It’s estimated that only one out of every 100,000 elevator rides results in someone getting stuck. And when elevators do get stuck, it’s usually not for very long. You call for help, and help arrives.
But what if you couldn’t call? How long would you last without food? Without water? What would it be like to be stuck in a small box with no other company but your own thoughts?
That was the dilemma faced in 2005 by an undocumented Chinese food deliveryman, who, trapped in a Bronx elevator and all too aware of his immigration status, didn’t dare call for help. He spent 81 hours in that elevator, an unimaginable amount of time—except that someone has imagined it: Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis, creators of the acclaimed Stuck Elevator. Opera Grand Rapids will bring it to the stage on February 20th and 21st.
In this fictionalized story, that deliveryman is Guang (Mark Yinghui He in this production), a man who works for little money in the Bronx in hopes of both paying back his trafficker and bringing over his wife and son, both left behind in China.
Director Mo Zhou emphasized the difficulty of Guang’s position even before the elevator gets stuck. “He has a huge financial debt,” she said. The opera begins with Guang tallying up all that he owes. “His whole family lives in fear. If he doesn’t pay on time, people are going to go to his family and ask them to pay.” The debt, which of course comes with a very high interest rate, causes him great anxiety. And, as an undocumented worker, he’s likely being paid a fraction of the minimum wage.
“People don’t realize what an ordeal it is even for documented immigrants to move to this country,” Zhou said. They face enormous physical, financial, and emotional burdens. For undocumented workers, it’s that much worse.
The opera dramatizes that ordeal but isn’t an ordeal to watch. It makes room for charm and even humor; at one point, Guang does battle with a silver robot, and at another, a giant fortune cookie urges him to pull a fortune out of it. “It’s very fun,” Zhou said. “You never know what’s going to come next.”
Just as the setting expands by making external Guang’s thoughts, so too is the music expansive, drawing from traditional opera, tango, hip-hop, and more. That eclectic quality both enlivens the show and evokes the feeling of walking in New York City and hearing snatches of music from open doors and out of what we used to call boomboxes.
By playing Guang, Mark Yinghui He is taking on a real challenge: he’s onstage throughout the entirety of the opera. “I’m really excited to work with him,” Zhou said. She’s done so before, teaching him at the University of Michigan. “He’s one of the most sensitive musicians. He’s both thoughtful and nuanced. He has a very unique way of displaying complex layers. And it’s great to be able to elevate an artist who got his start in Michigan.”
Four of five members of the cast are native speakers of Chinese, and this is the first all-Asian American and Pacific Islander creative team to stage the opera. To Zhou, that’s very important. “This is my 20th year of living in America. I’ve always made an effort to elevate Asian voices. My responsibility as someone with a platform is to do that. I’m very grateful to Emilee [Shen, the opera’s executive director].”
The opera lasts 81 minutes, or 1/60th of the time actually spent in that Bronx elevator in 2005: a heady realization, as is the realization that, even after the elevator doors opened, that underpaid delivery worker still had worlds of pressure falling on his head.
Opera Grand Rapids’ 58th season began with Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore (October 10th and 11th), continues with Stuck Elevator (February 20h and 21st), and will conclude with Madame Butterfly (May 15th and 16th). It’s a tribute to the depth and breadth of Asia’s influence on opera, and to the stories—including this intimate, heartbreaking, and hopeful one—opera can tell.
Stuck Elevator
Opera Grand Rapids
February 20-21
operagr.org
