Life and Leisure

Peking Man returns

By Chen Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-10 07:50

A scene from The Peking Man, starring Wan Ban as Zeng Wenqing, and Fu Yao as Sufang. Provided to China Daily

The play that revived the fortunes of Beijing People's Art Theater by experimental director Li Liuyi, was also the playwright Cao Yu's favorite. Chen Jie reports

Although The Thunderstorm, Sunrise and The Family are Cao Yu's (1910-1996) most popular works, The Peking Man was the playwright's personal favorite.

Many theater people including director Li Liuyi believe The Peking Man is Cao's best work.

Ironically, the play failed at the box-office when the Beijing People's Art Theater (BPAT) premiered it in 1957 and also when it was re-staged in 1987, despite the fact that both productions gathered the best casts and crews.

Cao himself joked, "If you want to open a theater, The Thunderstorm is a good choice; if you want to close one down, you can stage The Peking Man".

Li must, undoubtedly, have come under considerable pressure when the BPAT commissioned him to stage it once again in 2006 to mark the 10th anniversary of Cao's death.

That spring, BPAT, China's most renowned drama company, was facing the worst of times. Not only the press and theater-goers, even its own leading directors and actors were pouring criticism on its management and the quality of productions.

In an attempt to turn things around, the company commissioned Li to revive The Peking Man.

As BPAT's leading young director, Li, who is known for his experimental theater works, had directed only three productions in 10 years at the BPAT, before 2006.

In 2000, he presented Cao Yu's The Prairie, but his avant-garde approach failed. The company did not commission him to direct any further plays and some of his proposals were pigeon-holed. He even asked to quit the company in February 2005 but nothing came of it.

So when approached by BPAT in 2006, his first instinct was to refuse. And, he did. But his fascination with the play finally got the better of his anger and he decided to take it up.

Theater-goers waited with bated breath. Would Li adopt an experimental style? Could the young cast interpret such a serious work? Would the production turn around the fortunes of the troubled company?

Li stayed with his experimental style, using symbolic settings, props and music. Although it was too much to expect one play to bail out the company, the production itself was worth seeing. Critic Tong Daoming's praise was effusive: "BPAT's third milestone production after The Teahouse and A Farmer's Nirvana," he said.

In 2008, the production was invited to run at the Singapore Arts Festival.

Naturally, when BPAT celebrates the 100th anniversary of Cao Yu's birth this year, the play is at the top of the agenda.

Written by Cao in 1941, the four-act play dramatizes the conflicts, woes and intrigues in a feudal family in the 1930s. The patriarch Zeng Hao spends his days recalling the luxurious years of the past; his eldest son is a good-for-nothing who lives off his father; his son-in-law is a playboy who engages only in empty talk; and his daughter-in-law, the boss of the house.

Sufang, Zeng's nice, is the only one who holds some promise. She finally leaves her suffocating family for freedom and a new life.

Li uses an inclining stage to symbolize a declining feudal society. The setting, a courtyard house, is designed like a coffin. Since there was a belief then that the more times a coffin was painted, the better the life of the dead in heaven, Zeng keeps asking how many times his coffin has been painted; it is almost the only thing he cares about.

The bizarre and somewhat eerie music selected from composer Guo Wenjing's work Hanging Coffin perfectly complements the dark mood of the play.

"One important reason The Peking Man did not do well is that its plot is not as striking as that of Cao's other works such as The Thunderstorm and Sunrise," Li says.

"But today's audiences do not come to the theater only for dramatic stories. Sophisticated theater-goers relate to the conflicts of the character's inner world, and their material and mental suffocations," he says.

The director says his production may be better-received than previous ones not because of better directing on his part but because the play's message resonates with today's audience.

The director also showers high praise on his cast including Qiu Xiaoguang as Zeng Hao, Wan Ban as Zeng's son Zeng Wenqing, Zhang Pei as Zeng's daughter-in-law and Fu Yao as Sufang, all of whom, he says, have given passionate and convincing performances.

"Compared to four years ago, they have a better understanding of the work," Li says.

The director says that they were young and virtually unknown actors four year ago when the play premiered. While technically they may not be as good as the veterans, they make it up with their passion.

"Nowadays, many plays cast popular entertainment stars in order to sell tickets. But that's no way for theater to move ahead," he says .

(China Daily 09/10/2010 page20)