Entering dressed from head to toe in the red and gold Royal court dress of a Princess in service to the Dowager Empress of China, Michelle Yim is a startling contrast to the world around us. Yet as soon as she starts to speak we know we are in the presence of someone down to earth and humble. With poise and elegance she starts to tell her tale: her fascinating true story of the life of Lizzie Yu, whose father was the son of a Manchu Lord, and whose mother was the daughter of Chinese girl and an American Merchant. She has clearly inherited her father’s strength of character, he who was disowned because he married “beneath him” but didn’t care because he was in love. Through her life story she comes back to the father who always supported her and gave her the confidence to have a rod of iron will of her own, but in a quiet, feminine way.

It’s a mesmerising story, packed with vivid details and evocative colours, of people and places. It’s also an extraordinary story of resilience; of the confidence to stay true to who you are even when the world has turned entirely upside down with you in the centre of it. Lizzie tells of growing up in Paris, growing up as a Victorian lady, with her gowns and her lifestyle, being accepted as part of society there; when her diplomat father is suddenly recalled to China. It’s 1903, and she finds herself in the Forbidden City, favourite lady in waiting to the infamous Empress Cixi. Favourite perhaps because of the languages she can speak: English, French and Japanese, as well as Chinese, so she acts as translator for the Empress, the only Lady in Waiting allowed in the Throne Room. But also perhaps the favourite as the Empress recognises the mirror of some of that strength. The Empress bestows a great honour upon her by renaming her and giving her the title of Princess: at the time Lizzie has no idea what restrictions that will involve, although her mother seems to know – one restriction is obeying the instruction to marry who the Empress chooses, which Lizzie defies, naturally, and miraculously survives any wrath by simple twists of events moving on. Lizzie also has to hide her Christian faith, as well as her Westernised ways, but surprisingly this does nothing to diminish the brightness of her character.

Hearing an account of a truly fascinating part of history from not that long ago, told so expressively as a first-hand story brings an immediacy and relevance. The fact that this is true is all the more surprising. We hear of a culture so unlike our own, now or even at the time. Tales of Eunuchs carrying carriages, of forgotten Concubines making silk flowers, of narrowly missing being caught up in the Boxer Rebellion which it’s almost certain would have claimed their lives. Lizzie muses that for a while Queen Victoria and Empress Cixi controlled most of the world between them, yet the treatment of women or the views of women and their place in the world did not change at all. It’s an interesting and thought provoking point that women in power do their utmost to maintain the status quo and to fight any inkling for change, especially for women: as Lizzie mentions, all of her support came from her father and after that from her husband, never from her mother or sister. The world, and especially women, seems to have an “obsession with making things smaller and less comfortable” for women.

This is a remarkable and enthralling exploration of culture clashes and the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, and what it means to be a woman in a world which has always tried to find different ways of trying to control them. Michelle Yim is an utter joy to watch, with quiet yet grounded and fun presence: she oozes a quiet personal power of inner confidence and embodies Lizzie beautifully. The several costume changes throughout, slowly changing from Chinese Princess to an American woman in the early 20th Century, is a really clever way of showing the different layers which Lizzie has to peel off to become what’s expected of her next. “I’m still not sure where I belong” she says, then “I belong to the world”. She has become someone who has so many parts of herself she doesn’t belong anywhere. “I don’t need to belong” she says, saying she feels like a foreigner, although America is her home now, China is always there in the background. Although, she says: “America, with its fear of change and its distrust of foreigners, is not that different from China”. An absolute gem of a production: catch it if you can.

Rotunda Bubble, 14 May 2024
The Empress And Me runs 14th, 15th and 22nd May 2024
Photos credit: Grist To The Mill / Red Dragonfly Productions and Alan Smith