feature
Making History:
First Play in English Treads
the Boards in Beijing
text by Daragh Moller, photos courtesy of Tong Li
The Power, a two-act play by
Tong Li (Li is his surname), which
will premiere at the Century Theatre
on August 26, will be the first major
professionally produced play
written, acted and directed in the
English language in Beijing.
“It seems incredible, but it’s
absolutely true,” Li said during a
break in rehearsals in Beijing in
July. Li is also director of Noble
Theater Bridge, the US-based
production company that is funding
the play in Beijing.
“It struck me as a great
opportunity to show foreign visitors
to Beijing some of China’s fascinating history,” Li says.
The Power swing’s back
hundreds of years to the romantic
historical setting of the Tang
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BEIJING THIS MONTH
Dynasty (AD 618-907), a period
most likely unfamiliar to the city’s
200,000 or so foreign residents
and certainly completely unknown to
the majority of the 2.5 million
tourists that visit China each year.
The Power is set during a
golden age of literature and art and
is concerned with the myriad
tangles of love, power and tragedy
in the lives of a Chinese emperor,
his son and a woman they both
love. Known by the name Li
Shimin, Emperor Taizong, who
ruled for 23 years in AD 626-649,
and who was considered one of the
greatest of China’s legendary
emperors, is the play’s central
character.
Taizong’s acquisition of power
was swift and merciless. Despairing
of his father’s incompetence as
emperor and fed up with the
constant threats against him by his
brothers, Taizong launched a coup
at the Xuanwumen Gate in Chang’an
City north of Xi’an, Shaanxi. The
result brought the death of his
brothers and the forced abdication
of the emperor.
This ruthless taking of power
creates an historical setting for Li’s play.
And so the play:
On witnessing the murder of
her brother, a young princess
brings to safety a son her brother
is survived by. Grown up, the boy,
Prince Zhi, returns to court to
avenge his father’s death, the only
son of a liaison between Emperor
Taizong and Dai, his mother, an
imperial concubine.
The emperor has since moved
on to younger and sweeter things
and has fallen for Mei Niang, one of
his many imperial “talent” ladies.
Unluckily, Prince Zhi, the only heir
to the throne, also loves the young
beauty. But after saving the
emperor from a conspiracy to kill
him, Mei Niang is caught redhanded with the young prince in her
bed by the emperor. What does the
emperor do? Who does he blame
and who does he kill-the woman he
loves or his only heir?
The premiere production of The
Power, directed by Elena Manuela
Araoz, a New York director of
theatre and opera, will use Chinese
actors speaking in English.
Araoz has directed
Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
and Euripides, Medea and Mozart’s
Cosi Fan Tutte and Verdi’s Falstaff.
She was also assistant director on
Jonathan Miller’s Broadway
production of King Lear, starring
Christopher Plummer.
Other seasoned professionals
include Chinese actor Fan He
playing Emperor Taizong and
Australian movie star Nina Liu as
Mei Niang and the concubine Dai,
while Gaowei Qu plays the part of
Prince Zhi, Emperor Taizong’s son.
august 2005
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