Oh my dears. We went to watch "Dream of a Red Chamber" - and it was the most bimbotic production of hong lou meng the likes of which will never be seen again. One hopes. Much weeping and wailing and flailing from chair to chair and - oh - much singing. Witness:
Lin mei mei finds out that Bao yu is to marry Pao jie jie.
Background chorus: She was thunderstruck!
[Loud portentous music starts. She lurches backwards into the pillar, clutching her heart. Servant flutters up.]
Servant: [singing] What is wrong?
She: [singing] Ah! [Lurches forward into different pillar and sobs into it.]
Servant: [singing] Don't cry!
She: [singing] My heart is broken!
[Lurches on to Bao yu's rooms. Background music dies and she runs in complete silence - obviously to show dramatic tension. Finds Bao yu - played by Lin Ching Hsia; the entire cast was female except for the father, who appears in the first and last scene - propped up in bed with determinedly blank expression.]
She: [thankfully not singing] Who are you going to marry?
Bao yu: Lin mei mei.
She: And where is your heart now?
Bao yu: I have given my heart to Lin mei mei.
She: Ah!
[Cut to shot of - white cockatrice? - flapping around agitatedly. Cut back to Lin mei mei and Bao yu. Much weeping/flailing/giggling. She lurches out. Portentous music starts up.]
I exaggerate, but only a little. It was amazing. Oh and when she died? Never saw a more pointlessly drawn-out death scene, or one so devoid of pathos. At one point she collapses, her maid collapses on top of her, and we hold our breaths - then the scene cuts to her in a (different) chair looking pale and wan, and someone in the row behind us says, "Aiyah not dead yet." Exactly.