HONG KONG — The past few months under President Donald Trump have been nothing if not operatic — all the more so when China gets involved. So why not reimagine it for the stage?
“Trump, The Twins President,” which just wrapped up three days of performances in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, marries traditional Cantonese opera with a parody of modern political events, mostly involving Trump.
Though the opera satirizes a range of political figures from China, the U.S. and elsewhere, the star of the show is Trump, who shimmied across the stage in a blond wig and eyebrows, blue suit and red tie to the delight of sold-out audiences at a 1,000-seat theater at the Xiqu Centre, a performing arts venue for Cantonese opera and Chinese traditional theater.
The three-and-a-half-hour show began in 2019 but has been updated to reflect current events, most recently Trump’s attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania last summer and his heated Oval Office exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February.
The show was peppered with other up-to-the-minute references, including Trump’s derision of Canada as the “51st state,” his assault on Harvard and his turbulent relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
As if to illustrate the relentless pace of news in the new Trump administration, the latest version of the show debuted Thursday as the real-life Trump held a highly anticipated call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The show — which begins with an appearance by an actor playing Trump’s daughter Ivanka — is based on a dream she has in which Trump has a fictional twin brother in China, Chuan Pu, whose name is a transliteration of Trump’s name in Chinese.
It traces the history of U.S.-China relations starting in 1972, when then-President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to Beijing that paved the way for the two countries to establish diplomatic relations. But in this version, a young Donald Trump was also in China as Nixon met with Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai.
Chuan Pu, disillusioned by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, makes his way to the U.S., where Trump is now president, hosting world leaders such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
At the White House, Ivanka Trump asks Chuan Pu to pose as her father at a rally in Pennsylvania because Trump has been kidnapped by aliens from Mars.
At that fateful rally, it is Chuan Pu, not Trump, who survives an assassination attempt as a bullet whizzes past his ear — although the rally ends quite differently than it did in real life.
The show concludes with Trump getting into a fistfight with Zelenskyy after a shouting match over the Ukrainian leader’s outfit, taking turns knocking each other to the ground.
Playwright Li Kui-ming said he chose to parody Trump and Mao partly because they appear to have so much in common, having both sought to impose radical transformations on their countries in a bid to change the whole world “like a a king,” Li told NBC News before the show.
To symbolize the similarity, Li — a former journalist who is also a feng shui master — directed the same opera actor, Lung Koon-tin, to play Mao, Trump and Chuan Pu.
Joshua Huang, an 18-year-old student in Hong Kong, said that while he isn’t a fan of Cantonese opera, the “peculiar” combination of the traditional Chinese art and modern politics was “very attractive” to him.
“It’s regenerated based on a historical background,” Huang said.
Trump’s policies have been life-changing for many people in the world, said audience member Ernest Kam, 57.
“Each time we watch the show, we will learn about Trump,” he said, describing the character as “wonderful.”
Li, the playwright, said the show was a truthful reflection of Trump and that he thought the U.S. president would “love my drama.”
But he said the opera was meant to be creative, not political. The message, he said, is to “take it easy,” a line that is repeated over and over again during the show.
“This is only a dream,” he said, referring to the opera’s plot. “Don’t take it very seriously.”
