Introducing Penn Chinese Theater: subtitles included

Sometimes, love gets lost in translation — but not in Penn Chinese Theater’s inaugural play, “Love Is Not Blind.”

The play, which took place in the Ibrahim Theater at the International House, was performed entirely in Mandarin. However, subtitles on a PowerPoint display made the production accessible for speakers and non-speakers alike.

The play’s producers not only found a way to bring non-native Chinese speakers into the audience, but also into the cast. The actors ranged in fluency, with some speaking Chinese since birth and others having studied the language for only a few semesters.

In addition, some cast members had no prior acting experience at all.

“It was a double challenge,” College freshman Vanessa Eni, who played “Waitress” in the play, said. “I hadn’t acted before, and I’ve only studied Chinese for two years.”

“Love Is Not Blind” differed somewhat from the usual perception of Chinese theater.

Unlike more traditional Beijing-style opera, the play — based on a 2011 Chinese film — had many elements of an American romantic comedy, which even those with little familiarity with Chinese culture could relate to.

Although many of the scenes had cultural references that differed from other English-language shows at Penn, universal themes such as jealousy, love and dealing with deceitful ex-boyfriends interested the entire audience.

College freshman and The Daily Pennsylvanian assistant photo editor Connie Kang — producer and Penn Chinese Theater founder — said the company chose the play deliberately to appeal to the Penn community.

The plot follows a wedding planner, Huang Xiaoxian, on her 33-day journey from breakup to new love. When her boyfriend leaves her for her best friend at the play’s opening, she is destroyed.

However, through her journey — dealing with an impossibly superficial client, challenging a rich man’s idea of love and falling for her co-worker — she recovers and thrives.

Throughout the play, though, there was some difficulty for non-Chinese speakers. While the play was subtitled, the timing between the slides and the action on stage was sometimes out of sync.

But that didn’t stop the audience from enjoying the show.

“Although the subtitles kept me from getting some of the jokes, it was still impressive,” College senior Kathryn Grunewald said. “I definitely laughed, and I even cried at one point.”

Subtitles aside, some of the play’s jokes and cultural references got lost in translation.

“At one point, there was a joke about the accent of one of the characters, but it was just lost to non-speakers,” said College and Engineering senior Brian Garcia, who speaks some Mandarin.

Despite these small linguistic challenges, positive reviews rang though the theater both in Mandarin and in English.

Time crunches, funding issues and promotion difficulties did in some ways limit the performance, but the company is confident that it will make the performance even better next year.

“We’re so satisfied with the large turnout, and the play was better than any rehearsal,” Chen said.

Next year, the company intends to try a more classical Chinese play and incorporate an even larger cast since it garnered so much interest at the play’s conclusion.

“We even had students from [Drexel and Temple universities] and [Bryn Mawr College] express interest,” Chen said. “Once everyone saw it, they wanted to join.”

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