She does the part again.
He watches. He stops her and demands, Chisel the phrase this way. How about softening the tone a bit? Oh, Torvald, I'm not your child. Don't bang your chest. It's too cartoonish. Let yourself miss a beat. Hold the tension. Pivot your head toward the window, then the door, now speak.
She follows the direction, improvising at the same time. She is in a plain blue blouse, her body tall and slender. She is full of desire yet vulnerable. The assistants whisper to each other. Zhang Min doesn't smile, doesn't say anything more. After Lan Ping finishes, the director sends an assistant to tell her to wait in the greenroom. Mr. Zhang Min would like to talk with you after he is done. He is wrapping up. He won't be seeing anyone else today.
They meet and have tea. It goes well. Her senses tell her that he appreciates not only her acting skill but also her personality. She is flattered. You understand Nora, he remarks. Strangely, in the back of her mind, there is a recurring, seemingly irrelevant thought: he is a married man.
Later, much later, after the play, after the role, after her heart is broken over her next husband, she will listen to that thought and go to Zhang Min for shelter. She will move into his place and become his mistress. But at this point, she is a professional. And she is going to play Nora.
Nora is a traditional Western housewife, the mother of three children, Zhang Min says. Her husband and her friends think that she lives a good life-well fed and clothed. She gets expensive gifts at her birthdays.
But she is like my mother, the girl interrupts. Her man doesn't regard her as an equal but a bedmaid.
Go on, Miss Lan Ping! Go on.
She is not allowed to make decisions about the house, her children or her own activity. She is a wing-clipped bird, kept in an invisible cage. She is a concubine, a foot warmer and a slave. She is a prisoner. I was a prisoner. I know what it's like to be a prisoner.
The director encourages her. Describe your background, he orders. She enters her role. She describes her father, his drinking and his violence, and then her mother, the slave. She describes herself, how she ran away and grew up in hardship. The director listens attentively, forgets to drink his tea. Later on he tells her that her interpretation was exactly what he had been looking for. He falls in love and could have kissed her right on the spot. You are my perfect Nora. The play is going to fly because of you.
Then she meets her costar, Mr. Zhao Dan, her lifetime curse, the king of Chinese stage and screen. Dan plays her stage husband, Torvald. Lan Ping can hardly believe her luck. She remembers the sensation of being introduced to Dan for the first time. Awestruck. The handshake that makes her tremble. She is unable to hide her nervousness.
He is a tall and handsome man with a pair of penetrating eyes. He nods, acknowledging her.
Miss Lan Ping is a member of the left wing. When Zhang Min says this to the actor, the girl feels belittled.
I am new but I don't lack talent, she says, as if to nobody.
Would you like some candy? the actor yells. Who would like to have some candy?
They work fourteen hours a day and make the theater their home. Sometimes they sleep behind the stage. They are a good pair when they are acting. But there is already tension between them. What annoys Dan is Lan Ping's boldness, her assumption that she is his equal. The way she uses her new status and her association with him to show off to others. He can't stand her elation.
She begins to set herself up to be burned. She can't help being attracted to him, first toward his genius, as a mentor, a teacher, and then to him as a man. Later she says that it was simply her nature to conquer the unconquerable-she was attracted to the challenge, not the man.
She is Dan's partner and fan. He makes her focus on her character. But she becomes confused, she mistakes her stage relationship with him for the real thing. It is all new and exciting. She loses herself.
It eventually becomes clear that he doesn't appreciate her as much as she appreciates him. He pays no attention to her although they act in intimate scenes together. He is his own inspiration and she is a prop, an off-camera object, which he takes as a lover, to which he speaks love. He regards her as a provincial actress, miscast for the role.
Dan wants to have nothing to do with me after working hours. He doesn't want to discuss the role with me. Instead he offers suggestions regarding my part to Zhang Min. Besides what's on the script he has no interest in hearing what I have to say. He has many friends who are influential. They come by after the show and usually go for tea or snacks. I make myself available but am never invited. It tells me that Dan thinks of me as a poor choice for Nora. I see this in his arrogance, and from the way he begins to miss rehearsals. He doesn't want to be my Torvald. I am not sure whether he has ever spoken to Zhang Min about a possible replacement. I am sure that if it wasn't for Zhang Min, I would have already been replaced.
Dan is flirtatious. He likes to play with Lan Ping using the lines of Torvald. He squeezes her hands, presses her body against him during acting. He makes excuses to get her into his makeup room, pins himself against her. Come on, it is a perfect day in spring, he says.
Dan's lightness torments her. It hurts her more than anything when he makes jokes about the moments on stage where her intense effort has made her awkward.
It is in her relationship with Dan that she learns her fate. Learns that she can't escape Dan and men like him. Later she watches him as he moves on, to abandon her as a stage partner, and to pair with her rival, Miss Bai Yang.
Yet she can't forget Dan, who has not said one worthy word about her. The childish grin on his face every time he greets her. For that, in the future, Dan will pay with his life.
Madame Mao believes that one must collect one's debts.
I rebuff Dan. I demand his seriousness. Although nothing seems wrong on the surface, there is this undercurrent, an unspoken resentment. One day, the day after I had pushed him off of my chest, he mentions a girl. I am in love, he says. Her name is Lucy. Lucy Ye. She is the one I intend to marry. She is an actress too. A tender creature unlike you.
He brings Lucy in between us, too often, as if mentioning her will protect him from being attracted to me.
Maybe the truth is there, speaking its own voice for Lan Ping and she doesn't know it. She wants to swallow Dan up. She has not had a man since arriving in Shanghai. Her longing for affection is dreadful, and she cannot escape her feelings.
When Dan is asked to comment on Lan Ping as a stage partner, he says, No, no comment. Truly. He says this to every journalist, critic and friend. A shrug of the shoulders. Truly, no comment. It hurts Lan Ping beyond healing.
Yet, underneath all of this, in the midst of her resentment and tension, there is never a sense of finished business-never an end to wanting Dan.
In the weeks leading up to opening night, I pour myself heart and soul into the role. I feel the character, feel the Tightness of the story for our times. Although Dan won't take me out, I go out with others, lesser cast members. I tell them how I feel about what we are involved with. I find myself getting emotional, my voice loud. Let's toast the show!
One night, there is a playwright in the group. He says that I should consider myself very lucky. He points out that if it were not for Dan, no one would come-no one is interested in watching me. I am terribly offended. I bounce off my chair. Who are you to say this to me?
I make enemies. I can't avoid them. After the fight some friends advise me that I should have just ignored the stupid playwright. But I am hurt by his words! My friends say, You're too serious. Those were the utterances of a drunkard. It doesn't mean anything. But I disagree. I believe that it was his true view. He is influenced by Dan.