In China, a Dream to Bring King's Legacy to Stage

BEIJING — In a Beijing rehearsal studio, five American singers belted out "Balm in Gilead," a traditional spiritual that expressed hope for freedom during American slavery.

Stanford University student Chika Okafor stood at a podium and recited the final section of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, ending with the triumphal clarion call, "Thank God almighty, I'm free at last."

LEO CHEN/China Stockhouse (enlarge photo) Chinese actors Cao Li and Zhou Ling will perform the roles of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King in a play about the civil rights leader, rehearse in Beijing.

King's words and life come to a Chinese stage on Thursday (June 21) for a four-day run. The performance will introduce King to an audience that knows little about the Atlanta native.

The play, "Passages of Martin Luther King Jr.," based on the life and writings of the civil rights leader, will mark the first time actors from China's National Theater perform with African-Americans and the first time China's top theater group stages a work about the civil rights leader.

"Chinese students don't know very much beyond the 'I Have a Dream' speech," said Caitrin McKiernan, who produced the play and has spent much of the past two years teaching about King in China.

Clayborne Carson, the playwright and a well-known King scholar at Stanford, reminded the group of Chinese and American actors at a recent rehearsal that they were "all a part of making Martin Luther King's legacy available for future generations."

For most Chinese, King's legacy of justice, equality and nonviolent activism has been clouded by politics.

In the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party branded King a "reactionary running dog," a common attack on state enemies, because he advocated nonviolent protest at a time when China's leaders hoped the world's poor would rise up against capitalism.

Since the 1980s, when China accelerated its openness to the world and market economy reforms, the Communist Party has feared that King's teachings could spark popular protests and has downplayed his legacy, experts said.

No popular books have been published about King's life, school textbooks offer "only a few paragraphs" about him and "Eyes on the Prize," the award-winning documentary about the American civil rights movement, has never been shown on Chinese television, said a Chinese professor of African-American history who asked to remain anonymous because he feared upsetting government censors at his university.

Social tensions in this rapidly changing country have sparked sporadic protests over labor rights, religious freedoms and other issues.

"King is a very sensitive topic for the government because the Chinese people are using the tactics of nonviolent protest even without knowing about Martin Luther King," he said. "The government really fears protest, so officials don't mention Martin Luther King much."

For McKiernan, 27, the goal of staging the play is more to find universal ideals than to focus on the injustices that sparked America's civil rights movement.

During a study-abroad program when she was 16, McKiernan lived with a Chinese family that included a girl her age.

"We got to be really close, but after the visit she said that two cultures could never really get along, and that made me pretty frustrated," she said.

After studying under Carson at Stanford and returning to China in 2004, McKiernan realized that "perhaps Martin Luther King could be a bridge between the United States and China," she said.

She visits Chinese schools where she describes King's life and talks about key moments in the civil rights movement. She generally asks students to discuss what discrimination means to them and how it affects their lives.

"Initially it is usually totally quiet and everyone is really embarrassed, but then people start bringing up things from their own lives," McKiernan said.

One student at a recent discussion talked about how women and people from remote parts of China face discrimination when seeking jobs in Beijing. Another participant compared racism in America during the 1960s to problems faced by Chinese living with AIDS, who in some parts of China are banned from using public facilities, including schools.

Actors and producers involved in "Passages of Martin Luther King Jr." echoed McKiernan's hope that King's example will spark audiences to consider discrimination in China.

"Regardless of where you're from, there's always discrimination," said Yan Shikui, a Chinese television actor who worked with McKiernan to produce the play and hopes to make a Chinese language film about King's life.

During a trip to the United States in February, Yan and several other Chinese involved in the project visited Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King became co-pastor with his father in 1959. The Chinese group was greeted by dozens of parishioners.

"They made me feel that I wasn't a foreigner at all," he said. "I want to help spread that goodwill."

Kenneth Alston, a member of the singing group Three Mo' Tenors and one of five American performers in the play, volunteered to participate "to spread King's message of liberty, freedom and the ability to come together even if we don't always agree," he said.

Even though the Chinese government gave its approval for performances of the play, McKiernan faced significant challenges.

To translate poetic phrases by King — for instance, "a drum major for justice" — she enlisted the help of Chinese university students.

When private companies were unwilling to support the potentially sensitive play, which will be shown free to an audience mostly of Chinese youth, she found money through nonprofit institutions including the Open Society Institute and Stanford University. She hopes to secure additional funds to take the play to smaller Chinese cities.

"What's the point of a play about Martin Luther King that says that all people should be equal if you sell tickets that most people can't afford?" McKiernan asked.

During a rehearsal, Du Zhenqing, who plays Martin Luther King Sr., said the performance is likely to resonate with Chinese audiences.

"Now there is a lot of discrimination between the poor and the rich in China," he said. "I think that the Chinese understand Martin Luther King's ideal of equality."