Chinese students with the Nanjing Art Institute in Beijing Sunday conveyed drama maestro Henrik Ibsen's message of environmental protection with their original creation An Affair of 'An Enemy of the People'.

Qian Tai, director of the play, said Ibsen's An Enemy of the People tells the story of Dr. Thomas Stockmann, a guileless doctor in a small town famous for its public baths, who discovers that the water supply for the baths is contaminated and has probably been the cause of some illness among the tourists who are the town's economic resource.

He insists on rebuilding the baths and publishes articles on the Avant-courier newspaper, disregarding the mayor's and the owner of the bath's menacing and bribes. But the government controls the democratic voting system, announcing that Stockmann is the enemy of the people.

An Affair of 'An Enemy of the People', adopting the frame of "Play within a play", is about several university students who grow up on the bank of the Huaihe River. When the students come back home during their summer vacation, they find out that the river is seriously polluted. They decided to rehearse Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People in order to arouse the local people's consciousness of bringing pollution under control.

However, their relatives and friends want to stop them. The students come to realize that the self-interested people not only destroy the environment but also erode the human spirit.

The whole play shows the persistence and helplessness of the optimistic young people, said well-known director Wang Xiaoying, who is also vice-president of the National Theater Company of China. "The play has a strong real and prescient meaning through its dramatic guts, vivid characters, flexible story, and will gain audiences' sympathy and support."

Tao Zeru, a famous performing artist in China, said the inner world of people of all walks of life would be inspired by the play.

According to Qian Tai, the play is part of the ongoing Beijing International Symposium on Actor Training with Theater Showcase, which is chiefly sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Education. From Oct. 24 to 26, art institutes from China, Britain, the United States, Russia, India and the Republic of Korea as well as Hong Kong will produce student plays in different artistic styles.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2005)