Retreading the Bard
Beijing News review — the production premiered at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing in December — Li Jianming’s work is “extremely well suited to live performance”.
The director picked Chinese actor Hu Jun to play the role of Hamlet. Li Liuyi says Hu is the best contemporary Chinese actor for the role because of his involvement with theater productions before he became famous for portraying heroic characters in martial arts shows.
The director also made the bold decision to have Lu Fang, who happens to be Hu’s wife, to play the roles of Ophelia and Gertrude. In some scenes, these two characters appear on stage at the same time, requiring Lu to shift between two roles without a change in outfit.
“You will have no difficulty distinguishing the two characters,” Li Liuyi says. “Lu Fang is one of the best actresses from the Beijing People’s Art Theater, and you can analyze my design of her two roles using the Oedipus complex theories, but her rich-layered performance will tell more than just that.”
Veteran actor Pu Cunxin, who is the chairman of the China Theater Association, will play the role of Claudius and the ghost of the late king.
RSC’s Shakespeare Folio Translation Project aims to have all 36 of the playwright’s works translated to create a new collection of Chinese translations by 2023. The translations are tested through a series of workshops and rehearsals.
“Together, theater workers and translators will unpick the clues about meaning, character and pacing that have been ignored in previous translations,” says RSC artistic director Gregory Doran.