Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Uninvited by Geling Yan, published in 2007 by Faber and Faber Limited; cover design by Faber; cover photograph by Johnny Ring.
For the 77th Second Hand Book Factory, Charles Adrian meets actor, wanderer and discover Rebecca Yeo at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, London. They talk about the importance of asking questions without expecting answers, a seminal book on acting and banquet bugs in China.
The Uninvited by Geling Yan is also discussed in Page One 183.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
This episode features a jingle written for the podcast by the band Friends Of Friends.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 25th August, 2015.
Book listing:
Astonishing The Gods by Ben Okri
Acting: The First Six Lessons by Richard Boleslavsky
The Uninvited by Geling Yan
Links:
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 103rd Page One. This is the 77th Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today at the Royal Arsenal—is that right?—in Woolwich...
Rebecca Yeo
Yes. That's right.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... is Rebecca Yeo.
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Charles Adrian
So hello Rebecca. Thank you for... Thank you for hosting me in your flat here.
Rebecca Yeo
Thanks for having me.
Charles Adrian
I mean, thanks for giving me a reason to come to... I've come as far as Woolwich Arsenal on the boat before but I've never actually got off the boat. I've never been here.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
This is a long way out of London as far as I'm concerned.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah, I know. It's zone 4. Although it doesn't feel like it because once you hop on the DLR or the train it's really quick to London Bridge.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It is. That's true. That's true. I mean, I'm obviously very far west, which is why I say that. It feels like a long... You know, because I already think of the centre of London as being a long way away...
Rebecca Yeo
Right.
Charles Adrian
... [laughing] and this is obviously... But I should ask you: how do you describe yourself, Rebecca?
Rebecca Yeo
Oh gosh. That's a...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] And I'm interested because I don't know you very well yet, so this is... this is interesting for me.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] No. Yeah. And I suppose I've never really had to just describe myself to someone or put that on paper other than in my professional context.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Rebecca Yeo
But, well, I think I have to start by saying that I think I'm a bit of a wanderer in soul as well as in—I think—profession as well as, you know, life perhaps because I... I was born in Singapore so I think that's where my birth and my roots are because I'm of Peranakan heritage, which is Malay and Chinese.
Charles Adrian
Oh right. I've not come across that word before.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah, so if you think about the coast of Malaysia there's a little town called Malacca and...
Charles Adrian
Oh, famous!
Rebecca Yeo
Yes, which was inhabited...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Yes. Oh, I didn't... I didn't even realise that was in Malaysia. I'm so ignorant. Okay.
Rebecca Yeo
No, no, no! But it was inhab... So it was... The Portuguese were there, you know. It's got its famous red fort and things like that. But then Admiral Chêng Ho landed with his whole boat from China and they intermarried with the local Straits Malaysian and Chinese and then this Peranakan race was born...
Charles Adrian
[interested] Huh.
Rebecca Yeo
... which is a marriage of the European culture and the Portuguese and the Chinese and the Malay. So you have things like pork dishes but cooked with, like, Chinese spices and so it's a huge mixture. And then it's got the very European influence of tea time and certain rituals in the cultural context. So that's my heritage so...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Interesting.
Rebecca Yeo
I'm a bit of a melting pot, I think, that way. And also because I'd moved from Singapore to South Africa and I lived there for fourteen years. So I think... My soul, I think, is very much in South Africa because it's got such... it's got a really raw beat to it and I think that's where I felt I came really alive and discovered a lot about myself. And I'm an actor as well. And I love... I think I'm always open to something new and I love discovering. I love... I like discovery. And as a child... because my my dad worked with Singapore Airlines so we travelled every single year somewhere different. And I think all that has impacted the way I see things or experience things.
Charles Adrian
So when we when we met... We met just a few weeks ago for the first time, didn't we? And I think I asked you, ‘Where is home for you?’
