A natural wave of drama

At 3 am, the story of Romeo and Juliet began at the seaside theater in Aranya. The fate of the two star-crossed lovers resonated perfectly with the sunrise, blurring the lines between whether the play was following the natural rhythm of its surroundings or being masterfully directed by Chen Minghao.

One of the most talked-about works at the 2021 Aranya Theater Festival, Romeo and Juliet and Sea, will make a comeback at this year's event in June. The play will be performed by the Black Cat Theatre, accompanied by 10 independent musicians, playing live on the beach.

With the theme of "howls and whispers", this year's festival will take place from June 15 to 25, and focus on exploring and showcasing "how art can be expressed", using the natural scenery, green spaces and beaches to stimulate the potential and emotions of artists.

With four major categories — theater arts, crossover arts, evolution arts and public arts — the festival will be held in the Aranya Gold Coast Community, located on the coast of Qinhuangdao in Hebei province. A total of 38 domestic and international works will be presented. Over the course of 11 days, 14 cutting-edge dramas from a dozen countries and regions, including Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Hungary, will entertain Chinese audiences.

Additionally, 24 top-notch domestic works will bring a broad and rich sensory experience to audiences at the festival.

Performances will be held across 15 locations, including some of the distinctive buildings in Aranya, such as the Solitary Library and the Dune Art Museum, which will be adapted into theater venues.

Director Meng Jinghui, actress Zhang Ziyi and actor and director Chen Minghao are the artistic directors of the festival.

According to Meng, this year's festival brings a total of 46 artists, including representative figures from the global theater scene, as well as domestic avant-garde masters, dance troupes and emerging artists.

The international masterpieces presented at the festival cover a diverse range of genres, including works by Nobel laureates, new realism in serious theater, avant-garde deconstruction, puppetry and dance, new fantasy and digital art, Meng says.

"The artists, through their diverse cultural expressions and presentations, concentrate on exploring the conflicts and blends of human emotions and thoughts. We invite all audience members to view the fate of humanity and the future of the world with an open heart and broad perspective," Meng says.

The premiere performance of the festival will be The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, one of the most famous works of Nobel laureate and Austrian playwright Peter Handke. Directed by German director Robert Schuster, it has no dialogue and instead, surreal live sound effects replace language and become the narrative tool for the entire play.

Two-hundred sets of imaginative costumes and 200 bizarre props lead the audience on a journey through countless parallel universes. Meanwhile, 13 actors from around the world create cross-racial and cross-cultural collisions and interactions.

Meng himself will present his new play Twelve Love Poems to the festival. Adapted from the works of Moliere, the French "father of comedy", Chilean romantic poet Pablo Neruda and French contemporary literary existentialist writer Albert Camus, the play tells of the difficulties in finding love faced by two pairs of happy enemies and a musician pretending to be stubborn.

The play will be staged in the outdoor theater at the iconic Solitary Library with beach as the backdrop.

The festival has also invited the National Ballet of China to gather dozens of top ballet stars for a large-scale performance at the outdoor theater, where dancers will use the seaside scenery as their inspiration to showcase the power, lines and aesthetics of their bodies, dancing freely with nature.

Migratory Birds 300 is another highlight this year, where 300 artists from different backgrounds spend 300 hours to live and create together under the theme of sustainable environmental protection at Aranya.

Liu Chang, founder of this project, says the project is continuously growing and produces the "most romantic and diversified" works.

"I don't know what will be created until the 300 hours is over," he says.

Meanwhile, this year's festival will also see artists lead audiences to read in the unrestricted natural public environment — the seaside theater.