"A handsome and solemn new production...The production feels like a study summary, with undeveloped subplots popping up like untended garden flowers and unelucidated motivations running rampant...The novel’s poetic style survives in the dialogue. But despite the efforts of two directors, the production never becomes more than a pretty curiosity."
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"This is a lot for two hours...Any number of plot points are mentioned, only to be dropped without explanation...The directors, Tisa Chang and Lu Yu, haven't found a way to fuse this combination of comedy of manners, historical drama, and the fantastic into a stylistic whole...The best thing to be said about 'A Dream of Red Pavilions' is that it makes one curious to read the original. But it's far too much of a stretch to say that it succeeds as a stand-alone piece of work."
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"A colorful and lucid stage adaptation...By focusing on the core story of the 120 chapter novel, this engrossing and epic story of love, betrayal, greed and tradition becomes accessible to a wider audience...The play at times seems a summary or outline version of the epic novel...The proof of the success of the production of is that it is possible to follow the involved and complex story...A production which is always absorbing, entertaining and compelling."
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"Framed in a gorgeous mixture of projections and sound...Xueqin’s original novel weaves together even more subplots, but Tiang picks out the moments that both focus on the most principal themes and show the grandeur of this epic. Along with detailed direction, the audience can follow the many stories without feeling entirely lost. But, in keeping all of these elements the play often dragged—'A Dream of Red Pavilions' is a long play and it feels long."
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"The performance is a lovely treasure of East Asian art...The play very much comes together, assembled by a professional and dedicated ensemble and stage crew with the passion to open up East Asian stories into the English-speaking world."
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"The story here lacks dramatic thrust; it advances in incremental steps that are mainly interesting for how they introduce historical culture and family life...The Pan-Asian’s actors struggle to offer three-dimensional performances, but most are unable to overcome the distance between their modern, Western sensibilities and their 18th-century personages. What results seems more an exotic costume drama for high school students than a memorable exploration of a literary masterpiece."
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"In a politically correct world you do not want to judge too harshly a company that brings Asian actors to the forefront. Unfortunately in 'A Dream of Red Pavilions,' it is hard not to do so. It starts with British playwright Jeremy Tiang. His ambitious 'dramatization' of Cao Xueqin’s four novels is lackluster...The show runs over two hours and in all honesty, should have been cut down to an hour...Director Tisa Chang's production is just not well acted, well written and is bland."
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"It is a solid adaptation of the novel, with a few bumps here and there, and gives audiences an interesting look at upper class family life in China nearly three hundred years ago…The staging of the play, although a bit constricted in the small theater, is pretty good. The acting is first rate…Act one is a bit stodgy and the plot is hard to follow...The play, with a number of characters, could use a larger staging and more of a grand, epic look."
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