As gales, torrential rain and bouts of thunder rumbled across the brightly lit nightscape of Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, a play about Princess Wencheng was about to blow audiences away. Wencheng was a member of a minor branch of the royal clan of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) who married Tibetan leader Songtsen Gampo in 641.
I’m sure there must have been the occasional linguistically induced misunderstanding back in her day, but to avoid that in May 2023, the play featured two large screens, sitting on both sides of the main stage, displaying subtitles in three languages, namely, Chinese, Tibetan and English. But the imagery unfolding before the eyes of the audience took them
