The World (and Theatre Blogging) Comes to China

Zhu Ning*

Abstract

Over the past decade, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in southern China has successfully established itself as the most influential theatre festival in China. Each year, its visiting international productions not only serve as a vital platform for theatre professionals to connect with and understand contemporary theatre from outside the country, but it has also attracted growing attention from a range of young theatregoers who are sharing their reviews on blogs and other social media, providing valuable insights into how young people engage with and understand contemporary theatre.

Keywords: Wuzhen Theatre Festival, international invited productions, Chinese audiences

As in previous years, ticket sales for visiting international performances at the 11th Wuzhen Theatre Festival — China’s most popular theatre festival — sold out almost instantly when they were released online, despite relatively high prices. In fact, there were long queues for returned tickets at the theatre venues themselves. And many bloggers and youthful commentators shared their experiences on popular apps such as REDnote. Reading these online posts and seeing who was attending in person, it’s clear that most of the audiences for the this Festival are young people, primarily in their twenties and thirties, who are more willing to invest in theatre and than were their parents’ generation.

The Wuzhen Festival is considered a non-official festival meaning it has more flexibility and autonomy in programming than theatre festivals run by government-supported entities. One of the Wuzhen Festival ’s founders, the renowned director Meng Jinghui, has stated that its international selection is guided by the principles of “diversity and innovation.” Seemingly concerned less with commercial viability therefore or national cultural significance, Wuzhen clearly aims to reach a young, middle-class audience. Meng has openly expressed his desire to engage younger viewers, a goal reflected in festival programs such as its popular Emerging Theatre Artists’ Competition and what he calls the festival’s Granary Reverie, also designed to encourage the involvement of emerging artists.

As well, the Festival unabashedly uses celebrities to woo young audiences who get a chance to “bump into a star” while walking through the streets of Wuzhen. This is amplified by social media, where young attendees are encouraged to share their experiences.

Most of these “amateur” reviews are posted on social media platforms like REDnote and Douban and they certainly offer a clear picture of the festival’s audience demographics and are tools confirming the acceptance of Western theatre among younger audiences in the country.

What productions were seen and commented on this year? Among them, works by highly acclaimed directors such as Japan’s Tadashi Suzuki and Denmark’s Eugenio Barba, now almost household names in China who both have had shows here before. Suzuki was joined this time by his Chinese protégé Tian Chong doing his iconic work Dionysus, while Barba marked the 60th anniversary of his Odin Teatret with two productions: Hamlet’s Clouds and An Ordinary Day in the Life of the Dancer Gregor Samsa, the latter a collaboration with the Italian company Gitiesse Artisti Riuniti.

Hamlet’s Clouds. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

In Hamlet’s Clouds, Barba continues the Odin Teatret’s signature style of blending multi-cultural elements and fragmented narratives. Shakespeare appears on stage as a middle-aged woman wearing a blue Indian sari, grieving the death of her son Hamnet. Barba intertwines Shakespeare’s grief over Hamnet’s death with Hamlet’s own revenge narrative. In the final scene, Shakespeare holds the dead child while projections show images of children in combat uniforms, wielding assault rifles, their faces oddly smiling. Shakespeare’s mourning becomes a meditation on both the tragedy of lives lost and the self-destructive tendencies of modern civilization. Barba skips the traditional curtain call, allowing the audience to leave in quiet reflection, like Jerzy Grotowski concluded his Akropolis, evoking a sense of introspection and mourning for the horrors of war.

In the many social media posts, nearly all spoke of the production as a unique experience, including the experience of having to surrender their mobile phones before entering the theatre and having Barba personally escort them to their seats. These ceremonial elements heightened the production’s atmosphere, transforming the experience into a truly communal act.

We are Leaving. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

Other international productions also explored similar themes of war and death. The festival’s opening performance, We Are Leaving directed by Poland’s Krzysztof Warlikowski and written by the Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin (whose play Requiem as performed by the Israel’s Cameri Theatre shocked China twenty years ago), also sparked polarized reactions this time.

The performance follows Krum, who returns to his Polish ghetto after a failed overseas adventure, only to find the entire town preparing to leave, though no one actually departs. Spanning the period from 1938 to 2048, the play portrays the lives of people who have left the world. While some bloggers appreciated the depth of Levin’s work, many struggled with the complex character relationships and felt disconnected to the Israeli political context, which led to criticism of the plot’s opaque nature. Another complaint was the unclear and seemingly gratuitous sexual scenes in the play. Chinese audiences are largely unfamiliar with Levin’s works and, as a result, We Are Leaving—while a profound and well-crafted piece—struggled to connect. As well, the language barrier and limited knowledge of Jewish culture also contributed to the overall disconnection.

