With a simple story, the play demonstrates a grand historical theme in China.

The story takes place just after the founding of the People's Republic of China. A down and out intellectual Wen Youzhang in central China's Hunan Province happens to know that Chairman Mao Zedong is his own cousin and considers this as a golden opportunity for him to have a meteoric rise to fame. With other people's encouragement, he writes to Mao Zedong in an attempt to get a position like "Minister of Construction". Mao Zedong sends his son Mao Anying back to the hometown, who finds out Wen Youzhang is incompetent for any position and thus refuses him.

The story is based on true history. Mao Anying's reply letter is still kept in Shaoshan, Hunan.

The play focuses on Wen Youzhang and his fellow citizens, but also displays how Mao Zedong handles the relationship between nepotism and principles. All the characters are very lively and vivid with their humorous dialogues and dramatic body language. The joys and dreams of the common people are embodied in the Huagu Opera's singing and dancing.

According to Zhou Jianrong, an audience appraising panel member "Story of a Cousin" is distinctive among all the artworks about Chairman Mao.

"Chairman Mao is not the leading character in the play, but the main focuses are on Mao's cousin and his neighbors; no earthshaking happenings are involved, but the play very well portrays a grand theme," he said.

The play precisely grasps delicate changes of Wen Youzhang's psychology with realistic and exquisite expressions. As a typical feudal intellectual who is well-read in the classics, on one hand Wen is aloof and refined, but on the other hand, he dreams of meeting an enlightened ruler to realize his ambition. Along with Wen's other contradictory yet seemingly reasonable actions, a pedant but virtuous and ridiculous but lovely "Cousin" is vividly shaped on stage.