Rebecca Yeo
That's right. Yeah. It's a very hard one to answer. And I think it all came to me when a man once said to me—and he was at drama school and I remember talking... he was very wise and really beautiful and he said, ‘Home is where you lay your head... you know, where you lay your head that evening or wherever you are, for the moment’ and he said, ‘because we don't have to have a physical home’. And I think that was very comforting because it was always a struggle for me to define ‘home’. I mean, it's not even with my parents. My parents live in the Cape in South Africa and my sister's in Seattle.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Yes.
Rebecca Yeo
And my only ties to Singapore are nostalgic ties, I think, and probably, you know, the roots of what I am. But I wouldn't go back to live just because of the pace of life. Because, you know, it's very different. Here hasn't... isn't... I haven't been here long enough to call it home either but this is where my livelihood is and, you know... So yeah.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Oh, very interesting. Okay. Anyway, we could talk about that for a long time, I think. But I'm going to ask you: what is the book that you like? What have you brought?
Rebecca Yeo
So the book that I love and like—which was introduced to me by my sister—
Charles Adrian
Uh huh?
Rebecca Yeo
... is called Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Right! I read that ages and ages and ages ago so I don't remember anything about it at all. It was part of a package of books I got from The Book People.
Rebecca Yeo
Okay. So he was famous for The Famished Road.
Charles Adrian
Which I must also have read but, again, I didn't remember. Yeah.
Rebecca Yeo
And I think people... This has always been described as a fairy tale or as a book on philosophy but I find it very beautiful in terms of trying to... It doesn't even define, I think, our search for identity or existence or our journey but I think it constantly reminds me why I need to keep asking the question or not even trying to find the answer but just go through the process and experience it for the moment.
Charles Adrian
[appreciative] Mmm. Right. Yeah.
Rebecca Yeo
So, yeah, and also I think it really spoke to me because moving from Africa and then—you know, Singapore, Africa and then here—and then going back and forth, you're constantly transitioning and adapting and, you know, trying to find what it is that you are. [laughs] You know? What makes you. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
Yes. Yes and you can't... Presumably, when you're moving around as much as you are, it's... I guess it's more difficult to do that by looking for reflections in people. Because I'm aware that as somebody who grew up here I can look around and see people who are very like me culturally and so on and that makes things... I suppose it's an illusion but it makes it feel as though I can s... I can get an idea of what I might be like by looking at the way other people are and how they behave. And I guess the more you travel the less that is true.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah, but also a need for affirmation, you know? And then realising, ‘But it's okay to be just me’.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Rebecca Yeo
You know?
Charles Adrian
Yes. Which is the much... Which is, in the end, a much more secure position, isn't it?
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah, but sometimes it's not easy. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
No. [laughs] No! Exactly. No, not easy at all. Wow. So that all... So that... Read me the first page of this.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] I will. I will. Okay. So it's Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri.
It is better to be invisible. His life was better when he was invisible, but he didn't know it at the time.
He was born invisible. His mother was invisible too, and that was why she could see him. His people lived contented lives, working on the farms, under the familiar sunlight. Their lives stretched back into invisible centuries and all that had come down from these [sic] differently coloured ages were legends and rich traditions, unwritten and therefore remembered. They were remembered because they were lived.
He grew up without contradiction in the sunlight of the unwritten ages, and as a boy he dreamt of becoming a shepherd. He was sent to school, where he learnt strange notions, odd alphabets, and where he discovered that time can be written down in words.
It was in books that he first learnt of his invisibility. He searched for himself and his people in all the history books he read and discovered to his youthful astonishment that he didn't exist. This troubled him so much that he resolved, as soon as he was old enough, to leave his land and find the people who did exist, to see what they looked like.
He kept this discovery of his recent invisibility to himself and soon forgot his dreams of becoming a shepherd. But in the end he didn't have to wait till he was old enough. One night...
Charles Adrian
Oh, great!
Rebecca Yeo
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
That's so good. That's such a good place to finish.
Rebecca Yeo
I know!
Charles Adrian
So intriguing.
Rebecca Yeo
It's meant to be. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
It's beautiful. I think I'm going to have to reread it. It doesn't look like a very long book. I'm sure I could reread that without too much trouble.
