 |
| A scene from
"Teahouse," staged by Beijing People's Art Theatre, is shown on the stage
of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington DC in late
October. |
Every town in America has at
least one Chinese restaurant, but
Beijing-style
teahouses?
That is definitely a first even in the shape of Lao
She's immortal play put on by the Beijing People's Art Theatre.
When the curtains rose at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in
Washington DC in late October, the sight of a bustling Beijing teahouse, circa
1898, took audiences by surprise. "It was visually stunning," said Alicia Adams.
Adams, Kennedy Center's vice-president of international programming, was
instrumental in bringing this production to the United States. She first saw the
play two years ago in Beijing, but had already zeroed in on it a year or two
earlier.
"I had always been impressed by the artistry of the company, and knew
immediately I would want it in our festival during my preliminary research on
arts and artists in China," she told China Daily in a recent interview.
Path-breaking
"Teahouse" is the first Chinese drama production to be presented in the US,
said Lin Zhaohua, artistic director of the Beijing People's Art Theatre. It is
part of the Kennedy Center's Festival of China with more than 50 performances
including three symphony orchestras, a ballet and the China National Peking
Opera.
The difficulty of presenting a Chinese-language play was obvious. "I was
worried that audience here would have the language barrier," admitted Lin
Zhaohua during the Houston leg of the tour.
"But after performing on both coasts, I can tell you that American audiences
have been more responsive than a typical Beijing audience."
Lin credited the success partly to the excellent subtitles, based on a
translation by the late Ying Ruocheng (1929-2003), a veteran of the company who
was himself in the original cast.
