Here She Goes Again

14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, MARCH 1, 2009 • TAIPEI TIMES [ HARDCOVER: U S ] SUNDAY PROFILE A recovering Maoist’s road to Here she goes again redemption Catherine Johnson wrote ‘Mamma Mia!’ Now she’s back — with another story about a wedding In 1970s China, Jan Wong snitched on her BY Lyn Gardner classmate, who was then exiled. Now, THE GUARDIAN, BRISTOL, ENGLAND haunted by guilt, she seeks to make amends BY MICHAEL KENNEY NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, BOSTON In China, by the early 1970s, the worst excesses of the Cultural atherine Johnson is continuously producing theater Revolution were over, the Tianan- downing an energy drink in jeopardy (the main theater men protests and the military C that promises to provide remains closed, awaiting major crackdown well in the future. “energy, stamina, focus and drive.” redevelopment). And for Jan Wong (黃明珍), But does she really need any “I was really emotional about a 19-year-old Canadian college more? The playwright based in it,” she says, “so when [board student of Chinese descent, Bristol, southwest England, went chairman] Dick Penny asked if I’d who had come on a summer’s from being a tearaway teenager, write a play for the theater, I said visa, had stayed on to study expelled from school after a ‘yes.’ I was walking back over at Beijing University, and had stand-off with the headmaster Clifton suspension bridge after joined student work teams at over a revealing top, to the author meeting with him, and the play a machine tool factory and on of Mamma Mia!, one of the most just popped into my head. From a dust-blown farm, China was successful musicals ever. Johnson the bridge, you can see the Avon “radical-chic,” and “Maoism was also wrote the screenplay for the Gorge hotel, which is a popular mesmerizing.” film version, which became the venue for weddings; and I In her 1996 memoir, Red highest-grossing British movie of remembered that there had been China Blues, Wong described all time. a protest by aggrieved divorced her experiences from those years It’s a career trajectory most dads on the bridge. Somehow as like “living inside a real-life writers could only dream of. the two came together. I wrote it propaganda movie.” A COMRADE LOST AND FOUND: Yet Johnson, 51, with a glossy, quickly — as if I had a rocket up Buried in the memoir was A BEIJING STORY chestnut bob and a warm, open my ass.” an incident that had occurred manner, says she still sometimes The success of Mamma at Beijing University. Another BY JAN WONG gets out of bed feeling like a Mia! may have brought Johnson student, Yin Luoyi, had confided 322 PAGES failure. “Every time I start a new financial security, but she still to Wong and a Chinese-American work, I feel a complete lack of has her feet firmly on the ground. classmate that she wanted to HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT confidence,” she says. “It must She admits to lying in the bath go to America, and asked their be because I’ve had less years fantasizing about being whisked help. “We decided,” Wong wrote, of being a success than I had of away to Los Angeles to be a “[that] Yin did need help” and being a failure. For a lot of my feted screenwriter, but believes “the Communist Party would her long-ago adversaries like the life, I felt a complete letdown.” that staying in Bristol and fitting save her from herself.” So they hard-line disciplinarian whom Johnson left school with little writing in around raising her “snitched,” turning her in to the she knew as “Fu the Enforcer.” to sustain her but poor exam children has had a beneficial Foreign Students Office. “We Perhaps, Wong thinks, “the results and a love of writing that effect on her work. “Of course, it actually thought we were doing landscape of her memory is had been encouraged by weekly has its downsides,” she says. “I’d the right thing,” Wong wrote. littered with bodies,” and, after visits, with her father, to the like to be the one to write the big But the incident, so matter- all, “snitching in Chairman Mao’s Bristol Old Vic theater. For years, play about the recession, but the of-factly recounted in Red China China was routine and easily it seemed that success as a writer truth is I’m much more interested Blues — and, more importantly, forgotten.” was beyond her grasp. “Writing in everyday life, by the way we what its outcome had been for Then, with time running was the only thing I was good at,” all just get by.” Yin — haunted Wong for 