Rebecca Yeo
Definitely.
Charles Adrian
It sounds gorgeous.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Very interesting.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] Yeah, it's very special, I think. And the fact that I think he has different guides through his journey is very, you know, reminiscent, I think, of what we go through in life. And we have different guides in the sense of friends or mentors or, you know... or...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Or even what we're reading at a particular moment.
Rebecca Yeo
Exactly.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Well, that's great. Thank you so much, Rebecca. Now I'm going to play the first track which I've chosen from your wonderful list. This is... So this is something I hadn't heard before. This is Hell No...
Rebecca Yeo
Oh! Yes.
Charles Adrian
... by Sondre Lerche… Is that right do you think?
Rebecca Yeo
I think. I'm not sure either.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I looked it up online. That seems to be... [laughs]
Rebecca Yeo
Great. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
I just... I'm not.... You know, I have... I have a couple of Norwegian friends but I [laughing] don't know how they...
Rebecca Yeo
I know. They're very different names. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] ... how they say their names. But I love it. It sounds wonderful in my head. And then... And then it's Regina Spektor who... I've played one of her tracks before in one of these and I think... I mean, I love looking at her name because I think it should be [with German pronunciation] Regina Spector—I said that last time—and I... Anyway. So those are just wonderful words but I did like this track.
Rebecca Yeo
Great.
Charles Adrian
So this is Hell No by Sondre Lerche and Regina Spektor.
Music
[Hello No by Sondre Lerche and Regina Spektor]
Charles Adrian
That was Hell No by Sondre Lerche and Regina Spektor. Thank you. That's so lovely. Okay, now my book for you I realise is appropriate in more than one way. I brought it because... well, yeah, I brought it for several reasons. One is that it's about acting...
Rebecca Yeo
Oh, lovely!
Charles Adrian
... and I know you're an actor. Also, it was given to me by Vera—Vera Chok—who is our mutual friend.
Rebecca Yeo
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And... So it felt nice to be passing it on to you. And now... And I also realise that this guy is a bit of a traveller. This is... It's by Richard Boleslavsky. It's called Acting: The First Six Lessons. So it's one of the early... I guess, one of the early books about acting. I mean, I don't know the history of it well enough, but he was... he worked with Stanislavski in Moscow and then moved to the States where he worked with… what were they called… The Laboratory Theatre.
Rebecca Yeo
Oh yeah.
Charles Adrian
And was very influential in many ways. I mean, I think he brought a lot of the ideas of Stanislavski and a lot of the ideas that they were working with in Russia to the United States. And so he gave... This was a series of lectures that he gave, which were then... you know, it was then released as a book. And I've just been reading... I read this years and years ago so I don't remember very well what the lessons are. They're given titles like... The first chapter is... The first lesson is CONCENTRATION, the second lesson is MEMORY OF EMOTION, the third lesson is DRAMATIC ACTION, the fourth lesson is CHARACTERIZATION, the fifth lesson is OBSERVATION, and the sixth lesson is RHYTHM.
Rebecca Yeo
[acknowledgement] Mmm.
Charles Adrian
And I have the feeling that he was... this kind of... this stuff that he's talking about was extremely influential and is still... you know the influence is still being felt in the kind of training that I did and the kind of training that you did because the people that he was working with... So he obviously went to the States and he influenced people like Lee Strasberg. But he was also in Russia. While he was still in Russia he was working with Michael Chekhov, who I think then went to the United Kingdom and also to the States. Jacques Copeau was influenced by him and he's a... He was very influential in France and that led to... eventually to what Jacques Lecoq was doing. And so this is... you know, this is one of those, kind of, seed works, I think. I've recently been reading a book called Ensemble, which is edited by a guy called John Britton who I've done some workshops with, and they talk about Boleslavsky a little bit and all of those other people. So I was starting to realise what an amazing influence those people had and how they revolutionised acting. So what we think of [as] acting is a result of what people like Boleslavsky was [sic] doing. I think.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
But I'm going to read you the first page of the introduction and then to give you a flavour of the book and the way [laughing] that he... particularly the way he thinks about the woman who is his ideal pupil...
