01:27 pm
‘Cause I’m a Dialectically Material Girl. . .
Just the other day, I was reading Anthony Lane’s review in the New Yorker of Watchmen (behind a subscribers’ only firewall, I’m afraid) and he said that there are certain books that can never be made into films — like Marx’s Das Kapital.
The Guardian (h/t China Digital Times):
Chinese producers are attempting to transform Das Kapital from a hefty treatise on political economy into a popular stage show, complete with catchy tunes and nifty footwork.
Whether Karl Marx would approve of his masterwork being served up as entertainment for China’s new bourgeoisie is a matter of speculation. But the director He Nian – best known for his stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof – has promised to unite elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows in a hip, interesting and educational play featuring a live band, singing and dancing.
“The particular performance style we choose is not important, but Marx’s theories cannot be distorted,” he said sternly, in an interview with the Wen Hui Bao newspaper. Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, is being drafted in to ensure the production is intellectually rigorous.
The director said the play, which is to open next year, will be set in a company and will document the progress of its workers. In the first half they realise their boss is exploiting them and begin to understand the theory of surplus value. But far from uniting, as Marx enjoined them in the Communist Manifesto, some continue to work as before, some mutiny and others employ collective bargaining.
It’s “The Office” meets “Les Miserables!” It’s guaranteed to be a smash[ing blow against capitalist exploiters]!
Max Bialystock, white courtesy phone please.
I can see the reviews when it comes to Broadway: “A ‘Kapital’ Production!” “Huge Marx to Das Kapital!” “I laughed, I cried, I threw off the chains of oppression!” “A surplus value for the whole family!!”
Okay, I’ll stop now.
Well, maybe not. This reminds me of the story last summer that a couple of Broadway producers were thinking of a musical about Fidel’s rise to power. At the time, I suggested a few other possible productions. I think they’re worth repeating here:
- Stop the Gulag I Want to Get Out
- Springtime for Hitler
- Schindler’s List of Guys and Dolls
- Oh Kampuchea!
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cultural Revolution
- Hello Idi
- The Sound of Screaming
- Sunday in the Detention Camp with Pol Pot
- The Commissars (”Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are arresting!” — New York Post)
- Surveillance Camera on the Roof (the plot’s from 1984 and the music is from Fiddler!!)
- La Cage á Guantanamo
- Maim
- Rent Limb-from-Limb
I think my favorite part of this story is that they’re bringing in an economist to ensure an “intellectually rigorous” production. Because, you know, when you go to a musical, the most important thing is to be intellectually rigorous. That’s why they used real cats in the show of the same name. Oh, and real animals in The Lion King. And real Nazis in The Producers.
I couldn’t help thinking of one of my favorite Monty Python skits:
I think the hardest part of this is going to be casting. Are there any Communists left in China?
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