Life and Leisure

Going solo at Shanghai theater festival

By Zhang Kun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-06 06:53

Conor Lovett from Ireland performs his one-person show in Moby Dick during the ongoing ACT Festival in Shanghai. Provided to China Daily

One-person shows are the highlight of the 2010 ACT Festival in Shanghai, an annual celebration of contemporary theater art staged at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center (SDAC).

The 2010 edition of this festival, first held in 2005, will run from Nov 6 to Dec 2, and features 14 productions from home and abroad.

They include The Summer of Aviya from Israel, Moby Dick from Ireland, and Three Oranges' Love by Chinese artists from Beijing.

Both Aviya and the Irish adaptation of the American literary classic by Herman Melville are one-person shows.

"The Summer of Aviya is an autobiographical novel by Gila Almagor. It's a story about the Israeli experience - the retrospection to World War II adds special historical heaviness to it," says Pearl Wang of SDAC, organizer of the ACT Festival. The best-seller was also made into a movie.

Almagor has been presenting the show for more than 10 years. "It's her own story. Through the years she has gathered a lot of experience and is capable of employing diverse means to interact with the audience," Wang says.

Moby Dick is a production by the Gare St. Lazare Players, a theater company run by director Judy Hegarty Lovett and actor Conor Lovett.

"The company has been actively involved in the Samuel Beckett festival in Ireland, and has toured many places with their Beckett production," says Yu Rongjun, a playwright and manager of the SDAC.

"Conor Lovett has done a number of high-quality one-person shows. He puts a lot of emphasis on the rhythm of the performance, which has become his specialty," Yu says.

"We want to bring together the latest developments and newest trends in international theater and show audiences the various forms of contemporary theater. We have a limited budget, so we look for the most innovative works."

Over the past six years, ACT has brought 60-70 foreign productions and 20-30 domestic plays to the festival.

"Many of our SDAC shows were inspired by productions at the ACT festival," Yu says.

A few years ago, Gilmour-Smith Theater from Canada introduced the idea of physical theater to Shanghai. SDAC was the first Chinese theater company to create its own physical production, based on the short stories of renowned writer Lu Xun.

"We are doing more cross-over productions. For example, our joint production of The Tempest with Denmark combines Chinese acrobatics and live music with the Shakespeare classic," Yu says.

"Also, we are doing more improvised performances, which is common practice in today's international theater scene."

China Daily

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