Rebecca Yeo
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
... I'm going to read you the first page...
Rebecca Yeo
Oh, do!
Charles Adrian
... of the book itself. So:
Introduction
THE Way of the Lancer brought immediate literary acclaim to Richard Boleslavski, spelled with an “i” after the manner of his Polish ancestors. The book was variously called a work of genius, the best human document of the events preceding the Russian Revolution, a masterly narrative biography, a new writing of history. But no matter what else critics said of it, they almost invariably added that it was intensely dramatic, obviously the work of a mind trained in the theatre. As rightly they might say, for the uniform of an officer of the Polish Lancers and the change from “y” to “i” was no disguise for Richard Boleslavski, an actor of the Moscow Art Theatre, Director of the Moscow Art Theatre Studio and, in America, Director of the Laboratory Theatre, of many successful plays on Broadway, of films at Hollywood.
What many of the critics seemed to miss, however, in this splendid book and in [sic] its sequel, Lances Down, was the fact that Boleslavski's style and point of...
Rebecca Yeo
[laughing] Oh!
Charles Adrian
[laughs] So you'll have to read it to find out what...
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] ‘point of...’ [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... Edith J. R. Isaacs wants to say there. Okay, so:
THE FIRST LESSON
Concentration
This is very short...
Rebecca Yeo
Right.
Charles Adrian
... this first page here.
Morning. My room. A knock at the door.
I: Come in. (The door opens, slowly and timidly. Enter a Pretty Creature of eighteen. She looks at me with wide-open, frightened eyes and crushes her handbag violently.)
THE CREATURE: I . . . I . . . I hear that you teach dramatic art.
I: No! I am sorry. Art cannot be taught. To possess an art means to possess talent. That is something one has or has not. You can develop it by hard work, but to create a talent is impossible. What I do is to help those who have decided to work on the stage, to de-...
Rebecca Yeo
[laughs]
Charles Adrian
There you go. I said it was short. [laughs]
Rebecca Yeo
Oh, I love that.
Charles Adrian
And I think it continues more or less like that. I think he tells her that she's wrong about everything she's ever thought about the theatre and then puts her right.
Rebecca Yeo
And the shy creature becomes a magnificent something else.
Charles Adrian
Presumably.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Becomes his creature...
Rebecca Yeo
[laughing] Yes.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] [laughing] ... I'd imagine.
Rebecca Yeo
Thank you!
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] But you might enjoy that.
Rebecca Yeo
Oh, that's so interesting. Thank you.
Charles Adrian
What's the book that you think I should have?
Rebecca Yeo
So it's called The Uninvited by Geling Yan and it's really interesting because I got given this book whilst researching for a movie, actually—I was going to be castable—and it was all about journalism in China.
Charles Adrian
[interested] Uh huh.
Rebecca Yeo
And this book is about a banquet bug. Have you ever heard of the term ‘banquet bug’?
Charles Adrian
No.
Rebecca Yeo
So these people in China who attend these banquets that are thrown by big companies and corporations to lure... and they lure the media and get them to write nice things about them. So it's a form of bribery by these... using these elaborate banquets. And this man... Should I tell you what it's about? I mean, do you want me to elaborate?
Charles Adrian
I... If... Yeah.
Rebecca Yeo
It's just the synopsis, anyway. Basically because that's what it says on the back. But he's really poor and the only way he gets to eat all these exquisite foods is to get himself into these banquets.
Charles Adrian
Uh huh. So is the bug the journalist?
Rebecca Yeo
Yes.
Charles Adrian
Right. I see.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] But he's not an actual journalist.
Charles Adrian
Oh.
Rebecca Yeo
But he poses as one. And he's really clever because he he actually writes really well. He ends up writing really well about it. And yeah, it's just... It's really interesting.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Wow. Oh, read... read the first page of it.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] Let... Let me read... Yes. Let me read this to you. Right. So. His name's Dan Dong. Right.
