The Orphan of Zhao

According to Wikipedia and the New York Times, The Orphan of Zhao is a famous Chinese play, cemented in the world of musical theatre by its classical and cultural aspects. The play is historically sanguine, and based on a traditional Beijng Opera. Stephin Merritt's (Magetic Fields, Gothic Archies, Future Bible Heroes, and the 6ths) adaptation of the Orphan of Zhao for New York City's 2003 Lincoln Center Festival, is both inspired and strange.

I'm sure my faithful blog-readers are scratching their heads at this moment, wondering why I'm writing about an old musical. Well, the main reason is that I just found out about Stephin Merritt's Orphan of Zhao, and I think it's awesome. Stephin Merritt is currently working on a musical adaptation of the children's story Coraline by Neil Gaiman, which is a story so eerie and haunting that I was only able to read forty pages (granted, I was about twelve years old when I tried). Now, I've listened to quite a bit of Merritt's music, and most of it is pleasantly recondite with lots of strange images that only make sense on a primal level. Not to say that his music is hunter-gatherer in any way, it's actually very sophisticated and seems to be composed with care. Coraline is filled with menacing, almost violent descriptions of actions that are commonplace (I seem to remember that sewing buttons was particularly horrible in the story), and the Orphan of Zhao is openly violent, but like most Chinese stories, the violence is wrapped in intrigue and honor.

In the Orphan of Zhao, Merritt pulled in the bizarre traditions and almost histrionic pulse of American musical theatre, but retained some of the art and subtlety of Chinese theatre. The music itself is full of traditional Chinese sounds, and the lyrics are odd. Take for example the song "Has the World Gone Insane?". The music clashes together like orange and brown clothing, the imagery of "enemy baby with enemy milk on his chin" is both ridiculous and frightening, and the song succeeds in making the listener feel uncomfortable; I think the point is to make people feel uncomfortable. Physical discomfort makes you want to change your position, so maybe mental discomfort does the same thing mentally; and, if this is true, then mental discomfort is an invaluable tool to a writer. I'm sure that Coraline was written to be an uncomfortable story, to make you realize that their are some actions in life that are frightening, even though they're also mundane. Scary things don't always make sense; in fact, I think scary things rarely make sense, which is why they are so scary.

Getting back to music and away from philosophy, I would recommend the Orphan of Zhao to anyone who enjoys musical theatre. Stephin Merritt composes multi-layered and emotional scores, and he drags you into the story (preferably, kicking and screaming). You can find Stephin Merritt's showtunes on iTunes, and probably somewhere else. Just don't listen if you're afraid of discomfort and insidious violence.