09.20.18

• ARTS •
ON THE RUN AGAIN
BEYONCÉ AND JAY-Z BRING THEIR TRI-
UMPHANT TOUR TO THE ROSE BOWL
THIS WEEKEND
FILM | THEATER | BOOKS | MUSIC | COMMUNITY | LISTINGS
NO ‘GRAY’ AREAS
A NOISE WITHIN’S PRODUCTION OF
‘A PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY’ LAYS
BARE OSCAR WILDE’S FULL
CONTROVERSIAL VISION
EVERYDAY PEOPLE
‘LIFE ITSELF’ WILL HAVE VIEWERS
APPRECIATING THEIR OWN LIVES
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EAST MEETS WEST
STAN LAI’S ‘NIGHTWALK’ AT THE HUNTINGTON MIXES PORTIONS OF A CHINESE ROMANTIC
TRAGICOMEDY WITH TALES OF EARLY 20TH-CENTURY CALIFORNIA
BY JANA J. MONJI
Walking at night along paths of the Chinese Garden at the Huntington
Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens can
be an intoxicating experience, one in which it’s easy to imagine
being rich and living on your own estate somewhere in China.
Beginning Sept. 21, The Huntington and the CalArts Center for
New Performance, the professional producing arm of California
Institute of the Arts, in association with Shanghai Kunqu Troupe,
will be allowing small groups to take a “Nightwalk in the Chinese
Garden,” a site-specific play written exclusively for the Huntington
by award-winning playwright Stan Lai.
People might not have heard of Lai, because although he was
born Lai Shung-chuan in Washington, DC in 1954, the Taiwanbased
playwright/director is best known for writing and directing
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Chinese-language plays, many of which revolutionized modern
theater in Taiwan in the 1980s. Lai received his PhD from UC Berkeley
in 1983 and was a professor and founding dean of the College of
Theatre at the National University of the Arts in Taiwan. He and his
wife, Ding Nai-chu, founded the contemporary theater group Performance
Workshop, also in Taiwan.
The cast of “Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden” includes CalArts
students and alumni, Chinese opera performers from the Shanghai
Kungu Troupe, as well as actors, musicians and dancers. And all of
it, except for a smattering of opera, is in English, something new for
Lai.
“At this time in my career, which is seemingly later because it’s
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
P.28
GET YOUR OWN...
BY JOHN SOLLENBERGER
SCIENCE HISTORY
Mt. Wilson
trustees Dan
Kohne and Tim
Thompson and
docent Robert
Anderson discuss
their book, “A
Temple of Science:
The 100-Inch
Telescope of
Mount Wilson
Observatory,” celebrating the 100th anniversary
of the telescope, at 7 p.m. tonight, Thursday, Sept.
20 at Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeehouse, 1010
Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge. Free. Call
(818) 790-0717 or visit flintridgebooks.com.
RECENT HIT
visit pasadenaseniorcenter.org.
HOOTENANNY
Free films screen
at 1 p.m. Fridays
at Pasadena
Senior Center,
85 E. Holly St.,
Pasadena. Friday’s
film is “Book Club”
(2018) starring
Diane Keaton and
Jane Fonda. Call
(626) 795-4331 or
The Altadena
Hootenanny
concert features
Americana band
Morrison and
Company, with
special guests
Double E and
Bad Business,
starting at 8 p.m.
Friday at Fraternal
Order of Eagles Aerie 719, 455 E. Woodbury Road,
Altadena. KROQ radio personality Jed the Fish is
master of ceremonies. Free. Visit facebook.com/
events/178179546203556/.
HOLIDAY HISTORY
The Sierra Madre
Playhouse
presents a free
staged reading of
“Butterflies are
Free” by Leonard
Gershe, the story
of Don Baker,
blind since birth
and the hero of his
mother’s children’s
book series, and his
overprotective mother. It’s staged at 7 p.m. Monday
at 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Call (626)
355-4318 or visit sierramadreplayhouse.org.
09.20.18 | PASADENA WEEKLY 21