Auntie - the return!!!

They want to restage Auntie, this time in Beijing. One stage director showed great interest for the music and decided it was a shame to shelve this play. Good news - or is it really?

I have recently received countless messages from LianYen to ask me for help, rewrite and sign the contract, give my advice. Help I did give, for I wrote the whole score last year for nothing at all. As the saying goes, give them an inch they take a mile.

Micky will not release the CD at this stage. Even if they had ChingYao re-sing most of all the parts as a last resort, the result is still far from satisfactory. ChingYao is no pop singer Some songs are not suitable for his voice, the mixing is not right, there are some instruments missing, one song is only half done and ChingYao improvised a dreadful counter-melody on one song that had me jump to the roof. What happened?

Micky and I agree that it would be a grand style suicide if LianYen releases the soundtrack in spite of all the problems - and our warnings to him. But he cannot afford to lose his reputation, he told me. Short-sightedness, or a desperate situation? 

Now he’s attempting to restage Auntie. The book had to be rewritten. YuGuo’s story is much too racy for China and they have to tone down all allusions to homosexuality, transgender. What will remain? I wonder. Since YuGuo and LianYen’s friendship collapsed after the harsh reviews the play received, another playwright is now hired for a revised version. What are they going to do with the song lyrics? After all, I’m no longer on the ship. But my name is associated to that.

Alo and I were speechless after watching Synecdoche New York. Charlie Kaufman had astonished all of us with Being John Malkovitch and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I couldn’t see how much further he could go after these brilliant screenplays. Yet in Synecdoche he pushed his wacky ideas ten miles further. When such a genius mind is filled so such a boundless sadness, it seems that all aspects of his life merge with his creativity and become wholes universe intertwining with each other. It’s mesmerizing, terrorizing, fascinating and absolutely depressing. A little like when, as a child I tried to imagine how infinite the universe was. I would get dazed and stunned in the process.