Dramatically varied but oftentimes clunky, Three Men’s storybook aesthetic and charming performance are highlights in this otherwise slightly lopsided narrative.
Qi Liu plays Fanghua, a lonely shopkeeper who presides over a small but seemingly endless convenience store in Beijing. Through her eyes, we see a serious of interactions she has with three mysterious customers over the course of a month. As she recounts these stories, Fanghua begins to fantasise, re-enacting the encounters in dramatic fashion, taking on her love of television films and letting them play with her memories. Dramatic lighting changes and an evocative score weave us through this story-book tale. Directed by Shan Ng with assistance from Melissa Cheng.
Liu’s performance as Fanghua is very well played. She has a great deal of charm and charisma which is needed in a monologue of this length, and she keeps the piece moving at a steady pace. There are moments where Liu is having to keep conversation with an empty space, (other character’s voices are played through speakers) and she succeeds in making these interactions believable. In the more melodramatic movie-like moments, she fully embraces the silliness and dives headfirst into the serious of cliché’d tableaux with passion. The performance is not sleek by any means, but the sheer joy that Liu brings to the role is enough to keep the audience engaged.
The set design by Joyce Hanjue Zheng is playful and detailed, and the thrown-together cardboard style; particularly the cardboard microwave, provides a good backdrop for a story where ‘construction’ takes a central theme. The lighting by Summer Xue is suitably over-the-top when it needs to be and varied enough to avoid stagnation.
Where the play lacks is in its core narrative and conceit. There is real promise in writer Chuyuan Cai’s attack, a story adapted from the work of Yifeng Shi. The more jovial moments of the piece are well produced, with some laugh-out-loud one liners. However, the play fails to deliver the emotional flipside that it clearly seeks to do and the ending, though an emotional left-turn, does little to move the audience in any meaningful way. The final act feels a little rushed, perhaps due to time constraints, and maybe more thought could be given to revising and reducing nearer the start.
This is an ambitious and intriguing play, and with refinement it could truly shine as a piece of original storytelling. However, though well-made and performed, Three Men’s payoff is not worth the sum of its parts.
Three Men played at the Courtyard Theatre from 11-12th April.