Life and Leisure

Tears of a clown

By Chen Nan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-10 08:02

"I know what audiences expect and what they are going to laugh at, but I won't try to squeeze laughs out of them," Chen Peisi says. Zou Hong / China Daily

Veteran actor Chen Peisi turns to French comedy for his latest dramatic venture. Chen Nan finds out more

When Chen Peisi makes an entrance, it's nearly always followed by raucous laughter. This was the case the other day when he ambled into a restaurant to talk about his new play, Ridiculous Dinner, which is adapted from the 1998 classic French comedy Le Diner de Cons by Francis Veber.

Dressed in a gray jacket and black cloth shoes and wearing a scarf he's had for nearly 20 years, Chen, 56, joked about his outfit and his bald head.

He gets serious, however, when he starts talking about Ridiculous Dinner, "one of the French comedies I like the most", adding he wants to introduce Chinese humor to it.

In the play, Chen plays a wealthy publisher, Pierre Brochant, who likes a dinner game, the object of which is to invite an unsuspecting idiot and the winner is the individual who brings along the biggest idiot.

The character Brochant thinks he has found a good choice in the good-hearted Franois Pignon, but hurts his back.

"I love the story and the comic effects generated by the various roles. Throughout the play, we see the dim-witted Pignon turn Brochant's life upside-down," Chen says.

French comedy is generally not well received by Chinese audiences because of language and culture differences. But Chen, who started his comedy career in the early 1980s, has made it more approachable and he's sure local audiences will enjoy it.

His confidence comes from decades of success in the field of comedy, ever since he first appeared in a sketch, Eating Noodles. In it he plays a young man who auditions for a role. The role made him a star at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, in 1983.

Since 1999 he has been concentrating on theater and works such as Tuo'er in 2001 and Balcony in 2005 have achieved both commercial and critical success.

"I know what audiences expect and what they are going to laugh at, but I won't try to squeeze laughs out of them," Chen says of Ridiculous Dinner, his first comedy adaptation.

"I wrote my own stories before, which are original and designed for local audiences. This French comedy was a huge success in France but it doesn't necessarily mean it will be one in China, which is a challenge for me."

He spent two years rewriting the script, and directs and plays the lead role himself. All the actors he works with in the play are old friends, such as actress Wu Yujuan, with whom Chen worked 10 years ago in Tuo'er, and a relative youngster, Ban Zan, who Chen says inspired him with his youthful, creative acting.

"They are really good actors Most importantly, they are my long-time friends and I don't have to pay them a lot," he jokes.

The pressure to make money is reduced, Chen says, because of the success of his previous plays. His comic drama Lao Zhai, or Old House, which finished touring in October, grossed over 2 million yuan ($300,400) in the first week.

"Lao Zhai was an experimental play I conceived three years ago. It is a detective story, different from my usual 'small potato' tales. I didn't expect it would make money," he says. "But from that success, I am determined to do comedy because I know that audiences are hungry for it. They need laughs in their lives."

He also says that life as a comedian can be demanding, as viewers mistake his jester persona for his real personality.

"I am serious about comedy. Making people laugh is not an easy task," he says. "Every comedy has its elements of tragedy, which requires the actor to turn tears into laughs."

"One of my middle-aged friends told me that he would prefer to watch a cartoon rather than a skit on TV because it's not really funny at all," he says.

"What on Earth have comedy writers been doing? I have been thinking of retirement for years. But I can't. I look on comedy as a holy job, to make people laugh, and I am looking for people who have the same idea."