| Videos | • Latest |
|
• Feature | • Sports | • Your Videos |
'The Wilderness' heralds Cao Yu's 100th b-day
0 
"The Wilderness" has been regarded as the most complicated and controversial work by Cao Yu, China's greatest 20th-Century playwright.
And since Friday marks the 100th anniversary of Cao Yu's birth, Beijing People's Art Theatre is presenting a star-studded performance of the play as a respectful gift.
Unlike his other two famous plays, "Thunderstorm" and "Sunrise", that describe urban life, "The Wilderness" presents a story of revenge that happens in the countryside.
Escaped convict Chouhu secretly returns to his home village, planning to take revenge upon the local tyrant that destroyed his family and life. Chouhu finds that the tyrant, Jiao, is dead and his wife has become blind. Daxing, the sheepish son of Jiao who was Chouhu's childhood friend, has married Chouhu's lover Jinzi.
A wild love re-ignites between Chouhu and Jinzi. Meanwhile, there's a brutal murder plot, the desperate inner struggle between friendship and revenge, and the evil though despairing blind mother. They all combine to make the story even more complicated, and at last lead to a deadly end.
The play was influenced by "Emperor Jones" by contemporary playwright Eugene O'Neil, the renowned American dramatist. With expressionism, O'Neil hoped to externalize human's sub-consciousness and inner conflicts on the stage. "The Wilderness" is not a mere imitation, here Cao Yu combined expressionism and realism.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments