In the land of imagination, CHERRIES GIVE LIFE
Small theater companies in Beijing have had to think outside the box and outside their venues to get by in the days of COVID-19, Chen Nan reports. There’s never been anything like what we’re going through now, and it’s unclear when we’ll be able to put o
The play The Cherry Orchard by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was his final masterpiece, published in 1904 and premiering six months before his death in July that year. The play, following the decline of the upper-class Ranevskaya family, is one of Chekhov’s most popular among Chinese audiences and has often been adapted and staged in Chinese theaters.
Now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the classic work has gained a new layer of meaning.
On April 17 Li Yangduo, founder of Drum Tower West Theatre in Beijing, published an open letter on the theater’s social media platform, saying: “Every April we celebrate the birthday of the Drum Tower West Theatre, but this year, because of the COVID19 outbreak, those celebrations cannot be held. Spring has come but COVID-19 has become a pandemic, a threat to the theater business like no other. We are unsure about our future. What can be done? We’ve decided to save ourselves.”
As part of that financial rescue effort Li came up with the idea of selling cherries, which was inspired by the theatrical producer Li Ge. Early this year he returned to his hometown, a small village of Yantai, Shandong province, to celebrate Lunar New Year with his family. The COVID-19 outbreak means Li Ge’s production work has been put on hold, and for the past few months he has been living with his parents instead of returning to Beijing.
“This is the longest time by far that I’ve stayed with my parents since I left to go to university in Beijing,” says Li Ge, who helps on the family farm. However, the coronavirus has also taken a toll on the fruit trade, and Li Ge uses his social media platforms to sell cherries for his family and the village.
“When I saw that Li was selling cherries it immediately piqued my interest,” Li Yangduo says. “Of course I’m a huge fan of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and when I saw the pictures of real cherry trees that Li Ge posted on line it struck a chord with me.”
Inside the Drum Tower West Theatre there is bookshop called Cherry Orchard, named, obviously, in Chekhov’s honor.
“There’s never been anything like what we’re going through now, and it’s unclear when we’ll be able to put on shows again, but we’re determined to keep the theater alive,” Li Yangduo says.
Theater buffs have responded warmly to the drive to raise money, and within three days of the cherries going on sale, more than 1,500 kilograms of the fruit had been sold.
“It’s far beyond what I’d expected,” Li Yangduo says. “Of course, we’d never sold fruit before, but we knew people would want to show their support and that like us they are really keen to get back to watching plays. For all of us the theater is a land of imagination that is full of joy.”
Drum Tower West Theatre, founded six years ago, has become one of the most popular small private theaters in Beijing. It has produced 12 plays, including The Pillowman, adapted from the award-winning play of the same title by the IrishBritish playwright and director Martin McDonagh, and Thunderstorm, by the renowned Chinese playwright Cao Yu.
Last year nearly 300 performances were staged at Drum Tower West Theatre, attracting about 60,000 theatergoers. Plays the theater has produced also toured the country last year, with more than 60 performances, and attracting about 60,000 theatergoers.
Li Yangduo says that in the first half of this year the theater was going to present two plays, The Pillowman and One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand, adapted from the novel of the