Purchase power: the marketing of performance and its discursive effects

To accompany his analysis of why the casting of The Orphan of Zhao became so contested, Thorpe provides a critique of the marketing of the production. He argues that the marketing evinced new readings of the production, and contextualised the critical response the production received. Further, Thorpe argues that the photo used on the production poster, programme and advertising (a photo of the Chinese orphan Fan Lu Yang by M. Scott Bauer) emblemises the exploitation of China in the name of capitalism. Such a charge takes on greater significance in the context of the debate surrounding the production’s cast.