What's New--and Renewed--Onstage in China

In the Chinese theatre hubs of Shanghai and Beijing, spring is typically the most active period for spoken drama, but in 2002, a full slate of exciting productions continued into June and July, usually months with scarce theatre activity. In Beijing, this was due to the inaugural season of the National Theatre Company of China (NTCC)—the merger of the Central Experimental Theatre and China Youth Art Theatre that was implemented in the fall of 2001—as well as the revival of several local classics at the Beijing People's Art Theatre (BPAT) to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The most notable of the BPAT restagings were Jin Yun's 1986 National Play Award winner Gou'er ye niepan (Uncle Doggie's Nirvana), directed by Lin Zhao-hua, and director Ren Ming's version of Australian DavidWilliamson's 1977 drama The Club, which had premiered several months earlier. Retitled The Soccer Club (Zuqiu jülebu) in Chinese, its revival coincided with China's first-ever appearance in the World Cup soccer tournament, which was the constant topic of conversation and media attention during my stay. On the political front, 2002 marked the 60th anniversary of Mao Zedong's "Talks at Yan'an" (at the 1942 Forum on Literature and Arts), to which China's state cultural policy owes its greatest debt.

In the midst of the ongoing and somewhat radical changes in cultural structures—both at the institutional and audience levels—it was uncanny to hear the Yan'an tenets of socialist realism and the artist's obligation to serve the Chinese Communist Party reinforced. But in light of this political reminder, the choices for both BPAT's and NTCC's summer seasons were understandably conservative. In addition to The Club, BPAT also revived last summer's hits Diyici de qinmi jiechu (The First Intimate Encounter, originally a popular Taiwanese internet novel) and Wuchang Nudiao (an experimental take on characters from several Lu Xun short stories), directed by Ren Ming and Wang Yansong respectively. BPAT also restaged its popular classics Tianxia diyi lou (World's Best Restaurant), Cai Wenji, Lao She's Chaguan (Teahouse), and Cao Yu's Leiyu (Thunderstorm).

As for the new National Theatre, after almost a year of planning, its inaugural productions opened while I was in China. The first, Zheli de liming qing (The Dawns Are Quiet Here), directed by Zha Mingzhe, was adapted from a Soviet play about the sacrifices of women soldiers during the second world war and featured Beijing's most popular and talented actresses in the leading roles, along with Zhang Fengyi in the role of the army officer whom they all serve. It was Zhang's first-ever professional stage appearance (he has starred in films such as Farewell My Concubine and The Assassin)—and his appearance was highly anticipated and critically well-received. Unfortunately, I was in Shanghai when Dawns opened and arrived in Beijing just after the last performance. But I did make it to the capital in time to seeWang Xiaoying's production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible (retitled Salemu de nüwu [Witches of Salem]), and I was invited to attend the in-house discussion symposium held after it closed.

The symposium was a four-hour meeting during which top theatre practitioners, critics, administrators, and educators came together to offer their reflections regarding the quality of the production and its sociopolitical context in contemporary China. The cast and crew also attended, and Zhang Qiuge, the well-known film and television star who played John Proctor, spoke on their behalf. The most interesting part of the discussion was the repeated reference to "5-1-6" (16 May is the official date of the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966). The National Theatre's chief administrator acknowledged the risk taken in staging such a thinly veiled allegory of the Cultural Revolution when a performance would actually fall on 16 May, and admitted that the theatre company had asked the press not to print any overt references to the coincidence.

It was refreshing to hear a group of experienced and respected theatre practitioners in Beijing...