Shuffle Off to Shanghai

It's not often that a Broadway musical comes to Shanghai so it was special fun to see 42nd Street at the Majestic Theatre Friday night. The Nederlander Theatres brought the musical to China for a few weeks and it has been booked solid for the two weeks it's in Shanghai. The music and dancing were first-rate but I think I enjoyed those smiling American faces just as much. I mean big, toothy, seemingly genuine smiles you don't see often around Shanghai.

As I watched them perform "I'm in the money!" it struck me that on this old stage, some 30 years ago all I would have been able to watch were the anti-Capitalist Revolutionary ballets approved by Madame Mao. I wondered if any of the older Chinese in the audience were in this theatre back then - and thinking about the irony as well.