Chinese surrender to the "King of the Cats"

Beijing and Shanghai are all shook up by a red-haired, hip-swivelling Canadian 'Elvis,'

At the height of the Cultural Revolution, a young Chinese woman named Chen Shuzhen caught a glimpse of Elvis Presley in an illicit film. It was love at first sight. For more than 30 years, she secretly nurtured the dream of seeing the American pop idol. But throughout his lifetime, the music of the man known to the Chinese as Mao Wang -- the King of the Cats -- was banned by the Communist authorities.

This weekend, at the age of 62, Chen finally fulfilled her dream. Clutching a pair of binoculars to make sure she wouldn't miss a single swivelling hip or curled lip, the grey-haired chemistry engineer sat transfixed among an enthusiastic crowd of fans in a Beijing concert hall, watching the first official Elvis musical ever to perform in China.

"It was worth spending a month's income on a ticket to sit here," she said. "I never had a chance to see him when he was alive, but now I'm getting the chance. I feel like I've been transported to the America of the 1970s." Almost half a century after the first eruption of Elvis mania in North America, the King finally arrived in Beijing this weekend. And in a slightly surprising twist, he was Canadian.

Martin Fontaine, the star of The Elvis Story, is a red-haired French-Canadian rock singer who has become perhaps the world's most successful Elvis performer. For almost a decade he has been the centrepiece of a Quebec City production of The Elvis Story that has toured the planet, playing to capacity crowds in France, Japan, the United States and now China. The show generates more than $20-million in annual tourist spending in Quebec City alone, where it plays to 120,000 spectators every summer. Critics have sneered at the show.

When it played Toronto in 1997 in its English-language premiere, the reviews were scathing. The Globe and Mail called it cheesy and embarrassing -- an "utter failure." The Toronto Star called it a glorified nightclub act and a bad impersonation of a musical. Its legions of fans didn't care. Since then, the show has gone from strength to strength.

With a cast and crew of 24 Canadians, the production has played hundreds of shows in Paris, Tokyo, Osaka, and even in Biloxi, Miss. -- not far from the birthplace of the King himself. Promoters are talking to the Quebec producers about a possible return visit to China and more shows next year in Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand. In Shanghai earlier this month, the musical played its biggest-ever venue, an 8,000-seat stadium, where it managed to fill two-thirds of the seats.

And in Beijing this weekend, despite minimal publicity, four performances of The Elvis Story sold 70 to 90 per cent of the tickets at the 1,300-seat Poly Theatre, one of the city's biggest concert halls. Most Chinese fans, unlike those in Japan or the West, had never heard of Elvis during his lifetime or even in the years after his death.

None of his albums was officially released in China until 1991. But in China's new capitalist era, the King of the Cats is hugely popular. His most instantly recognized song here is Love Me Tender, popular in karaoke bars and often used in school textbooks to teach English. Tickets for the Elvis musical were quickly snapped up in Beijing this weekend, despite prices of up to $170 per ticket -- far higher than in other countries. Teenagers brought their parents to introduce them to the music. Young female fans squealed and fought for the sweat-soaked scarves that Fontaine tossed into the crowd. "We love you Elvis," they screamed.

"I feel that I'm right in the middle of something I don't quite understand," Fontaine said in an interview yesterday. "We're pioneers here. The crowds are getting bigger and bigger. Maybe it's curiosity, maybe it's because we're foreign and they think we are exotic, but the people are very excited. It's been very satisfying." Chinese newspapers gave rave reviews to the show. "Martin Fontaine is so much like Mao Wang, in his makeup and costume and singing and dancing, that he could almost be regarded as the real thing," one Beijing newspaper wrote.

The fans were ecstatic. "Before the show, I didn't know much about Mao Wang, but it was a wonderful evening," said Zhou Jing, a 22-year-old Beijing woman. "Everyone in the audience was high. I was excited throughout the show." Karen Jiang, a 34-year-old fan, recalled her shock when she encountered Presley's music for the first time.

"When I first heard about Elvis, I couldn't understand why American music was so crazy. Compared to our Chinese music in the 1980s, Americans such as Mao Wang were considered crazy. But I don't think that any more. The Chinese people have become a lot more open."

The Elvis Story had its origins in the early 1990s as an idea by Quebec music impresario Guy Cloutier, who had attended dozens of Presley concerts in Las Vegas. He recruited the artistic director Mouffe -- famed producer of Quebec rock stars such as Roch Voisine and Robert Charlebois -- who developed a two-hour review of 40 Elvis songs, linked by narrated film scenes on giant television screens that trace the Presley story from birth to death.

Fontaine, the leader of a Montreal rock band, won the audition for the lead role in 1994. In civilian clothes, with his spiky red hair and boyish looks, he sometimes jokes that he resembles Bart Simpson. But every night he transforms himself into Elvis with a two-hour makeup session and a wig and sideburns -- which he changes four times a night, along with 16 costume changes.

Since 1995, the 39-year-old singer has performed as Elvis for an average of 200 nights a year, accompanied by six musicians, four singers and an elaborately evolving stage set. The Quebec show is the only world-touring review with the official blessing of the Presley estate, allowing it to use television and film footage of the singer.

Travelling to China, however, was a tough challenge. Language is one problem: The narration has to be translated into Chinese in scrolling text on either side of the stage. A greater obstacle is the no-nonsense attitude of China's theatre owners, who imposed strict rules that required him to stay on stage and out of the audience. He opted to defy the rules, despite threats of police action. "Come on and arrest me," he mused as he leaped into the audience to shake hands and kiss the girls.

Chinese audiences are notoriously reserved and cautious, and Fontaine has had to work hard to overcome the emotional barriers. "It's a little slower here," he says. "It takes time to convince them. I talk to them, I tease them, I ask them to sing. I make them an accomplice. I give them permission." While most of his audiences are unaware of his Canadian identity, Fontaine sees it as a natural advantage.

"Look at Cirque du Soleil -- they reinvented show business," he notes. "We can do so much with so little. We have a big imagination. We're not too tacky or too flashy like the Americans. We try to put more feeling into it -- because we don't have the money. We have nothing to lose."

Despite his financial success, Fontaine might not be touring as Elvis much longer. He is committed to another 46 shows in Paris next spring, but by next fall he is considering a completely new show that would liberate him from Elvis.

"I'm already working on it," he says. "I'm going to explore my musical influences, from blues to soul and R&B music."

(News, Source: GlobeandMail.com)