actors (in alphabetical order): An Zhenji, Chang Peiting, Huang Ge, Daniel K. Isaac, Michael Leibenluft, Maude Mitchell, Peng Yongwen, Barry Primus, Tao Sijie, Jessica Weinstein, Xu Yang, Zhaili Shuotian.

Characters

in order of appearance

TOUR GUIDE—Tour guide of a Jewish museum in the Prologue

SHANA—Yakov’s daughter, hostess of Café Louis

YING—Kitchen maid working for Yakov, from a village north of Shanghai, where the Chinese resistance forces made their base

YAKOV LEVIN—Skillful and wise restaurateur, forced by the war to move to Shanghai in 1938

YITZAK—Recent Jewish refugee from Europe

SUZUKI—Japanese officer who frequents Café Louis, enjoys Western food and music, particularly the company of his love interest

KAMEDA—Japanese orderly always shadowing Suzuki, a naive brute

MR. LIN—Resourceful man in many trades, including medicine

MRS. LIN—Lin’s lady-friend, a white Russian who insists on being called Mrs. Lin

SONGYAO—Young man from Ying’s village area, an underground fighter for the resistance forces

Setting

Time: Early 1943, the most difficult time for China during WWII.

Place: Yakov Levin’s Café Louis on the north bank of Suzhou Creek, a rare and precarious haven in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, a kind of Casablanca. Café Louis is an old-fashioned bar with just a few tables and chairs. Suzhou Creek flows by outback. Beneath the café, at the

Figure 1.

Mr. Lin (An Zhenji, right) hits Suzuki (Daniel K. Isaac) who tries to take Shana (Jessica Weinstein) from Songyao (Huang Ge). Shalom Shanghai, October 2013, Shanghai International Arts Festival.

(Photo by Zhang Yingchen and Guo Xiaoyong)

bottom of a short staircase, is a basement—a storage space. The back door faces the creek. In the café stands an upright piano, which musicians and customers can use to entertain themselves in a kind of Hollywood golden age karaoke, also a radio often tuned to music and news. The songs, from Hollywood standards to Yiddish and Chinese folk music, are intricately woven into the drama.

Prologue

A small group of tourists enters, led by a Chinese tour guide. The aged SHANA, with gray hair and a cane, trails the party. A tour guide explains briefly in English and Chinese that everything in this café, now turned into a museum, has been reconstructed just as it was in the Little Vienna section of Shanghai in the 1940s. SHANA stays downstage, focused on the upstage screen. The video projected on the screen represents not only a museum documentary but her memory as well. The shadow of YING materializes on the screen in profile. YING enters as an old Chinese woman. YING and SHANA break down and cry in each other’s arms. To a swirl of arpeggios play on a Gu Zheng, almost as if by magic, SHANA and YING’s costumes are changed from those of old women to young girls. Wigs are removed to reveal their lush black hair. SHANA and YING enter their own past. YING holds SHANA’s shoulder and sends her to exit, then goes behind the bar.

Scene 1

(Late afternoon, prior to the café’s opening. YING cleans the bar and sorts out utensils. Hearing some quiet footsteps, YING goes out and returns soon after, dragging SHANA...