Anchee Min - Becoming Madame Mao

The director encourages her. Describe your background, he orders. She enters her role. She describes her father, his drinking and his violence, and then her mother, the slave. She describes herself, how she ran away and grew up in hardship. The director listens attentively, forgets to drink his tea. Later on he tells her that her interpretation was exactly what he had been looking for. He falls in love and could have kissed her right on the spot. You are my perfect Nora. The play is going to fly because of you.

Then she meets her costar, Mr. Zhao Dan, her lifetime curse, the king of Chinese stage and screen. Dan plays her stage husband, Torvald. Lan Ping can hardly believe her luck. She remembers the sensation of being introduced to Dan for the first time. Awestruck. The handshake that makes her tremble. She is unable to hide her nervousness.

He is a tall and handsome man with a pair of penetrating eyes. He nods, acknowledging her.

Miss Lan Ping is a member of the left wing. When Zhang Min says this to the actor, the girl feels belittled.

I am new but I don't lack talent, she says, as if to nobody.

Would you like some candy? the actor yells. Who would like to have some candy?

They work fourteen hours a day and make the theater their home. Sometimes they sleep behind the stage. They are a good pair when they are acting. But there is already tension between them. What annoys Dan is Lan Ping's boldness, her assumption that she is his equal. The way she uses her new status and her association with him to show off to others. He can't stand her elation.

She begins to set herself up to be burned. She can't help being attracted to him, first toward his genius, as a mentor, a teacher, and then to him as a man. Later she says that it was simply her nature to conquer the unconquerable-she was attracted to the challenge, not the man.

She is Dan's partner and fan. He makes her focus on her character. But she becomes confused, she mistakes her stage relationship with him for the real thing. It is all new and exciting. She loses herself.

It eventually becomes clear that he doesn't appreciate her as much as she appreciates him. He pays no attention to her although they act in intimate scenes together. He is his own inspiration and she is a prop, an off-camera object, which he takes as a lover, to which he speaks love. He regards her as a provincial actress, miscast for the role.

Dan wants to have nothing to do with me after working hours. He doesn't want to discuss the role with me. Instead he offers suggestions regarding my part to Zhang Min. Besides what's on the script he has no interest in hearing what I have to say. He has many friends who are influential. They come by after the show and usually go for tea or snacks. I make myself available but am never invited. It tells me that Dan thinks of me as a poor choice for Nora. I see this in his arrogance, and from the way he begins to miss rehearsals. He doesn't want to be my Torvald. I am not sure whether he has ever spoken to Zhang Min about a possible replacement. I am sure that if it wasn't for Zhang Min, I would have already been replaced.

Dan is flirtatious. He likes to play with Lan Ping using the lines of Torvald. He squeezes her hands, presses her body against him during acting. He makes excuses to get her into his makeup room, pins himself against her. Come on, it is a perfect day in spring, he says.

Dan's lightness torments her. It hurts her more than anything when he makes jokes about the moments on stage where her intense effort has made her awkward.

It is in her relationship with Dan that she learns her fate. Learns that she can't escape Dan and men like him. Later she watches him as he moves on, to abandon her as a stage partner, and to pair with her rival, Miss Bai Yang.

Yet she can't forget Dan, who has not said one worthy word about her. The childish grin on his face every time he greets her. For that, in the future, Dan will pay with his life.

Madame Mao believes that one must collect one's debts.

I rebuff Dan. I demand his seriousness. Although nothing seems wrong on the surface, there is this undercurrent, an unspoken resentment. One day, the day after I had pushed him off of my chest, he mentions a girl. I am in love, he says. Her name is Lucy. Lucy Ye. She is the one I intend to marry. She is an actress too. A tender creature unlike you.

He brings Lucy in between us, too often, as if mentioning her will protect him from being attracted to me.

Maybe the truth is there, speaking its own voice for Lan Ping and she doesn't know it. She wants to swallow Dan up. She has not had a man since arriving in Shanghai. Her longing for affection is dreadful, and she cannot escape her feelings.

When Dan is asked to comment on Lan Ping as a stage partner, he says, No, no comment. Truly. He says this to every journalist, critic and friend. A shrug of the shoulders. Truly, no comment. It hurts Lan Ping beyond healing.

Yet, underneath all of this, in the midst of her resentment and tension, there is never a sense of finished business-never an end to wanting Dan.

In the weeks leading up to opening night, I pour myself heart and soul into the role. I feel the character, feel the Tightness of the story for our times. Although Dan won't take me out, I go out with others, lesser cast members. I tell them how I feel about what we are involved with. I find myself getting emotional, my voice loud. Let's toast the show!

One night, there is a playwright in the group. He says that I should consider myself very lucky. He points out that if it were not for Dan, no one would come-no one is interested in watching me. I am terribly offended. I bounce off my chair. Who are you to say this to me?

I make enemies. I can't avoid them. After the fight some friends advise me that I should have just ignored the stupid playwright. But I am hurt by his words! My friends say, You're too serious. Those were the utterances of a drunkard. It doesn't mean anything. But I disagree. I believe that it was his true view. He is influenced by Dan.

On stage she lives out her eternal despair. Nora's lines fall from her lips like words of her own. I've lived by performing tricks, Torvald, and I can bear it no more.

On opening night the theater is jammed. Five-foot-tall flower baskets sent by friends and associates pile over the terrace. The seats are packed. The add-up seats-seats that have no backs-are sold at full price. Dan and Lan Ping's pictures are painted on wall-size posters on each side of the theater. Both their eyes are shadowed with dark blue paint. Lan Ping is in a black satin dress. The characters are in a dramatic pose, standing chest to chest and lips an inch apart.

The crowd is spellbound. Although most of them are Dan-fans, Miss Lan Ping takes them by surprise. As she catches her breath in the makeup room during intermission, Zhang Min rushes in. He gives her an affectionate hug without saying a word. She knows that he is proud of her, knows that she has succeeded.

This Nora has a Communist's mouth, one paper raves. It attacks and bites into our government's flesh. Miss Lan Ping's Nora speaks the voice of the people. The audience identifies with her. What we hear in Nora's voice is a political message. The people of China are sick of the role they are forced to play. They are sick of their incompetent government, the head of state Chiang Kai-shek, and themselves as the obedient, discreet and child-rearing Nora.

This is what she has always wanted in life-being able to inspire others. It is what the operas did to her when she was a young girl. Now she has finally arrived. The novelty of fame brews on. She is thrilled to be recognized when walking on the streets.

She likes the interviews although the big papers are still not interested in her. They do stories on Dan. She doesn't give up. She is determined to make herself Dan's equal in every respect. She offers her stories to the smallest papers and accepts invitations to talk at schools. She loves to pose for photos. She adores the lights, the clicking sound of the cameras.