30 out before Wong and her she says, “but I also wanted to Johnson still seems genuinely years. In A Comrade Lost and family must return home, the hang out with the bad boys. I had astonished by her good fortune, Found she returns to that story. connections came through, and a good few years when I ran away as if she had nothing to do with Returning from China in the Yin called. from things and sometimes life ran the success of Mamma Mia! early 1980s, Wong worked as There is a happy reunion, away from me.” An early marriage Even now, she says she would a journalist, including a stint and over several days Yin ended in divorce; when another never have been the first choice as a business reporter at the describes her road from exile in relationship broke up, she found to write the screenplay if her Boston Globe. Later, as the the Manchurian oilfields back herself a single mother in her 30s, contract had not demanded that Toronto Globe and Mail’s China to a privileged life in Beijing, barely able to afford nappies. she get a shot at it, and that she correspondent, she covered the reinventing herself several times She was considering training would almost certainly have been Tiananmen protests. along the way as an officer in to be a probation officer when sacked if producer Judy Craymer Then, in 2006, with her the People’s Liberation Army, another trip to the Bristol Old Vic hadn’t stood by her. Right to husband, a Canadian whom she a law school professor, then as — to see Jim Cartwright’s 1980s the bitter end, it was a fight had met and married in Beijing, a businesswoman, even briefly play Road, about northern English with the studio to defend her and their two teenage sons, working in New York. Her life, working-class life — changed her and Craymer’s vision of a movie Wong returned again to China. Wong reflects, “had been one life. “I suddenly realized I could about “real older women who It was time, she writes, “to find high-stakes gamble.” write about people like me, living are overweight, over-stressed, Yin, apologize and try to make Yin invites Wong to her real, messy lives,” says Johnson. drunk and needing each other.” amends.” high-rise condo — one of five She rushed home and, within two She fought hard for the movie’s It is a quest, like that in Red residences that she and her weeks, had written Rag Doll, a ending, in which all the cast China Blues, both intensely husband own. Tiantongyuan (天 play about child abuse in a local return for one last exuberant personal and at the same time 通苑) had been the site of a labor family. It won an award and went number. The studio felt this one that delves into the conflicted camp for class enemies. But on to be a success at London’s was “cheesy wotsits with knobs history and culture of China. its name, then and now, means Bush theater. Other successes at on” that would only be seen by The chances of finding Yin “straight to heaven,” prompting the Bush followed. Then, in 1997, cleaners sweeping up popcorn. in a city and society so changed Wong to reflect that Yin herself the playwright and director Terry How wrong they were. were not good. For the city, the “has gone straight to heaven.” Johnson, her sometime mentor, “Going to the red carpet structure of the ancient capital, As for Wong, she wonders heard about a proposed musical premiere was fun,” she says, especially the narrow, crooked “what the revolution was all based around the songs of Abba “but on those kinds of occasion, residential hutongs, was fast about.” She had judged Yin — and recommended Johnson you’re always thinking your disappearing. when she had talked of going to the show’s producer, Judy frock is too tight or your shoes As for the personal quest, to the US, and now was judging Craymer. Mamma Mia! was born. pinch. Seeing it in the place Wong falls back on networking her because of her success. Now Johnson’s back where Above from left: Actresses Julie Walters, Meryl Streep and Christine Baranski in a scene from the film Mamma Mia! where I grew up was much more — itself not that easy in a city “Even at this late date,” she it all started — at the Bristol Top: The creative team behind Mamma Mia!, from left, Catherine Johnson, Phyllida Lloyd and Judy Craymer. PHOTOS: REUTERS AND NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE fun. Everyone fantasizes about where a person is likely to writes, “I still need remedial Old Vic’s studio space, with a returning in a Rolls-Royce to the change phone numbers seven help to recover from Maoism.

Load more