Summer in the Air

If you've been following this blog on the edge of your seat (and who hasn't?), wondering what next will befall our intrepid travelers, relax a little, reader. Summer has officially begun in China, things are heating up, and with it there's lots of good news from Beijing.
On Wednesday night, when things seemed a bit bleak, we got a phone call from Joe Graves from Arkansas (he's playing Treeves in Elephant Man there at the Rep). Joe, who founded the PKU Institute years ago and has been through the ups and downs of Chinese bureaucracy, put our minds at ease on several fronts. First, he's back next week Wednesday, which will make everything so much easier for us. Secondly, he thinks the space problem can be solved and we'll be able to get Centennial Hall or some equivalent venue. Third, he assures us that, yes, of course there's a budget, and we'll meet with designers as soon as he's back in Beijing. What's more, he will deal with the classes when he's back, so we don't have to agonize about how to evaluate these students on whom we've been dropped willy-nilly. Finally, he has some treats in store for us (at this point, his mellow baritone over the phone is starting to sound like Santa Claus). He will take David on a trip to Taiwan in late May for a theatre festival there; once they have returned, he will send me off to Hong Kong as guest observer at the All-China College Shakespeare festival, into which 200 Chinese universities have entered scenes (12 are selected to perform). Colin McPhillamy, our predecessor in teaching and directing here, will be one of the judges, so I'll get to hang out with him in HK for a few days.
As you might imagine, Joe's intervention makes a lot of difference to our mood. (He also shares a story that puts the Dragon Lady episode from the Democracy Building into perspective. Apparently, Dragon Lady and her husband live on the premises of that building and protect it fiercely, especially from activities they judge frivolous, such as theatre rehearsals. Joe says that at one point he was so low in her estimation that he felt he should apologize to her, so he bought some roses and memorized a phrase of abject self-abasement. When he handed her the flowers, she eyed him with unconcealed horror, backed away slowly, and threw the roses in the trash! Apology not accepted, presumably.)
In rehearsals, we lost a few cast members who were alternates and one who was a principal, but we were told this might happen due to the heavy schedule of the students. We are now down to exactly nine cast members, the minimum for the production, and know that this is a potentially precarious situation. On the other hand, the cast is having genuine fun with the play, and every rehearsal fuses them into more of a close-knit ensemble.
On Thursday, after my morning class, we finally ventured afield from campus, to the Summer Palace of the last empress dowager, Cixi. I'll post a few pictures and a description later.