Cao Zhen

    caozhen0806@126.com

    IN the warm, humid months from late March to June, local performance, theater and ticketing company AC Orange’s subsidiary Orange Theater will host a series of stage shows in Shenzhen. In its fourth year, the Urban Drama Festival has become the city’s spring-summer tradition, with award-winning dances, contemporary classics and original plays on stage.

    By offering low-price tickets, 50-299 yuan (US$7.87-47) for each show, AC Orange hopes to combat the public perception of live theater as costly and inaccessible. “From the beginning we have designed this festival to shine a spotlight on the importance of locals having access to quality theater programs,” said Hu Liangzi, rotating CEO of AC Orange and CEO of Shenzhen Little Orange Castle Culture Communication Co. “We hope to help people connect with the city through this festival. In the past four years, the audience’s support and appreciation for art also encouraged us to find more creative programs.”

    This year, U.S. dance company BodyVox will present modern dance “Urban Meadow” on April 15. Ranging from the mysterious to the romantic and to the hilarious, “Urban Meadow” represents all the facets of BodyVox in an unforgettable program of dance theater that includes an extensive surprise that the company is keeping top secret and under wraps. Led by Emmy Award-winning choreographers Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland, BodyVox is known for its visual virtuosity, distinctive wit and unique ability to combine dance, theater and film into breathtaking productions rich in imagery, athleticism and humor.

    Geki x Cine from Japan brings “Aonoran” and “Banyuki” on June 4, two plays with ingenious settings. “Banyuki” is all about revenge and its motif is inspired by Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” The endless human drama around revenge is directed to a delicate and dynamic stage performance. “Aonoran” is an epic civil war drama centering on a fortune teller. Ten years ago she was driven out of her country when it was invaded. She then meets a clumsy but pure-hearted man, whom she falls in love with. But this turns out to be a roller-coaster ride for both of them.

    Geki x Cine, meaning “theater” and “cinema” in Japanese, uses a unique approach to theater that is a combination of filming and projection, so audience members can enjoy live theater performance plus striking close-up imagery and montage-edited projection.

    The Chinese version of French choreographer and director Pascal Rambert’s international-acclaimed play “Love’s End” will be staged June 29-30, played by Chinese performers Mi Le and Shao Sifan. Created at the 65th Festival d’Avignon in 2011, the original script won several French theater prizes. The show has been staged hundreds of times in France and all over the world after it has been adapted into 10 languages. The physically static and emotionally furious show is formed by a couple’s two-hour-long monologues with the listener responding with facial and body language.

    Other prominent plays are all in Chinese. Hong Kong stage queen Perry Chiu returns to Shenzhen on April 28-29 with her Cantonese play “The Golden Cangue,” adapted from legendary Shanghai writer Eileen Chang’s 1950 novella of the same name.

    Directed by Hong Kong award-winning movie director Ann Hui and written by prolific mainland writer Wang Anyi, the play centers on a woman who marries for money but finds herself wedded to the bedridden son of a wealthy family in the early 1900s. Lonely, she becomes attracted to her husband’s handsome brother. Caught in the frustration of her situation, she then embarks on a path of decadent self-destruction with an opium addiction and the obsessive ruination of her children. The “cangue” of the title is a metaphorical allusion to the inescapable situation in which the character finds herself.

    Chiu staged the drama in Shenzhen in 2009 and this rerun only has minor changes in cast. “The play has been staged 72 times since 2009. It is a god’s gift to me because the director, the writer and the cast are all brilliant,” said Chiu.

    To demonstrate the character’s self-destructive behavior, Chiu said she wears a pair of small shoes on stage to make her walking look like a zombie. “During the past eight years, audiences continue to inspire me. Their passion for Eileen Chang is thrilling. Many wrote their reviews of the novella and the play on my social media, which has helped me improve my comprehension of the character.”

    Those who have read Chang’s books know well that her heroines are tough, tortured, hopeful, manipulative and emotional, always battling between the things they need to do and the things they want. A fan of Chang, Chiu has her own drama company Perry Chiu Experimental Theater and staged musical “June Bride,” based on a screenplay by Chang for a 1960 Hong Kong movie, in 2011 in Shenzhen. But musical and literary classics are far from the only genre that the versatile stage queen has excelled in. She is noted for starring in plays dealing with sex and gender and having strong female leads, such as “The Vagina Monologues,” “Butterflies Are Free” and “Fire of Desire.”

    Chiu has a large fan base in China, and is sometimes labeled by the press as “controversial,” “bold” or “feminist.” But she said: “I’m not a feminist. I just view life from a woman’s angle and try to help the audience know more about women’s inner world.”

    Another Cantonese drama at the festival is “Shopkeeper Is Here” presented by local drama group DD·Bus on April 21-22. Directed by Chen Qichong, also the founder of the group, “Shopkeeper Is Here” combines comedy, martial arts and time-traveling elements.

    Chen, having studied performing arts at Shenzhen University, set up Shenzhen’s first Cantonese drama group DD·Bus to popularize Cantonese as the dialect declines in Shenzhen. To encourage more audience members to support stage art, “Shopkeeper Is Here” will also be staged in Cantonese and Mandarin.

    All the shows of the festival will be staged at Nanshan Cultural and Sports Center (Metro: Taoyuan). The full schedule can be found on the organizer’s website juooo.com.