This latest China-based production of the comedy is not about money, stars, or even an Expat in Chinese Film and TV Award: It’s about the art. To learn more, and help shift some tickets, Beijing Cream had a quick chat with the cast of this 90-minute modernist comedy about “three people losing their shit over a painting” (curtains rise 7.30pm on Thursday; tickets 100 kuai).

Beijing Cream: (stroking chin) So why Art?

Carlos Ottery (actor, Yvan): A screenwriter pal of mine, Peter, wanted to direct the play in Beijing a few years ago but it fell through, as these things often do… putting it on at has been at the back, the very back, of my mind for quite a while.

Gregory Joseph Allen (director/actor, Marc) From the very beginning this has really been all about a small group of like-minded artists falling in love with a script and wanted to share it with others. Oh, and chicks dig theatre nerds… they do, right? Right? I hope that I didn’t just waste three months of my life. Shit.

BJC: Why are there so few small indie productions, like Art, in Beijing?

CO: Money. Unless you are talking about a big Broadway-style show or a particularly commercial performance, theatre makes bugger-all cash. These days a lot of people in Beijing are in things for the money alone…People prefer to lose 10 million dollars on a film that will never get made, or to watch something with Vin Diesel topless, and who can blame them for that.

The other thing is censorship, which seeps in everywhere. It effects everything: public discourse, books, TV, theatre. Who can be arsed putting on a good show, only to be told at the last minute that the censors want you to change things, due to some imagined sensitivity?

GJA: Because producing a play of any kind is really fucking hard to do, dude. I am only kind of kidding… There is just a lot involved in the putting-together of a play intended for public presentation, and unless you are really passionate about what you are doing, it’s hard to justify all of the time and work that it takes to get it done. Also, there are only so many theatre-loving expat actors in Beijing… Most of the quality actors that I know are trying to pay the bills by gigging in the local film and television market. They don’t really have the luxury of taking the time to do a play.

But is it Art? Greg’s knitted vest raises challenging questions

BJC: What are the cast’s theatrical bona fides – other than being three out-of-work chaps who can speak English?

CO: Ha. You have got me down. Even when I am gainfully employed, which I occasionally am, people still seem to think I am out of work. I think it something to do with the way I dress.

Greg is a good one to deconstruct. He played American football in his youth and he has that build, a cross between a drill sergeant and a bouncer. Yet at the same time, he strides around rehearsals quoting Shakespeare soliloquies… he lives and breathes theatre. He’s done hundreds of Equity performances, talks endlessly about Chekov and Stanislavsky, that sort of thing. Basically, if the show comes anywhere close to being remotely professional, then it is all down to him.

GJA: Stand back, bitches, and let the tootin’ begin… I have been acting for about 40 years. I have been in over 100 stage productions of one kind or another. I have a B.A. in Theatre Arts, and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Acting and Directing. I have spent the last six years teaching theatre at Tsinghua International School, and since arriving in China I have had the pleasure of acting in several locally produced films [note Gregory’s role as “American Prick” in last year’s Jackie Chan-Jonny Knoxville flick Skiptrace– Ed]. And if you have ever wondered, yes, it is pretty fucking cool to see your big-ass head on an IMAX screen.

CO: Then there’s Sam [Kamanguza, who plays Serge]. A very cool character indeed. Ice-cold. My complete opposite on the stage. I’m all nerves, jangling around, barely able to stand still, and Sam will just stand opposite me and toss out his lines, like someone out of an old cowboy movie. Maybe inside he is all jittery and faking it, but I don’t think so. Funny too – has some great stories about guys in urinals standing next to him to, erm, check him out. Wonder how controlled he is then.  

BJC: Have you paid much attention to the recent Art revival in London?

CO: I saw the three ‘actors’ give an interview on Youtube. One of them was talking about what a great job he had done with his lines, and I remember thinking, ‘the smug git’ – only because I have had such a struggle with learning mine, obviously.

GJA: A couple of my colleagues had the pleasure of seeing it recently. They had nothing but praise for it. If we can deliver anything even near to what they are sharing on the east end, I would consider our production a success.

What particular relevance (if any) will Art hold for a Beijing audience?

CO: These days, China is famed for people paying millions of dollars on art of very questionable value. The play certainly taps into that. There’s also a lot of stuff about the getting rid of the old, to replace it with stuff that is ‘modern’, for no real reason other that the sake of it. I know Beijingers will be able to understand that.

