Battle cry
‘Disney's Mulan' brings ancient Chinese legend to Bethesda stage
Scott Rink stands stick straight, staring at the the 10 actors performing on stage. And he's not happy. Of course, with all his Broadway experience, the Juilliard-trained choreographer understands the dance number eventually will be razzmatazz wonderful. For now, however, something is very wrong.
As Rink continues gazing, obviously deep in thought, the actors fiddle, giggle, do cartwheels and finally fall down chortling. Rink seems oblivious to their shenanigans.
Rink gives additional stage directions and once again, the performers are dancing and singing "If you want to seem legit, try to burp and scratch and spit! Want the Oscar? Then commit! Keep 'em guessin'!"
Just as they are singing the last note, Ricardo Frederick Evans knows he's in the wrong spot and leaps to reach the proper destination.
"Because all these people are in front of me," Evans responds in a little boy's high-pitched squeak.
Quickly Matt Dewberry voices his own complaint about the choreography: "I'm in a traffic jam. I can't go downstage!"
After one more take as actor Mikey Cafarelli searches for his spot, Rink asks, "So, Mikey, what's your problem?" and again, everyone, even Rink, bursts out laughing.
All this good-natured ribbing belies the seriousness of the situation. With only a "limited amount of rehearsal time," Rink explains. "I have to focus when putting this puzzle together. I am going through different movements and scratching off what won't work."
He finds it easier to think it through before articulating his idea to the performers.
"I don't want to confuse them," he explains.
Shortly Rink and Janet Stanford, Imagination Stage's artistic director and this play's director, are huddling together, making sure that the movements he is creating keep the storyline in what they call a "trajectory."
While everybody loves a good dance number, "You can't do choreography just for choreography's sake," explains Linden Tailor, the play's fight choreographer.
Both men know that no matter how graceful the dance routine or impossibly realistic a battle scene, they become superfluous without adding to the story.
And what an ancient tale they are attempting to tell. For those who may have missed the 1998 Disney feature film, the 75-minute musical takes place in China.
It's a big day for the Fa family; their only daughter Mulan is about to meet the village matchmaker, but from the start, events go from bad to worse. The young girl is not only late for the betrothal ceremony, but also talks back to the matchmaker after she criticizes Mulan's boyish figure. The matchmaker huffs off, and the girl realizes she has dishonored her family along with her Ancestors — played by 12-foot-tall puppets. Mulan desperately wants to salvage the family's reputation. When she learns her father is being called to join the army, because he has no sons, she formulates a plan. Mulan decides to pretend she is a boy and take his place. Once the family's ancestors learn of this horrifying turn of events, they send Mushu the dragon to stop the soon-to-be girl-warrior before she is discovered and killed.
Manna Nichols (Mulan) admits that "impersonating a boy" for her debut professional performance as an equity actress is a challenge. "I usually play the ingenue or the girl next door." Working with Tailor, she learned stage combat, something she never studied while earning her graduate degree in performance theater from Oklahoma City University. From their first rehearsal, she recalls telling Tailor to "be brutal. If it looks terrible, I will do anything to fix it."
She didn't have anything to worry about, though.
"Manna moves really well," Tailor recalls thinking when he first assessed the actors.
No matter a performer's balance and agility, the fight choreographer learned that "safety is number one" from "fight master" Professor David Leong while studying theater at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Sure, the actors are only pretending but one accidental stray punch or poke can be disastrous. The actors must learn to "react before the action takes place," Tailor says.
It doesn't stop after the final dress rehearsal either. Even once the performers learn the fight choreography, they routinely go through the scenes before each performance. Accidents happen when actors begin to feel too comfortable.
No matter how realistic these battles may appear on stage, fighting is all about the illusion, with the actors performing "elongating [their] punches in quarter or half time."
Slowing down the action is essential in theater since, like dance choreography, the actors "tell the story of the fight."
In this tale, Mulan isn't attempting superhuman powers. Mulan realizes she can't compete with the soldiers, who use bamboo poles to practice their fighting skills. Instead, she begins to employ the quiet art of Tai Chi, and Captain Shang (Nathaniel P. Claridad) realizes that the movement and concentration required will be good for the other soldiers and they join in.
The message is clear for both boys and girls; Mulan is most powerful when using "brains over brawn," explains Tailor.
Along with the complex choreography, the production includes an earthshaking avalanche and even a sky-high pagoda.
While the audience learns that in ancient China, girls "didn't even step outside the house," Stanford sees this as much more than a feminist treatise.
"Mulan learns that it is important to think outside of the box, and that all kids don't always fit in, and this play validates them."
"Disney's Mulan" will be at Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda, through Jan. 10. Shows begin at 1:30 and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday as well as at 11 a.m. Saturdays, Dec. 19 and 26, and Jan. 2 and 9. Tickets range from $10 to $21; group discounts are available for parties of 10 or more. Call 301-280-1660 or visit www.imaginationstage.org.
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