Audiences in South Australia will be led into the world of Chinese villagers this weekend, when a play by famous playwright and director Stan Lai will be staged at the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide.

The Village, written and directed by Lai, which traced the lives of several different families travelled to Taiwan from China's mainland in the 1940s, was hailed by the Beijing News as "the pinnacle of our era of theatre."

"With this play I wish to give the audiences in Australia a better understanding of what the Chinese playwrights are doing, and what the original contemporary plays are like," Lai told Xinhua.

The play, having been staged for over 200 times since its production in 2008, will be shown at the Festival Theater on Friday and Saturday.

This is the second time that Lai's play comes to OzAsia Festival.

"Last year the Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land was an attempt, which was proved surprisingly successful," he said. "We only had two performances, but there were about a dozen pieces from art critics."

Lai recalled that about half of his audiences were Chinese and another half foreigners. "From their feedback I could see that they had no difficulty understanding the play. I did not have to make any change for them. The original is the best."

In spite of the cultural difference, he said, the humanity in the plays appeals to everyone. "Then you would find that people everywhere are speaking a same language which was called play," he said.

In the play, an old lady from north China's city Tianjin taught her neighbor how to make baozi, the food from her hometown.

Lai said like always, audiences in Adelaide will receive steamed buns -- or baozi, after the performances, which is a symbol of nostalgia in the play.

"When I was in the college, I learned that in the ancient Rome, audiences would sometimes dine at the backstage after watching the play," he said with a smile. "For The Village, we made an attempt to distribute baozi. The only problem was that if there were too many audiences, they had to wait for quite a while."

From Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land to The Village, Lai said it was his wish that foreigners could see different types of original Chinese plays, "so that they would know that we are producing plays that reflect the life of our era, and they would feel the vigorous creativity of Chinese artists."

However, he noted that Chinese plays, especially the original contemporary plays should be encouraged to go out. "Sometimes even when we put our plays on overseas, it was just one or two performances, not enough for them to really go into the lives of foreigners."

In 2015, he took the Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land to the United States, where they had more than 80 performances. "It was a successful experience," he said.

Meanwhile, Lai is translating his works into foreign languages. The English version of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land was brought to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The OzAsia Festival, Australia's leading contemporary arts festival engaging with Asia, is held from Oct. 17 to Nov. 3 and features 60 events with 850 artists from more than 20 countries. 

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)