For me the play is really about three blokes arguing to the death over something (seemingly trivial), simply because they have known each other for so long that they can. I think people can relate to that anywhere…

(L-R) Sam Kamanguza, Carlos Ottery and Gregory Joseph Allen play Serge, Yvan and Marc

BJC: What difficulties did you face mounting the play in China? Did you at any point find yourself wishing to punch a nearby wall?

CO: Getting ‘official approval was a problem… our producer was able to pull some strings with the relevant departments at the last minute and rush things through. Fortunately, three blokes losing their shit over a painting isn’t deemed a sensitive issue.

GJA: Producing a play anywhere usually produces a few “wall punch” worthy moments, but our process has been relatively stress free… I wouldn’t be surprised if we sent a few walls to the emergency room before it is all said and done.

CO: It’s put me off producing for life. When it is all over, am gonna switch off my phone, and spend a week in my bed doing nothing but drinking cider, and eating sandwiches. Whilst theatre is a mild passion, what I really like to do is make sandwiches. Recently, I have been experimenting with homemade shish kebabs. I get some lamb skewers from a local Xingjiang place, make my own chilli sauce, throw it in a tortilla from the supermarket: Less stressful than theatre production. And cheaper

A homemade kebab, courtesy of Carlos

ART runs from May 11-13, 7.30-9pm/ May 14, 2.30-4pm (100 RMB/ Students 70 RMB) at Penghao Theatre. Photo credits: Sophia Wong

There was a restaurant? (Pic via Thats)

A swathe of this street that included 3 Rock was demolished last week and, while some mourned, others cheered the ongoing erosion of what grassroots Beijing nightlife. There’s nothing wrong with whisky bars, brewpubs and cocktail lounges, unless you count homogeneity and banal exclusivity. But as Tolstoy said, all whisky bars are alike; each dive bar is divey in its own way.

Beijing is already deep down its path to progress, where no night out is not the same. The orders still go out to “sweep the streets,” yet there’s nowhere left to crack the whip. While cops used to roll up at roadhouse dens like Dos Kolegas, these days they’re reduced to raiding modest French bistros like Café de la Poste, or drug-testing patrons at family pub Great Leap on a Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, among such sites never again to be witnessed at 3 Rock – a Scotsman being served at the bar with his pants around his ankles; half-naked arm wrestling; a drinking game involving a pint of “everything”; two rock chicks playing strip dice; and one of the foulest unisex bathrooms in Beijing.

Here’s some of 3 Rock’s best/worst graffiti to remember it by

This is almost Bukowski-esque

Makes ya think…

A comprehensive report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s website by correspondent Stephen McDonell explains how he’d headed down to dirty dawg bar Dos Kolegas for some beery r ’n’ r following a stint in sunny Ukraine. It was at this point that Knacker turned up with some “small containers” – which didn’t contain Welcome Back gifts.

This phone camera image, via ABC, shows the scene at Dos Kolegas two weekends ago

“With toilet doors open, police watched as we gave samples one by one. Women too had to squat with the toilet door open. A police woman would stand in the doorway and partially block the view of those who walked about in front of the stalls”

It got even worse for those who flunked out:

“[They] were taken outside the bar and made to sit on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs – heads down. Some had their mouths taped closed”

For the sorry bastards who failed what McDonell identified as a marijuana test – who included at least one dazed FOB tourist – two weeks of detention await, followed by deportation: “No lawyers. No right of appeal. No telephone calls allowed.” (Loyal rag the Beijinger earlier cheerleaded the arrest of drug dealers as “welcome news to the vast majority of foreign residents of the city who choose to live within the letter of the law.” So, look forward to their strongly worded editorial regarding probable cause and due process soon)

Naturally, the expat rumor mill is now in overdrive and the theories flying: did Dos Kolegas not pay their maintenance fee? Is this part of the wider crackdown that has seen various hapless stars – including the son of CCP enthusiast Jackie Chan – busted for personal use, while their hapless management sign letters effectively banning any naughty artists from recording with them (quick pause while one pictures the history of Western pop sans narcotics: it’s 40 blissful years of One Direction).

The establishment targeted – and some were quick to link the raid to a spot check on Dada and others in February, under the aegis of a routine examination of “fire extinguishers” – attracts an overseas clientele.  The aforementioned sweep on dealers, meanwhile, occurred in an area, the Gongti West strip, best known for nightlife purgatories like Baby Face and True Color (can’t specifically name any others, as I’m not a patron) and commonly frequented by thundercunts of the Li Tianyi persuasion.

