English Culture Week: Drama Night

Welcome to another night of drama sponsored by the Annual English Culture Week. The last two weeks saw many dramas competing for the privilege of performing during the English Culture Week. The six finalist were selected and entered into the final competition on Monday, May 11. Here they are with the results.

The Prince And The Pauper

The first play was called The Prince And The Beggar. I was unsure exactly what it was about but within a few minutes knew what it was. It was a Chinese version of the all-time favorite - The Prince And The Pauper. Same story: bored prince looks for excitement so he changes places with a common beggar so he can taste the outside world.

The start of the night's program introduced the main players for each drama. Here we have the prince and the pauper (beggar).


The prince was bored so he changes places with a pauper. The pauper likes being the prince so he sends out his guards to kill all the paupers. The story runs for a while with the real prince suffering a lot and is finally brought in by one of the servants to confront the fake prince.

The king comes in and cannot tell who is who so he questions both of these "princes."


Finally, the king makes the two princes submit to a body check because the real prince has a birthmark on his . . . Well, you get the idea. The real prince is restored to his rightful place.

And the pauper is dragged away to be done with. The play was a bit overdone but it did have some interesting twists - Chinese style

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs

How about a Chinese Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This play seems to be a favorite among the students.

The evil queen who reeks of beauty, thinks of beauty and demands beauty.

The queen checks out her beauty with the magic mirror "on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" Of course, the mirror tells her she is beautiful but Snow White is much more beautiful. The queen decides to do Snow White in so she can be the most beautiful.

Here she is telling her assassin to take Snow White and kill her immediately.

The assassin finds Snow White but is overwhelmed with her beauty and cannot kill her. This part is really funny because Snow White is ugly with a capital 'U".

Instead of killing Snow White, the assassin kills a dear and with Snow White's help, he cuts out the heart and takes it back for the queen to see he has done the dastardly deed she had told him to do.

Snow White runs away into the forest and comes across a tiny house. Tired of running she, of course, falls asleep on the couch.

Hi ho. Hi ho. The Seven Dwarfs show up. There are only six because one is attending college at Southwest Jiaotong University. They adopt Snow White and all is well for now.

The queen finds out that Snow White is alive thanks to her magic mirror. She takes it upon herself to do Snow White in herself. She dresses up as an old lady and sells Snow White a poisoned banana. Bam! Snow White hits the deck and is out cold.

Of course, her prince comes by looking for a good time.

He sees the down and out Snow White, falls in love and kisses her to bring her back to life.

They get married and Snow White carries him off into the sunset or something like that. The guy who played Snow White made the whole drama. He had a great time and made everyone laugh.

Journey To The West

This drama I did not figure out until the very end. It is the classical story by the same name except the drama here was called A Chinese Odyssey. I see this story all the time in series form on TV. The Monk, the Monkey King, a pig and another guy are traveling to the west in China on their way to India.

During the introduction, these two came out dressed beautifully. Again, I was clueless until very late into the drama.

The monkey in yellow seems to be a bad guy or lazy guy or something. He also has several girlfriends and a wife, or so it seemed.

The wife catches him in the act and . . . Lucky for the monkey that he is a smooth talker. The English was also hard to follow.

The monk shows up and tries to reform the monkey and invites him along on his journey. Most of the story is about how the monkey refused and continued in his bad ways.

I am not sure what happens, but something happened to change the monkey and he leaves everything behind to find that monk.

He finds the monk and changes his life with the monk's help.

He officially becomes the monkey king.

And then it is off to India to pick up some Buddhist books to bring back to China. The English was weak and the story was boring. Other than that the drama was ok.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's dramas are hard even for native English speakers. This was a daring try at doing one of Shakespeare's weirdest (IMHO) plays. They never quite got it right but the costumes were great and the effort was high.

Introducing the main players.

This guy played the perfect Puck.

Someone was in love with someone who was in love with someone else who was in love with the first someone. Well, something like that. It was truly mixed up

While falling asleep in the forest after chasing each other there, someone gets sprinkled with magic dust by Puck. She awakes and finds she is in love with someone but not the first someone but someone else.

Confused by someone who was in love with someone else the first someone finds he has been sprinkled with dust so he is in love with that someone else. Hey, it was very confusing!

In the end, everyone who was supposed to be in love got together and they all lived happily ever after, I think.

Too much Shakespeare destroys one's sense of humor. Can you imagine the language these students had to change to make it understandable?

Sister Act

This is drama comes from the movie of the same name. I think it was starring Whoopi Goldberg. Mostly students from Class 3 Sophomores. I watched them practice before the presentation and the director - Lucy - was a serious slave-driver. In the end, her efforts paid off as this was, by far, the slickest and most professional drama by a long ways. The only reason it came in second and not first was its weak storyline. The costumes were perfect as was the singing and everything else.

