Acting master class

For more than 70 years, Beijing People's Art Theatre has been considered the flag bearer of Chinese drama.

Headquartered in Beijing, which is about 20 minutes walk from the bustling pedestrian shopping street of Wangfujing, the theater is home to many veteran Chinese actors and actresses, who have helped to build its reputation for solid acting techniques and work ethic.

"Now, we have three venues to stage plays, which is a very challenging mission. I want to bring good, high quality theatrical productions to the audience, which is our long tradition, so we need new actors and actresses to join us — that is vital for the future of the theater," says Feng Yuanzheng, president of the company and a veteran actor himself.

The three venues are the Capital Theatre, the home of Beijing People's Art Theatre; Juyin Theatre, also located in the Wangfujing area, which opened in 2015 and is named after Jiao Juyin (1905-75), director and cofounder of Beijing People's Art Theatre; and a new venue, Beijing International Theatre Center, which is located behind the Capital Theatre and houses two auditoriums within its area of 23,000 square meters.

On April 19, Beijing People's Art Theatre announced its latest training program for young actors and actresses, the recruitment for which had started in September. Twelve candidates, with an average age of 28, stood out from hundreds of applicants and will receive a year's training under veteran artists at the theater, such as Feng, Pu Cunxin, Wu Gang and Yue Xiuqing. Director Tang Ye will serve as the head of the program.

The students will also gain acting experience by appearing in the company's theatrical productions.

Back in 2019, Beijing People's Art Theatre launched its first training program for young acting talent, which saw 10 students graduate and join the company.

According to Feng, Beijing People's Art Theatre has often collaborated with art schools in the training of new recruits, but 2019 was the first time that the company began doing so independently.

"Beijing People's Art Theatre has a long tradition and its own acting standard and style. Our students will carry on that legacy, which is very important for the theater," says Feng.

"I asked the applicants who came to our auditions, 'why do you want to join Beijing People's Art Theatre', and some of them told me that they wanted to become stars," says Feng. "We look for good actors, but not stars. Good actors become stars because they can act. Being famous is not the goal.

"People have many more options for entertainment now. The same is true for people who create dramas. They have more opportunities, more challenges and more temptations. I hope that the young students will stay focused and passionate about the craft of acting," he says.

Feng also notes that one of the key areas of the training program is encouraging them to read as much as possible, since many classic theatrical productions by Beijing People's Art Theatre are based on literary works.

"Great dramatists, such as Cao Yu and Lao She, laid a solid foundation for the theater. Their scripts are classics and have been adapted into plays for decades. We will train the new recruits to read their scripts first and to understand them. They need to read the whole thing, not just the parts they are assigned," Feng adds.

"The first lesson that I will teach the students is, 'a play is bigger than the sky'," says Pu, 69, who has been working with the theater since 1986. "It's a slogan that has been inherited by the theater for more than 70 years and is printed on a huge banner that hangs on the rehearsal room wall."

"We love and respect drama," he says, adding that, as a novice, he was taught from the first day he joined the theater that a play is a like cabbage, and that everybody is a single leaf, meaning that, for the play to be full and complete, each "leaf", big or small, must fit together perfectly.

"It means we all work as one for the play, regardless of the size of our respective roles," Pu explains.

He Bing, 55, became an actor with Beijing People's Art Theatre in 1991, after he graduated from the Central Academy of Drama. He can still recall the acting classes he had, which were taught by Su Min (1926-2016), one of the company's first actors, who later became a director.

"I was a young student in the training program jointly launched by Beijing People's Art Theatre and the Central Academy of Drama. Su told us that the theater is a place full of magic and, after three decades of being an actor, I agree with him," says He. "Here we take acting seriously. We work for many years together, which is a romantic thing. I hope that the young people can cherish the opportunity of studying with us, and we will learn from one another."

One of the new recruits is 26-year-old Gong Yuquan, who graduated from Shanghai Theatre Academy. He learned about Beijing People's Art Theatre by watching a video of the theater's classic play, Teahouse, when he was a high school student.

"I became interested in acting after watching the video. I was deeply impressed by the acting and the story," recalls Gong. "Now, I am here with the actors and actresses who I saw on the video. I am very excited."