Old Beijing made for TV
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"The Beijing dialect uses humor to indirectly dole out both praise and criticism," explains Yang.
"For instance, when Wang Lifa was asked what he would do if people don't pay at his teahouse, Wang replies, 'What can I do, I'll just tell myself that the money is being burned for the dead.' He doesn't swear or anything, but he compares the people who don't pay their bill as dead people, which hurts even more," Yang said.
The TV series also features the leisurely activities of Beijingers during that time, particularly those of the Banners, or Qing nobility. Supported from the Qing government, they had lots of leisure time to keep pets, particularly birds such as eagles and siskins.
Yang said he focused a lot on these leisure hobbies in portraying old Beijing. "Keeping eagles awake all night is a way to train them to keep their wild instincts. The character Huang Pangzi has all the accessories for raising eagles, and we show how he stays up all night training them. Even when some of the characters were in debt, they would still buy food for their pets, which is a vivid portrait of Banners at that time."
According to Yang, screenwriting a play like Teahouse, which has less than 50,000 words, into a 39-episode TV series, leaves a lot of room for adaptation.
"We don't simply stretch it by adding fluff, but look for a previously overlooked details to make the story truly vivid, such as extending minor characters' roles," said Yang.
"For instance, Wang Shufe, the wife of teahouse owner Wang Lifa, is hard working and kind-hearted, but she lost her son and died of depression. She is in the play very briefly, but obviously is a key role. So, we explored her back story, including her youth and old age, without adding anything that isn't in the original script," added Yang.
The production's sensitivity to detail even garnered an endorsement from Shu Ji, daughter of Lao She, "I thought the adaptation is well done, the core part of the TV series is the script, the writers truly understand my father's story," she told the Dazhong Daily last week.
After the CCTV-8 broadcast, the entire series will be available for viewing online at cntv.cn, followed by the scheduled release of the DVD edition.
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