Mr. Pete and Ms. Grace acted as the voices for the introduction of the play and followed along with commentaries as to what was going on. They also played bit parts in the action.

Mary Clare is a nun who moves to a new nunnery. There she is unconventional in her outlook on life. Stated earlier but without much background, she was really not a nun but a pro singer who had gotten in trouble with the Mafia and is now hiding out. Again, weak story line because it really was not brought out that clearly. Ms. Alicia played one of the nuns who was influenced by Mary's evil and sinful ways.

This is the nunnery choir. Basically they sucked for want of a better word.

Mary and two of her innocents sneak out and have a great time at a local bar. Yeh, like nuns go to local bars!

Mother Superior (Ms. Marian) is furious with the actions of Mary and her followers and starts to cause some problems.

But Mary takes over the choir and changes them from "suck" to really great. This gets all the nuns behind her and the choir is very successful.

Mary (as played by the director, Ms. Lucy) is unconventional but a brilliant singer and performer and she works miracles with the choir.

The Choir.

Mary conducting a beautiful performance by the choir. Even Mother Superior is impressed.

More music. More conducting. A visual success if there ever was one.

The nuns are happy working and singing and doing their thing.

More working and singing and cleaning up the nunnery.

Mother Superior here is definitely happy with the progress both of her nuns and the choir.

A brilliant performance.

The nuns listening in on the scolding of Mary by Mother Superior.

And they all live happily ever after. Well the nuns did but we are not sure what really happens to Mary.

Slick is the best word to describe this drama. The dancing was perfectly choreographed. The acting was super and Lucy won best female actor. Also, check out the costumes. Absolutely are work of art. Now if only it could have had a better story line.

Beauty And The Beast

The winning drama! The best actor! A magnificent performance! This was from the fairy tale by the same name and it was well-directed and carried out. There was no question as to which of the six dramas was the winner. Everyone in the auditorium realized this as the play unfolded.

The Beast, as played by Mr. Yao, and The Beauty, as played by Ms. Cecilia, are introduced along with the key players from the other five dramas. It was not too long ago that Mr. Yao had approached me concerning his "poor English." Both my wife and I assured him that his English was easily understood and all he needed was more confidence. Do believe this week proved our advice was true. Not only did Mr. Yao win the best actor award, he also was the main man at the following evening's English week debate, came in second in the dubbing competition and was the translator for the Vice President at the English Week closing. An impressive performance all week placed Mr. Yao in the university's elite speakers of English.

Ms. Cecilia played the beautiful and yet innocent Ms. Bella. Looks are not deceiving.

When I saw this guy come on stage as the bad guy, I did not recognize him and had to ask who he was. This is our very own James from our Junior class. He made a great bad guy.

The bad guy had evil designs on The Beauty and her innocence.

The Beauty was a good student, always carrying a textbook around to read. No need for such things, according to the bad guy. His future wife will not need education!


Beauty's father is captured while walking in the forest bad a monster, a beast of fierce temperament. Get out. Run away. The fathers begs his daughter to leave before the evil beast returns.
The Beast! Once a handsome prince who made the mistake of not giving charity to a passing beggar. The beggar was a witch who saw the selfishness in the prince and turned him into the awful beast. He is trapped forever in his own selfishness as an ugly unwanted monster beast.

The story of this poor but evil creature is told by one of his servants who refuse to give up on him.

The Beauty talks The Beast into exchanging her for her father, against her father's wishes. She now is a captive of the beast and this was their first dinner together. The Beast, obviously taken by her charms treats her as his princess. The Beauty is not impressed and eventually escapes into the surrounding forest.

Lost in the forest, The Beauty is scared and helpless.

Saved at last, The Beauty thanks here saviors only to find out the truth.

They are all evil GANGSTERS as Mr. Jack, the director, yells for everyone to here. He is another bad guy who is interested only in The Beauty's charms.

Captured once more but this time by the bad gangsters who have evil plans, she is taken away.

Before the gangsters get out of the forest with their prize, they meet The Beast who saves The Beauty.

In the meantime, The Beauty's father hires the other bad guy to free his daughter. The Beauty is free thanks to The Beast. The bad guy takes this opportunity to let his evil intentions known and to double cross the father.

The Beast once more comes to the rescue but is mortally wounded by the defeated bad guy. he lays dying in the arms of The Beast.

Love in The Beast's heart breaks the spell of witch and he emerges as the handsome prince once more.

The handsome prince, Giselle, and The Beauty pose for a picture.

The entire crew of The Beauty and The Beast pose for a group picture.

I am asked to comment on all the plays and so I comment on all the plays. This seems to be my job in any competition. I love it, of course.

The evening wrap of comments followed by the finishing of the evenings competition. Another great evening of fun at Southwest Jiaotong University - Emei Branch.