Children's Musical Fairy Tale "Malan Flower" A new production of classics and intercultural values
For the last twenty years in the United States, I have a dream to revise the classical Chinese children's drama "Malan Flower" into a musical theater performance, and spread it to other countries. In the year 2003, I was lucky to have the enthusiastic support of Jinsan Lu, the widow of the late author of "Malan Flower" Deyao Ren. Mrs. Lu provided me with the invaluable background information and an unknown detail of the story that was deleted, changed or was never incorporated into the original script. I also received great help from Professor Lin Hong Tong of the College of Cinematograph in Beijing; he did the revision for the second and third edition. In the beginning, we lack of financial funds, deficient in professional skills and have inadequate time, but we received great support from the community and with the hard work from all our staff members, we were able to raise sufficient funds to get started. Eventually in the year 2005, "Malan Flower" was performed in two versions, Chinese and English at the Flint Center of San Jose. It was a successful performance and received many attentions from the community and media around the bay area. This year 2007, "Malan Flower" is revised to the seventh edition as a musical theater drama to be presented to the audience.
If you were to ask me why I insisted on spending long years revising and performing a fifty year old classic children's drama instead of writing something new and fancy, I would tell you that it is for the sake of the children. "Malan Flower" is an excellent show for children, it is filled with important values, interesting characters and beautiful, rich stage images, and it is as good as any other classical children's drama in the world. One good show may have great influence on a child's life. I have been in the United States for many years and understand the concerns and expectations of the parents for their children. I myself have two lovely daughters.
"Malan Flower" is a classic in view of:
First, it encompasses many beautiful and popular stories in the Chinese society such as, "The Story of Snoek", "Girls of the Pond Sneil", "Deer with Seven Colors", long poetry "Malin Flower", and so on. Those stories represent the moral standards and the basics of good vs. evil. "Malan Flower" delivers the message in a splendid array of drama, music, dance, and song and indeed is an important children's classic drama.
Second, "Malan Flower" defends the endless discussed issue good vs. evil. The evil may win temporarily but the good always win at last. There's a Chinese saying: "Good will be rewarded with good, and evil with evil." This is a natural law and is the spirit of the classical stories. In the scene of "Malan Flower", people and lovely little animals are friends, but the greedy and cunning wicked wolf intents to take everything for himself. This battle of good vs. evil happens around the magical Malan flower. The story is simple and easy to understand and this is why children love the show.
Third, "Malan Flower" is a classic created half a century ago and it has influenced three generations and has spread around the world. In China, grandma would bring mom and mom would bring daughter to watch the show……. "Malan Flower" was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in China, but it revived after the disaster and even bloomed more vigorously! The song "Malan Flower, Oh Malan Flower, thou fear not the wind nor rain…….." is well known for many generations and remained deep in their heart. This "Malan Flower" song praises the spirit of determination and never give up. The phenomenon of "Malan Flower" is seen everywhere in China such as: the nuclear military base in Sinkiang is named "Malan Flower Military Base"; there are also "Malan poetry contest", "Malan television station", "and Malan cultural organization" etc. This is the Malan Flower culture where the actual flower blooms only in the ground of dirt and rocks.
In Peking China, there is a noodle house named "Malan Ramen", after it was newly opened, in just a few short years four hundred more noodle house is franchised in the country and abroad. The ramen that is sold everyday can surround the earth in one circle and the store owner says that: "our business enterprise is the spirit of Malan Flower."
In the 60's and 70's, mainland China was entrapped in a turbulent era, many children dreamed of "Malan Flower" and entrust to "Malan Flower" to uplift their spirit. It is this profound emotion that brings people hope and expectations during the turmoil. Thus "Malan Flower" represents the national character and its vitality; this proves the essentials of the classics.
Classics is the nurture of a nation's culture, it can not be neglected. In the polluted spiritual world today, it is even more important for our children to be exposed to the healthy and rich spiritual environment.
Everywhere in the world there is racial discrimination, not to mention in the United States. Conflicts happen between eastern, western, blacks and intercultural. It takes understanding and acceptance to achieve interracial peace and intercultural harmony. My mission as a cultural worker is to spread out the message of the classics "Malan Flower" to the world.
Now we made a revision to the musical drama "Malan Flower" in order to adapt to the new generations with novel ideas. And with the help of Professor Lin Hong Tong, the newly revised version focuses on the following aspects:
First, emphasize the main theme with up to date ideas:
The original drama emphasizes on the contrast of diligent vs. greediness. Although diligent has always been a merit of the Chinese culture and greed always results in evil doings, but we want the theme to be more extensive towards the contrast of kind vs. evil.
So the performance is focused on the scene of "Malan Flower blooms and the Wish-Come-True Festival". Malan Flower only grant the wishes of the kind while evil forces that harm people will finally be punished.
The whole performance is focused on the theme of "The Wish" with the intention to:
- Inspire the children through the wishes made by all the little animals.
- Teach the children with the examples of greedy, selfish Dalan vs. kind and pleasant
Xiaolan.
- With the selfish and aggressive "Wish" of the wicked wolf (creepy cat), reveals
the nature of evil, false, and dishonor.
- Create novel image and profound, meaningful subject to help our parents and
community to nurture the next generation and help them to make kind and peaceful
wishs.
Second, we redesigned the structures, characters, and scenes. The newly revised version of "Malan Flower" is well-organized, focused and comprised of basic moral education. Singing, dancing and drama are the formality of the performance and are well supported by the "Academy of Chinese Performing Arts" and other organizations. It is basically a form of "Oklahoma" style musical theater drama.
Third, the stage image designs were created according to the culture's special features and the current trend of thoughts with the intention to adapt to the children's appreciation of fun, interesting, cool, awesome and radical.
These are the key features that we are trying to perfect and we will continuously work hard to perfect the brilliant and amazing masterpiece.
— David Chen