DAN DONG DOESN'T BELIEVE IN omens. Omens such as an enormous red spider or a double-yolk egg, which the old folks in his home village consider ominous. Otherwise, he would decide against attending the banquet and go with his wife, Little Plum, to get expired canned food that the factory where Dan used to work is giving away. Instead, he just flings his plastic sandal and smashes the spider as it crawls by the makeshift nightstand (improvised from the [sic] washboard atop a stack of bricks, all under a crocheted cover), and he pays no attention to the extra egg yolk he eats at breakfast.
So now you know where we are: in Dan Dong's loft room. It used to be an office on top of a cannery in an industrial suburb of Beijing. It's ten o'clock in the morning, and he's taking a shower under a short rubber hose that Little Plum is...
Charles Adrian
Wow. Is that it?
Rebecca Yeo
Yes. Dot dot dot.
Charles Adrian
Goodness. Oh, I think I'm going to enjoy that. Thank you very much. I am interested in China in a very, kind of... in an occasional way, I think is probably the right way to describe it. Every now and then I read something set in China or I read about China or I listen to a podcast and I just think, ‘Wow, what a crazy, bizarre, fascinating place’.
Rebecca Yeo
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And totally... probably totally unlike any assumptions that I might make about it.
Rebecca Yeo
I'm sure. I've never been. So... yeah. It's really interesting because, I mean, I think it's full of underground things that, you know, we don't even know about until you live there fully and speak... I think speaking the language opens a lot of doors. And, I mean...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Mmm. I'm sure.
Rebecca Yeo
... my friend who gave this to me, he was a journalist in China for three years—he's British—but even then he said it was really hard as a Westerner trying to infiltrate, get the news, get the... you know. Yeah. And... But he said he learnt so much. And, I mean, there's so much etiquette in the way you do things or go about business.
Charles Adrian
Right.
Rebecca Yeo
And I remember in Singapore once the government publishing this article on how Singaporean businessmen—or anyone who wants to do business with China—needs to be less polite. They need to just be more gung ho, go for it and, you know... Singaporeans just in general. I think, go with red tape—they go by the book—and in China you can't, you know, to get what you need. And I think that's what this book is all about. It's really interesting.
Charles Adrian
Well, I think it's going to be fascinating.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Thank you very much.
Rebecca Yeo
[laughing] Pleasure.
Charles Adrian
This has been so good. Thank you. We have to finish now but this has been lovely. Thank you very much, Rebecca.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] Thank you so much for having me.
Charles Adrian
And we're going to play... I'm going to play out [sic] with another track that I've chosen from your list. I could have chosen all kinds of things but I've just chosen something that I like that was on your [laughing] list.
Rebecca Yeo
[speaking over] Okay. Great.
Charles Adrian
This is Sugar Man...
Rebecca Yeo
Oh!
Charles Adrian
... by Rodriguez. I saw the film Searching for Sugar Man not that long ago and I really enjoyed it. And obviously that's... you get quite a sense of South Africa—or a particular kind of South Africa in that film, don't you?
Rebecca Yeo
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And South Africa is another place that I know almost nothing about.
Rebecca Yeo
Mmm hmm.
Charles Adrian
It was really nice just to see. I mean, that opening shot when this song first plays and the guy is driving in his car in Cape Town—or near Cape Town. It looks gorgeous.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
These winding roads and this amazing landscape.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah. It's vast.
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So I now... Although I know that Rodriguez is not South African I just [laughing] associate the two things in my head. When I hear the beginning of this song I just think of this car driving along one of those ribbon roads in this incredible landscape of the Cape.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah. Where everything goes round Table Mountain.
Charles Adrian
Mmm.
Rebecca Yeo
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
So I'm going to play that to finish. Thank you, Rebecca.
Rebecca Yeo
Thank you so much.
Music
[Sugar Man by Rodriguez]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]