A STAGE TREAT
The 2018 Contemporary Theater Biennale in Shenzhen is now on. Chen Nan speaks to the brain behind the event.
Chinese theater director Meng Jinghui has the habit of storing poems on his smartphone. On March 16, he read a poem titled Reminiscence of Marie A., by German theater playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht (1889-1956), in front of about 700 people in the hall of Shenzhen Children’s Palace.
“It was a day in that blue month September. I held my beloved lover beneath a slender plum tree. My love looks so pale and silent. It seems that she were a dream that must not fade,” Meng read.
With that poem, Meng opened the 2018 Contemporary Theater Biennale in Shenzhen’s central Futian district.
The 10-day event features exhibitions, plays, forums and workshops to be held in theaters, a library and public spaces in Shenzhen.
Speaking about theater, Meng says: “I am inspired by lots of things, like beautiful poems, a piece of music and dance. Nowadays, when you think of theater, or let’s say, Chinese theater, it is a broader concept. For people like us, who are actors, directors and stage designers, as well as the audience, we all should keep an open vision about theater.”
Meng, who is the artistic director of the event, also invited his friend, dancer-choreographer Wang Yuanyuan, to open the event with a contemporary dance titled Hyper.
The dance, performed by the Beijing Dance Theater, which Wang founded in Beijing in 2008, comprises two parts: Manolita Chen, choreographed by Spanish artist Marcos Morau, which mixes flamenco, ballet and contemporary dance; and Requiem, choreographed by Wang, who draws inspiration from the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015.
Speaking about her performance, Wang says: “When Meng told me that he borrowed the concept of a biennial from the art world to create a theater version, I was very interested. The line between different contemporary art forms is blurring. So, audiences get exposed to various art forms in one sitting.”
Wang says many of her dance works are inspired by literature works, such as Wild Grass, based on Chinese writer Lu Xun’s 1927 prose poem collection, and The Banquet, based on Hamlet.
Last year, Wang co-founded a theater company, the Beijing Repertory Theater, and made her directorial debut with a play titled The Lady from the Sea.
The play, based on a work by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1888, is about a lighthouse-keeper’s daughter named Ellida, who has to decide whether to stay on land with her husband, a successful doctor, or leave her stable life for a sailor she loves.
Wang and Meng also gave talks at the event on March 17 about their lives and theater.
Meng is regarded as one of the country’s pioneering contemporary directors, and one of his most successful plays, Rhinoceros in Love, is a big hit with young audiences across China.
So far, this passionate, painful and powerful love tale, which debuted in 1999, has been staged more than 1,000 times at home and abroad.
At 54, Meng is still pushing boundaries in theater. His new work, Sun and Temple, will premiere in Shenzhen on March 21 and 22.
The play, based on a script of the same title by Bertolt Brecht, is about an alcoholic billionaire who switches between different personalities under the influence of alcohol.
When rehearsing for the play, actors used to play musical instruments randomly. And Meng even encouraged his actors to compose for the play.
Speaking about this unusual process, Meng says: “The actors have performed in my works before and we are very close. So, I tried to offer them different perspectives to understand the script and the roles.
“It’s also an experiment for me to gain a different vision of theater.”
Another play by Meng, He Had Two Pistols with White and Black Eyes, which is adapted from a script of the same name by Nobel Literature laureate, Italian director and playwright Dario Fo, will be staged in Shenzhen on March 23 and 25. The play premiered in Beijing in 2016.
Meng, a Beijing native who graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, can still recall when his first play, Waiting for Gadot, based on a work by Irish playwright Samuel Becket (19061989), was staged in 1991. It ran for less than 20 shows.
But the theater veteran has come a long way, and he now owns his own company called Fengchao Theater which he set up 10 years ago.
The company has staged more than 1,000 shows in China and abroad.
“The number not only proves that my plays are popular but also shows that Chinese people now enjoy going to theaters and watching plays,” he says.
Meng is also keen to offer a platform for young Chinese artists. During the ongoing event, there will be four theater-themed exhibitions, including one showing stage photos by Hua Shan and Liu Chang and another showing posters designed by Nie Jingzhu.
The first edition of Contemporary Theater Biennale was held in Futian in 2016, and attracted more than 100,000 people.
Meng’s official cultural links with Futian district goes back to 2013, when he was invited by the local government to be its cultural consultant.
Since 2005, more than 200 shows of 20 of his plays, including Rhinoceros in Love and To Live and Soft, have been staged in Shenzhen.
For Meng, Shenzhen, a major city in Guangdong province, is a young and vibrant city.
The city, which neighbors Hong Kong, has grown from a fishing village into a modern metropolis after former leader Deng Xiaoping launched the country’s reform and opening-up policy 40 years ago.
Meng’s plays are not the only highlights of the Futian event as there are other Chinese plays on the performance list too.
Among them are The Karaoke Pig, written and directed by Chen Minghao, and Macbeth, adapted from William Shakespeare’s tragedy, by director Ding Yiteng. For those looking for something different, there is a performance workshop by Spanish theater company Aula3.