Lin Zhaohua's Coriolanus Debuts at the EIF

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　　The Beijing People's Art Theatre has made its debut¹ at the Edinburgh International Festival.

 

　　It's also the European premiere of Chinese director Lin Zhaohua's version of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus.

 

　　CRI's UK correspondent Tu Yun has more.

 

　　Shakespeare and heavy metal rock?

 

　　That sounds a bit odd.

 

　　But that's what Chinese director Lin Zhaohua did in 2007 when he first introduced the Tragedy of Coriolanus to the Beijing People's Art Theatre with two rock bands, Miserable² Faith and Suffocated³.

 

　　"Rock music is more powerful in demonstrating confrontation⁴."

 

　　And six years later, it hits the stage of the Edinburgh International Festival.

 

　　All in Mandarin⁵ Chinese; all in plain modern colloquial⁶ language.

 

　　"I think it's important for people in the United Kingdom to experience very different interpretations⁸ of the works of William Shakespeare."

 

　　Jonathan Mills is the director of the festival.

 

　　"Shakespeare is of course a British playwright⁹. But he's a world figure. And he's open therefore to interpretation⁷ across many different genres¹⁰ of art, and across many different cultures."

 

　　Set in Republican Rome, Coriolanus describes the predicament faced by a victorious¹¹ military commander after he becomes a policymaker.

 

　　It sheds light on the contradiction between the general public and those with ruling power.

 

　　That's the most attractive part to the 77-year old Chinese director.

 

　　"What I value most is the relationship between the ordinary people and the ruling group. That's it. Nothing more. The contradiction is always there. That's the case in China, in Britain, and all over the world."

 

　　That's also what's impressed Mills most.

 

　　"The interpretation from Lin Zhaohua, I think he's making a strong reference not only to a very particular form of drama from the late 16th, early 17th century. But he's also perhaps making a statement, a symbol of the emergence¹² of the People's Republic of China - how these acts of selflessness and heroism¹³ built a new nation and the challenges. And I read it as a contemporary metaphor¹⁴ for China."

 

　　Mills has been in contact with Lin Zhaohua for years, hoping the Chinese director could bring his production to Edinburgh.

 

　　But it's not until this year that Mills successfully incorporated Lin's work into the program.

 

　　Pu Cunxin, the leading actor of the play, who's also the deputy president of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, explains.

 

　　"The budget is one of the problems. We've got an eighty-strong cast, which could be a big burden for any organizer. This time, the organizers have spent heavily on this, owing a lot to the sponsor. Otherwise, only ticket sales can barely cover it."

 

　　The production is supported by China's Ministry¹⁵ of Culture and the KT Wong Foundation.

 

　　Tickets for the two-day performance were sold out days before it premiered.

 

　　For CRI, I'm Tu Yun in Edinburgh.

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