This 17th-century Chinese writer's world is surprising and enchanting in 'Pu Songling: Strange Tales'

Co-founder Dean Gilmour polls the crowd to see if anyone is familiar with the author, who was born in China in the 17th century and wrote approximately 500 short stories in his lifetime. A few hands shoot up. Then the Chinese-Canadian actors — John Ng, Diana Tso, Madelaine Hodges and Steven Hao — provide quick summaries of a handful of tales, ending with a story about people turning off their cellphones.

This, it turns out, is a sly and clever way of guiding us into a world that, over the next 100 minutes, will prove to be as surprising as it is enchanting. The informal approach is also fitting for the author himself, whose strange tales of vengeful spirits, talking animals and reincarnated souls were widely shared among ordinary people in streets, shops and humble kitchens.

For more than 40 years now, Theatre Smith-Gilmour, with its roots in clown and physical theatre, has dramatized an entire bookshelf of literary works. Stories by Anton Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield; novels by Victor Hugo and William Faulkner; fables by the Brothers Grimm and Ovid — all have, with varying degrees of success, come to life onstage.

Quality wise, “Pu Songling” falls somewhere in the middle of their output. While the stagecraft and performances, directed by company co-founder Michele Smith, are as sharp and pointed as the imaginary sword wielded by Hao in one memorable vignette, a few of the tales — especially in the middle — feel vague and repetitive.

One of the problems with adapting short fiction is this: when reading a book, we know how long a story is and so we adjust our expectations. Pu has a tale (included in the show) about an earthquake that is a paragraph long, and so when reading we know it will be a snapshot. As theatre viewers, however, we don’t know that, and so all the work we do absorbing information about character, setting and imagery feels wasted before we have to move onto the next story and begin again.

If there were an overall narrator figure, or some other way to guide us through the tales, that might make the experience less taxing.

That said, a number of the longer works are beautifully suggestive, especially the two that conclude the show.

In the penultimate story, Hao plays an ambitious, lusty man who achieves a lot of worldly success, only to have his past exploits gradually catch up to him. Where this story goes is too bizarre to spoil, but it amounts to a devastating critique of unchecked power and corruption.

The pared-down performances by Hao, Ng (as his character’s stern uncle), Tso (as an opera singer) and Hodges as a beautiful young woman help bring the tale to life. And they’re all evocatively lit on a bare stage by Noah Feaver.

In the final tale, Ng plays a landowner named Li who grudgingly agrees to rent out part of his garden to a man (Gilmour). To show his gratitude, the new renter throws a lively dinner for him, during which Li discovers something that infuriates him and causes him to act destructively.

Where this tale goes is unexpected, but it involves soothsayers, hubris and a climax that — at least to Western viewers — recalls the battle between Macbeth and Macduff. It’s in this extended story that Ting-Huan Christine Urquhart’s costumes make their boldest appearance, via red and gold military outfits and a very significant fur garment.

While all the tales in the show feature supernatural elements, only a few of them are especially frightening. In one, three people seeking shelter in a stranger’s home are offered a place to sleep in the same room as a corpse. In another, a body is decapitated in an effective way that requires absolutely no CGI.

As Pu and Theatre Smith-Gilmour illustrate, however, human behaviour can often be more frightening than any spiritual intervention, proving that not much has changed in 300 years.