STAGING AN ANNIVERSARY

Two stage adaptations — The Border Town, based on the eponymous 1934 novella by noted Chinese writer Shen Congwen (1902-88), and The Pillowman, adapted from the award-winning play with the same title by Irish-British playwright and director Martin McDonagh — will be staged in Beijing and Shanghai in May and June.

The performances will mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of Drum Tower West Theatre, which is one of the most popular small theaters in the capital.

Directed by experimental theater creator Ruth Kanner, The Border Town, which opened on Thursday, is the first immersive theatrical production by Drum Tower West Theatre and will be staged in Shanghai to June 2 and in Beijing from June 13 to 16.

Set in Fenghuang county, an idyllic rural area in the far west of Hunan province, The Border Town follows a young woman named Cuicui, who lives with her grandfather. Her family makes a living operating a ferryboat across a river outside the small town of Chadong.

Cuicui, who is coming of age, begins to feel her first romantic love. However, while falling in love with a young man named Nuosong, Cuicui realizes that Nuosong's brother, Tianbao, also has feelings for her. She struggles to navigate between her love and family duties, and encounters doubts about the future.

Unlike in traditional theater, where audiences sit in rows and face the stage, the director lets the audience sit around the stage with actors and actresses performing in the center.

Kanner, who has been involved in experimental theater productions since the early 1980s, is a professor at the Department of Theater Arts of Tel Aviv University, Israel, who also leads the Ruth Kanner Theatre Group in Tel Aviv. Over the past two decades, she has worked in many countries, including China and India.

She read the English translation of the novel and tried to break the boundaries between the audiences and performers. She also invited Chinese musicians to play live music onstage with 19 instruments featured in the show. Actors and actresses sing along with the songs written by Chinese singer-songwriter Xiao He.

"The audiences form a 'river flow' with their seats scattered around the stage, which is a key element in the play," the director says.

"I am always intrigued by the relationship between theater and its audiences. The Border Town allows me to explore new possibilities in theater."

According to Li Yangduo, founder of Drum Tower West Theatre, the idea of launching the theater's first immersive theatrical production was born in 2023, after she noticed the changing tastes of the audience members born after 2000.

"These young people, unlike audiences of my generation, embrace change. Immersive theater places them within the show, instead of leaving them as observers. It transforms them from passive recipients to active participants," says Li.

In September 2023, The Border Town premiered at Drum Tower West Theatre.

The Pillowman, directed by Zhou Ke, whose oeuvre includes some 20 stage plays and one film, was Drum Tower West Theatre's opening production back in April 2014. McDonagh's Olivier Award-winning play follows a writer whose short stories seem to echo the child murders taking place in his town.

Every year, Drum Tower West Theatre makes a new version of the classic play, and this new version will feature actors Zhou Yiwei, Zhang Benyu and Wang Zichuan. It will be staged by different cast members in Beijing from May 23 to 26, and in Shanghai from May 30 to June 2.

The theater, which is tucked away in a narrow hutong (traditional-style alleyway) in downtown Beijing's Gulou Xidajie, or Drum Tower West Street, was born after Li, a former owner of an advertising company in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, moved to Beijing in 2010.

"The first time that I saw the empty and abandoned theater hidden in the hutong, I could envision how it now looks as Drum Tower West Theatre," recalls Li, who studied economic management in university and worked as a statistician for a State-owned company in her hometown in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province.

She moved to Shenzhen in 1996 and, a year later, she founded an advertising company in Guangzhou. She also became a producer and distributor of television dramas and TV movies.

Her interest in theater began in 2009, when she was introduced to Stan Lai's play, The Village, a 3.5-hour epic about people from the Chinese mainland who live in Taiwan, since her company was involved in publicizing the show in Guangdong. The following year, she moved to Beijing, where she watched many plays.

"I was overwhelmed by my theater experiences, laughter and tears. I wanted something thought-provoking, something unique for theatergoers," says Li.

The opening play, The Pillowman, received immediate and positive feedback. Since then, Drum Tower West Theatre has become a favorite hangout for young theater lovers.

Over the past 10 years, the venue has produced 34 plays. Besides adapting Western classics, it also produced plays based on the stories of Chinese writers, such as renowned novelist Liu Zhenyun. The theater also initiated a variety of programs to connect with audiences, such as amateur acting classes.

"The theater is still very young, and I am grateful about the past 10 years, from the successes to the struggles we've experienced," says Li. "The love of theater remains unchanged. And we have a lot of ideas for the next 10 years."