High potential period piece musical let down by soundtrack volume

Basing itself on stories and characters from Chinese literature, set in the year 168 BC,  Red Hare’s Wish is a mostly sung-through period musical written and composed by Jialun Qi and directed by Enrico Liou. Performed at The Space Theatre, This performance is an adapted version of act one of the full production, with the script altered to make the story feel more complete. 

With a character list resembling an episode of Game of Thrones, our eight strong ensemble cast portray a trio of warriors striving to do good, an unpopular Lord Regent and his infamous bloodthirsty warrior, a scheming fugitive attempting to sew discord and gain influence, and a high-born mother and daughter caught in the middle of the political games. 

The highlight of the show is the musical soundtrack, which is predominantly classical in style, though also contains flashes of more contemporary moments. The songs were sung well by the cast, with Vivi Wei shining through as the highlight as sandal maker-gone warrior Liu Bei. 

From the show’s greatest strength, came its greatest struggle, however. In a musical political/historical drama in which the majority of dialogue and plot advancement is through the songs themselves, the audience risks falling behind in the story if they can’t keep up with the spoken words and lyrics. 

Unfortunately the volume on the otherwise beautiful soundtrack that played out from the speakers in The Space Theatre was turned up too loudly, and often drowned out words or full lines from the cast. 

This became problematic as the story was quite complex, with a number of plots and political schemes occurring side by side. I sadly found myself not quite sure who certain characters were, or sometimes struggling to hear what they were saying alongside the movements they were performing on stage. This was perhaps exacerbated further by this performance being an altered version of act one transformed into a more complete story – you would expect a more fleshed out two act performance to give the audience more time to keep up. 

After reflecting on the performance, and clarifying plot points with my +1, I’m determined that there’s something really great at the core with Red Hare’s Wish. Given more space to breathe across two acts, and improved sound balancing, I’d likely find the end product very enjoyable.