A Professor Calls...

So on Monday morning at about 8, I receive a call out of the blue from a woman who introduces herself as "Sun" (Professor Sun, I was soon to learn) and who requests, with a degree of friendly urgency, my presence the next afternoon at her college to help her judge a drama competition in which students enter 10-minute plays. Obviously, she has a long-standing arrangement with Joe Graves, and I've inherited all of Joe's obligations. In no position to demur (she has the forceful tone of Chinese women d'un certain age), I agree to join her the next day. The location is Beijing University of Business and Economics. I have no idea where that is, but she tells me that she'll send me the address by email and all I have to do is show it to the taxi driver. (This proposition presents a small problem in itself, as I have no printer and do not copy Chinese characters well. I could be writing "second pigsty on Appleblossom Street" or "eviscerate me when you read this." Too risky. Fortunately, Joe the TA comes to my rescue later.)
Tuesday morning I receive an email from the Professor that "plans had changed" and that the student in charge has let her know that there have hardly been any rehearsals yet. So instead of giving feedback on scenes, could I come and talk to them about how to act and direct? It would be fine, she adds helpfully, if I wanted to use Powerpoint, and maybe bring in scenes for demonstration. I'm getting a feeling that this kind of on-the-fly redefinition of events is entirely normal. I don't even feel that I need to answer her and point out that I wasn't exactly prepared to give a formal lecture on no notice two days after I have arrive. It will probably be sufficient to just redefine the event when I arrive on the scene...
Following my two oral English classes on Tuesday (about which see the previous entry), I grab a taxi outside the West gate of campus, although I would rather have hibernated, in all truth. (The mattress of my bed is a fine product of People's Quarry #4, and sleep sometimes elusive.) The ride at high speeds across the impressive vistas of contemporary Beijing with its expansive ring roads takes about 20 minutes. The city planners seem to have taken a cue from Atlanta regarding urban freeways. I had been told that a fair price was 25 Yuan, but the driver takes 50 and drops me off at the wrong gate to boot. (Cheated by taxi driver: check.) I'm walking around campus a bit stupidly, looking for the apartment building of Professor Sun ("18 stories, just inside the North Gate"), but do eventually find it and brazen my way past the sullen young guard in police (military? lollipop guild?) uniform -- one such cerberus seems to stand gloweringly in the doorway of any building of substance in Beijing. Professor Sun, who is of the generation on whom a slightly updated variant of the unisex Mao jacket looks right, opens the door to her apartment and embraces me enthusiatically. I have the feeling I've somehow come to her rescue. Waiting in the unkempt professorial apartment already is Beate Neubauer, a German professor from the University of Cologne who, as I find out in due time, gives lectures at campuses around Beijing on English drama while her husband has a semester appointment at Beida. She, too, has been taken a bit by surprise by Sun's assault invitation, and so in the next few hours, we exchange more than a few ironic glances. Sun hustles us over to her dining room table where scripts lie in profusion. Would we please read the short plays the students will be rehearsing while she brings us coffee and sandwiches? So we sit and read 5 short plays, Sun all the while bustling about us, asking questions, urging us to identify parts we might discuss with the students. What do we think of the plays?, she wants to know. (They range from acceptable to execrable, and there is no rhyme or reason why the students would want to do them. One features a foul-mouthed teddy bear who talks back to his owner, a kind of anti-Harvey). Finally, after fitful readings and a hasty dinner, we are taken over to a classroom building liberally plastered with announcements of an upcoming event, "How to Stage Short English Plays." This, it dawns on Beate and me, is the event for which we are the featured speakers. Indeed, when we get to the lecture hall, there are about 30 students waiting quietly in their seats. Our names have been transliterated into Chinese on neat name tags*, and a petite student gives an introduction of the honored guests, hardly have we set foot into the classroom. The students applaud politely and look at us expectantly. It is a little like one of those anxiety dreams I used to have as a young faculty member where I was thrust into a place to lecture on some obscure topic without preparation.
It all turns out well, reader. Beate talks for a few minutes on the relationship of text and performance, and then I take over, giving (very much off the top of my head) some general pointers about beats, objectives, obstacles, subtext, the need for careful rehearsal, when to get off book, and so on. This seems to go over well, and we spend the next hour and a half working with various groups on their scenes, answering questions, etc. When we're back in the taxi after having made copious promises that we will return to inspect the progress of their work, I find that someone (Sun?) has put an envelope with 250 Yuan in my pocket -- a discreet payment for services rendered.
I will conclude this entry here and report on Wednesday and our first rehearsal in the next one.

*In case you're wondering, I figured out that mine says "la - er - fu" -- which is supposed to be like "Ralf."