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Modern Chinese classic not lost in translation Master Yuan (Paul Juhn, center) and Blossom (Leah Anderson) have some fun behind the blanket, unbeknownst to Blossom's husband, Tao (Eugene Ma), in "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land," playing through Oct. 31 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Photo courtesy Jenny Graham Monday Apr 20, 2015 at 6:46 PM Apr 20, 2015 at 6:46 PM By Roberta KentFor the Tidings There was a lot of anticipation when the Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced the U.S. premiere of Taiwanese playwright Stan Lai’s “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land” with Lai adapting and directing it for an American audience. The play is a contemporary Chinese theater classic. It has been produced over 1,000 times in China and on Taiwan.  Would the Chinese cultural references — both literary and historical — translate? Would American audiences understand particularly Chinese humor? Would the play work with an ethnically diverse cast?  The answer is “yes” to all of the above.  Good storytelling translates to any language or culture. Lai’s cultural mash-up works on multiple levels. Some of the play’s elements seem a bit strange at first but broad physical comedy and stories of heart-wrenching loss are universal. “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land” is sophisticated storytelling whatever its original language or particular storytelling technique. Lai makes the intricacies of Chinese comic opera as accessible as the Marx Brothers or The Three Stooges.  “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land” is two plays told within the framework of a third. Two theater troupes are booked into a rehearsal space on the same day. As one group attempts to rehearse “Secret Love,” a tear-jerker of a tale of lovers separated by China’s 1949 revolution, the other troupe is rehearsing “Peach Blossom Land,” a broadly comedic version of a 5th century fable in the style of Chinese opera. The sets and props of the two plays — not to mention the actors — inevitably become enmeshed and chaos ensues.  A rehearsal scene from “Secret Love” opens the play. Jiang (Cristofer Jean) and Yun (Kate Hurster) are lovers in Shanghai as World War II has ended. They are soon to be parted by the Chinese civil war.  The total separation of the Chinese communities when two million Nationalist Chinese fled to Taiwan is well known to Chinese audiences but not as wrenchingly familiar to a western audience. Lai solves the problem by having his history lesson delivered by “Secret Love’s” writer/director (Joseph Anthony Foronda) to his multi-cultural cast and crew (Vilma Silva, Susanna Batres, Kevin Kenerly).  The Chinese fable, “Peach Blossom Land,” recounts the tale of a fisherman (Eugene Ma) who finds finds an ethereal — if slightly ridiculous — perfect world when he flees his cuckolding wife, Blossom (Leah Anderson), and her lover, Master Yuan (Paul Juhn).  This is broad physical comedy, exquisitely timed to the rhythms of Chinese percussion, owing as much to the precise choreography of Italian commedia dell’arte as to the pratfalls of The Three Stooges.  In between rehearsing his play’s scenes, the director of “Peach Blossom Land,” the “Master Yuan” character, encounters as much cultural confusion with his local and non-Asian crew (Joe Wegner, Robert Vincent Frank) as the Asian director of “Secret Love” has with his.  Lai has said that when he directs this play at a particular theatre, he adapts the work to its milieu and circumstances. Lai has fun with his references to the workings of the OSF company and bits of local Ashland color.  Sunday’s matinee opening had a substantial number of Chinese speakers in the audience. There was a lot of laughter from them at the jokes about differences between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese dialects. But it was also clear that the English-speaking audience was in on the joke, just without the details.  “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land” provides that rare opportunity for an audience to enter into the traditions and experiences of different cultural community and find the emotions — laughter and longing —that bind together rather than set apart. And have a lot of fun at the same time. "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" continues through Oct. 31. For tickets, call 541-482-4331 or visit www.osfashland.org. Roberta Kent is a freelance writer living in Ashland. Reach her at [email protected].