Biedermann und die Brandstifter. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

Similarly, Max Frisch’s well-known Biedermann und die Brandstifter failed to resonate with many viewers. Biedermann, a middle-class businessman, reads in the newspaper that an arsonist has arrived in town and, with absolute certainty, declares, “All arsonists should be hanged.” However, when a suspicious figure named Smith appears uninvited, Biedermann consistently tolerates his presence. As Smith begins stockpiling gasoline in Biedermann’s attic, even requesting a lighter, Biedermann’s indulgence ultimately leads to tragedy. A sharp commentary on the complex social and political dynamics of contemporary Europe, the online posts seemed to interpret it more as a morality tale rather than a critique of European politics.

Littoral. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

Another major production at the festival was Littoral (Shoreline) which shares a similar thematic core with We Are Leaving. Written and directed by Lebanese-born Wajdi Mouawad who now lives in Canada, Littoral explores the desperate plight of people trapped at the bottom of society, trying to escape but finding nowhere to go, the search for an ultimate resting place. The story follows Wilfrid, who, after his father’s death, returns to his devasted homeland with the body, hoping to bury him alongside his mother. But his request is rejected because there are already too many cemeteries and not enough spaces. Reluctantly, Wilfrid embarks on a journey ultimately accompanied by several others — an imaginary childhood friend, a woman who constantly sings in mourning for her family killed in the war, a girl who killed her father cruelly in a tragic case of mistaken identity during the war, a girl who can’t stop laughing after witnessing her family’s brutal murder ,and a blind sage. “Only by burying the father can we find conclusion.”

Mouawad here is burying a collective memory, a nation in profound despair. The history of a people and their countless individual tragedies will be forgotten if no home can be found to anchor it. All will be lost in a grand historical narrative written by the victors. Some hope exists in the play’s last lines: “Perhaps one day, the depths of the sea will rise to meet the sky.” It is a fragile hope amidst the emptiness Mouawad evokes.

Littoral. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

After its performances at the Wuzhen Festival, Littoral was also played in Beijing. Interestingly, the responses differed significantly between the two cities. Most of those commenting from Wuzhen praised the production, said they were moved to tears. In contrast, reactions from Beijing commentators were more polarized. While some highly appreciated the design and overall production, others found the play’s fragmented narrative and three-hour running time too much with some saying they left before the end. In both cities however, the primary response was to the aesthetic qualities of the event, with few comments on the ethnic suffering portrayed in the play. Again, this probably stems from the general unfamiliarity with the historical contexts depicted.

After All. Photo: Courtesy Wuzhen Festival

Another “mourning” piece which received high praise from bloggers — this one dance-based — was After All created by British director Solène Weinachter. In the performance, Weinachter reflects on her own childhood memories of touching her grandmother’s body at her funeral while around her others reminisced and joked.

Weinachter decides to design her own funeral, mourning herself before death. Clearly, this piece struck a deep chord with Chinese commentators addressing a theme seldom discussed in Chinese theatre — how to say goodbye to the loved ones as death approaches — undoubtedly linked to traditional Chinese cultural taboos surrounding death. As individuals in China today devote more time to self-advancement, the time spent with family has dwindled leading to a sense of isolation and unease.

An Ordinary Day in the Life of the Dancer Gregor Samsa. Photo: Courtesy Wuzhen Festival

Two other productions which received positive attention in Wuzhen were An Ordinary Day in the Life of the Dancer Gregor Samsa and K.I. and Abel, each offering their own unique perspective on modern anxieties. An Ordinary Day is an adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, with the protagonist reimagined as a dancer. In this version, his greatest source of stress and anxiety comes not from his career but from the immense pressure imposed on him by his father. The alienation of family is seen as intergenerational pressure tied to the societal expectations of success — specifically the “tiger parent” mentality. In this interpretation, Gregor’s father, a successful actor, measures his son’s worth against his own achievements and imposes his personal success as a standard for Gregor’s career.

“Father lies stretched out over the world map,” Gregor reflects, “You work your whole life hoping I’ll fulfill your expectations.” The anxiety of never measuring up ultimately causes Gregor to transform into an insect: “I can only hide in my room, hiding in my strange thoughts and dances. Every tiny movement is an escape from you. My dance is about you, about me, and about my insectness.”

As commented upon, on the one side, there is the parents’ excessively high expectations, and, on the other, there is a lack of consideration for the children’s emotions and anxieties. This is a widespread issue in Chinese families and has been a long-standing social psychological phenomenon.