As there is currently a national drug crackdown you may have overlooked among all the other crackdowns, it seems more likely this is a raid based on specific information, such as a suspect grassing up his/her mates for a lighter sentence. Wrong time, wrong place. Can happen to anyone, like the long-term foreign business owner who happened to be sharing a sofa with a woman when her apartment got raided some months ago. He was gone within days.

A wider issue is the use of on-the-spot urinalysis, which the American Civil Liberties Union (I know – don’t laugh) has called “intrusive… degrading… an invasion of privacy… [it] reveals not only the presence of illegal drugs, but also the existence of many other physical and medical conditions,” adding the tests are subject to “human error [and] false positive results.” And that’s tests conducted under laboratory conditions – which I submit that the public bathrooms of Dos Kolegas do not at all resemble.

Urine samples commonly test for “for 31 different metabolites caused by marijuana, 4 caused by cocaine, 3 caused by opiates, 1 caused by Phencyclidine, and 5 caused by amphetamines.” God help you if you just returned from a fact-finding trip to Colorado. False positives can include Ibuprofen for marijuana, decongestants and diet pills (amphetamine), certain antibiotics (heroin and cocaine) and poppy seeds (opium and heroin). Everyone thing you wanted to know about urine tests but were too baked busy to research can be found here.

Police allegedly explained these methods thus: “[we] could not appear to be showing favoritism towards [foreigners] because it could be misconstrued as corruption.” So, foreigners may expect the same application of the law and their rights as Chinese – i.e. at the unaccountable whim of the state.

More worrying, at least from one point of view, was the tentative suggestion that the Thought Police may be turning their attention to what we say – or more specifically, write – as per this tweet by Kunming resident, and co-founder of the East By South East blog, Brian Eyler:

A tweet suggesting visa applicants may be required to sign pledges

At publication time, we’d yet to hear back from Eyler regarding the provisions against “online criticism” or  criticism of the government (in lieu of an update, Eyler says in this thread that the interviews occurred in 2014 in Kunming, and were more of a “lecture”).

[UPDATE:] Eyler says the interview lasted three minutes: “Basically a high-ranking PSB officer sat across the room from me puffing on a cigarette and rattled off a bunch of ‘don’t dos,’ including the ones I posted on Sunday. He mentioned no attending protests and no doing drugs… He didn’t mention blogging, Twitter, WeChat or anything specific – just something about 网上写负面的东西 [“writing negative things online”].

“The interview only applies for foreigners applying for their long terms visa for the first time in a new locality… Could have been directed at me, can’t rule that out, but I have nothing to suspect that the blog has fallen onto the local government radar even through our blogging about the PX protests last year.”  Beijing Cream also  contacted other respondents for details of their experiences. Nothing they reported rang any alarm bells. [ENDS UPDATE]

In Tianjin, where police chief Wu Changshun was incidentally detained on corruption charges earlier this month, expat Matthew Stinson said he’s merely been occasionally required to attend the Exit-Entry Bureau in person, where they “sometimes remind us not to promote a religion.” Eric Fish, an American writer who hosts the China Hang-Up podcast and has lived in Nanjing and Beijing, said his experience amounted to little more than a standard lecture to fellow teachers. “Most of it was just safety stuff and reminding us to register,” Fish replied, stating that this was back in 2008.

“The most political thing he said was to not conduct religious activities… When I got a student visa in Beijing at Tsinghua, a cop came and gave basically the same lecture to an auditorium full of new students,” Fish added. Students at his Tsinghua journalism program “had to sign a pledge not to do any reporting while they were in China before they were issued their [student] visa.” (My own experience, in 2009, amounted to turning up at the Bureau in person because “they want to have a look at you,” as per the advice of my friendly HR representative. “He likes you,” she whispered later. I felt like a prom queen.)

Amid the obfuscation and anger is an unfriendly reminder that we’re all living in a police state – albeit one where the cops would probably much sooner do nothing than spend their days being proactive.

Trying to read the tea leaves too much, particularly when linking the arbitrary policing of foreigners to wider issues of central administration, is usually an exercise in futility. Best to view local policy in China as like a Tom Friedman metaphor: it may not make much sense to begin with, and even less so later, but it’s the one with the Pulitzer and column in the Times, so we have to suck it up.

Follow RFH on Twitter @MRFH

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly spelled the surname of Stephen McDonell as McDowell.