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Sound & Stage > News & Features
Wednesday November 30, 2005
Soap opera on stage
By MICHAEL CHEANG
Snow.Wolf.Lake is not your average The Phantom of the Opera-like musical. In fact, it resembles a Hong Kong TV soap opera more than The Phantom of the Opera or Cats.
The brainchild of Hong Kong Cantopop superstar Jacky Cheung, Snow.Wolf.Lake is a Chinese stage musical that revolves around the tragic romance of Wolf (Cheung), a poor gardener, and Snow (Evonne Hsu), a girl from a well-off family.
The story is reminiscent of Hong Kong Cantonese TV series. Besides the star-crossed lovers, there are also the jealous suitor, the shy sister who secretly loves the protagonist and the loud-mouthed, stuck-up mother who only wants Snow to marry a rich man. Add some songs, some dancing, and transfer the whole mix onto a stage, and voila! You have Snow.Wolf.Lake.
All right, as bad as the description may sound, I have to say that Snow.Wolf.Lake was actually a pretty decent show. Though it was only last Friday and Saturday that Malaysian audiences finally got a chance to catch it on our shores, the Cantonese version of the musical was conceived in Hong Kong eight years ago. The show proved to be so popular that a Mandarin version was produced earlier this year, touring China and Singapore before finally landing in Malaysia.
All 9,000 seats in the Putra Indoor Stadium were filled during Friday’s show, though judging from all the cries and screams of “Jacky” before the show, it was pretty clear whom most of them were there to see.
Well, if it was a Jacky Cheung solo concert they wanted, then they would have been disappointed. But then again, this was so much better than the average Cantopop concert. The acting was good, the singing was superb, the songs were both familiar and memorable, and the stage effects were at times quite remarkable.
I was especially impressed with the two female leads, both of whom gave surprisingly pleasant performances. Evonne Hsu as Snow gave an accomplished performance, while Nadia Chan was excellent as Fong, the forlorn sister who is relegated to the background, as she watches the courtship of her sister and the man she herself loves.
However, as accomplished as the other actors were, Snow.Wolf.Lake was all about Cheung.
An acclaimed director once claimed that there is hardly anyone in Asia who can sing and act as well as Cheung, and it is easy to see why. His singing and acting were superb the whole night, and time and again, he stole the show from the other actors (though it’s not hard to do that when you’re on stage two-thirds of the time).
When he sang his laments to his love, you could feel each and every heartbroken emotion in his voice, and when he spoke, there was an element of childish innocence that supplemented his otherwise one-dimensional character.
The set-up of the stage was also suitably elaborate, and a few neat effects here and there made the show memorable.
One scene that was executed very well was the one that had Wolf and Snow in a boat in the middle of a lake. Another impressive scene was the take with the “prisoners” dragging out their cell bars and erecting them at the front of the stage to simulate a prison cell. So simple yet so effective.
However, there was one negative element – many of the songs were so recognisably “Jacky Cheung” that sometimes it felt like I was watching one of his solo concerts rather than a musical. In fact, I half expected the crowd to break out into a mass sing-along at one point.
Story-wise, the play’s dialogue and plot were nothing to shout about. While the whole tragic love story bit was bearable, the story descends into silliness by the third-quarter, when a white wolf (his fairy god-wolf, perhaps?) appears and tells Wolf about a time tunnel that will enable him to go back and change the past. Huh?
Cheesy plot mechanisms aside, Snow.Wolf. Lake was memorable for the great songs, the stylish set, and the efforts of the entire cast, particularly Cheung, who deserved every accolade he received for coming up with the play in the first place.
Ultimately, while it is below Broadway or West End standards, Snow.Wolf.Lake is still a polished production that meets Cheung’s goal of introducing the all-singing, all-dancing, over-the-top world of stage musicals to an Asian audience weaned on pop concerts and “idol” worship.
Wolf and Snow (Evonne Hsu) sharing a romantic moment in a boat.
Snow’s sister, Fong (Nadra Chan) is secretly in love with Wolf.
Wolf (Jacky Cheung) lamenting his lost love from behind prison bars in Snow.Wolf.Lake.
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