K.I. and Abel. Photo: Courtesy Wuzhen Festival

K.I. and Abel is a work from Vienna’s Max Reinhardt Seminar about AI. Could artificial intelligence shift from being a tool for humans to becoming humanity’s master? How meaningful is the help AI provides? In the play, a young person uses AI to search for the ingredients in milk, fixating on nutrition and ultimately choosing almond milk. Later, an office worker doesn’t find emotional comfort from an AI sex partner and a child receives only mechanical, repetitive responses from an AI hotline.

Co-written by director Bianca Thomas and ChatGPT, the discussions and concerns sparked by this script garnered much attention from Chinese commentators. Both the presentation and the low ticket price turned this production into something of a surprise hit at the festival.

The Inanna Project. Photo: Courtesy Wuzhen Festival

A former student of Jerzy Grotowski’s in Poland and later his protégé, Thomas Richards’ The Inanna Project was arguably the standout performance at this year’s Festival. According to the commentators online, some even waited for eight hours to get returned tickets. More a ritual than a play, The Inanna Project is done by six actors surrounded by a small audience seated in a semi-circle. The performers chant and sing segments of the Epic of Gilgamesh involving the goddess Inanna, each presented in a different form of music and language. These include Caribbean folk music, southern Spanish folk music, southern French music, traditional Korean pansori, and African American rap. Before each segment, the director introduces the storyline, after which a single actor, guided by him, performs an a capella rendition of the music. The other actors, like the audience, listen attentively, sometimes harmonizing with the lead singer. Richards tailors each piece to match the characteristics of the different parts of the epic. In a segment about a king being chased by a monster, for example, Richards uses African American rap to vividly express the king’s fear and the intensity of his escape.

Played over three-and-a-half-hours and done without makeup or specific characters, the audience’s attention seemed to be firmly held simply by the actors’ extraordinary energy. Richards clearly inherits his view of performance as a form of self-cultivation from Grotowski who saw performance as an “art vehicle.” Grotowski, of course, eventually took that “vehicle” out of the theatre. Richards, however, has brought it back into the theatre in a form that blurs the lines between theatrical and non-theatrical elements.

Du bout des doigts and Karl. Böhm. Photo: Courtesy of Wuzhen Festival

Two puppet theatre performances for adults — Du bout des doigts and Karl. Böhm — received almost unanimous praise from bloggers. The “main actors” in the first piece are two fingers. The use of finger movements, combined with live human performance and live video recording, was highly creative and appreciated.

For its part, Karl. Böhm is a puppet show based on the real-life story of a musician who, despite his deep love and amazing talent for music, became infamous for support of the Nazis. In the final scene, the character’s bust falls from a pillar and shatters, a recognition of the complexity of history.

It should be noted here that puppet theatre in China has generally been focused on the children’s market, with adult puppet plays being relatively rare. Attention to adult puppet theatre has gradually increased in recent years, however, as shown by its inclusion in festivals like Wuzhen and the Beijing International Puppet Theatre Festival. One suspects this signals a growing trend.

During the festival, the streets of Wuzhen — still a relatively small city in southern China — were packed with tourists, and parades, and small performances could be seen everywhere. One might say this festival actually initiated a cultural miracle in the city. Since its founding, China has seen many new festivals emerge outside the population centers, a trend of “Fleeing Beijing-Shanghai-Guangzhou.” These smaller festivals include the Daliangshan International Theatre Festival, the Aranya Theatre Festival, and the Guilin Art Festival. While it may be too early to say whether this path signals a new development phase for Chinese theatre, the Wuzhen Festival has undoubtedly opened a new avenue for the growth of Chinese theatre and for a generation of online commentators. 


*Zhu Ning is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dramatic Literature at the China Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. Her primary research and teaching interests focus on the history of Western theatre, as well as contemporary Western theatre practices and theories. An active theatre critic in China with extensive experience as a playwright, she has contributed to various productions, including The Peach Blossom Fan (as dramaturg), Romance of the Western Chamber (musical, as dramaturg and lyricist), Dandelion (script planning), and I Love Fables (as playwright). Zhu Ning has also authored several articles, such as “From Classicism to Anti-heroism: The Adaptation and Rewriting of Shakespeare,” “An Escape from Drama: Eugenio Barba’s Anti-Elitist Theatre Practice,” “The Resurgence of the Classical,” and “The Road We Passed: A Retrospective on a Century of Chinese Theatre Translation.”

Copyright © 2024 Zhu Ning
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
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