Let's talk about it

Play gives audience chance to listen to the life experiences, be they bitter or sweet,of one particular performer or the entire cast at the same time, Chen Nan reports.

It is 6 pm, Tuesday, and it's getting dark outside. Sixteen people of various occupations and ages gather at a small rehearsal room located in the capital's downtown and they didn't know what to expect.

From a nephrologist in her 30s, a computer teacher in his 40s to a singer-songwriter in her 20s and a dumpling restaurant owner in his 50s, they are among the 19 amateur performers of director Li Jianjun's play, titled One Fine Day.

On that particular day, they met for the first time. To warm up, the director asked them to play games, such as walking in circles at various paces, during the first two hours, and the final hour saw them rehearse the play.

They have a week to prepare before the show, which will be staged on Sept 25, 26 and 27 at the National Theatre of China in Beijing.

The 70-minute play will see them recount their personal stories and their life experiences onstage. They will sit in a row and wear signal transmitters.

The audience will be provided with headphones and signal receivers before entering the theater.

They can listen to different stories by tuning into the specific channel of the performers' signal transmitters.

The audience members have to make decisions as part of this theater experience, says the director.

"They can listen to one person's narration from the beginning to the end, or they can listen to different people talk. They can also take off the headphones and listen to the talking of all performers, which will be chaotic," says Li.

"For the people on the stage, all they need to do is to talk and finish their stories."

The play, One Fine Day, premiered in 2013 in Beijing as Li sought to build up a different relationship between actors and the audience in the theater.

Since the day of the play's birth, it has been performed by amateur actors and actresses.

So far, the play has five versions and has been staged in five cities: Beijing, Hangzhou of Zhejiang province, Shanghai, Shenzhen of Guangdong province and Hong Kong.

Letting ordinary people tell their stories is challenging because their stories have to be different, convincing and must resonate with the audience.

When the play is restaged, it gathers a group of new people telling their stories, which keeps the play alive and always new.

Over 100 people have performed in the play, ranging in age from 16 to 91.

Evolution of each step

Li says that One Fine Day has evolved by itself and he enjoys observing the reactions of the audience during the show.

When the show ends, those people depart the stage to return to their lives. "There are some people who still keep in touch with us. For example, a person from our Shanghai version sends weather forecasts in the group chat, which we launched when the show recruited actors and actresses in Shanghai five years ago."

Li didn't plan to restage the play this year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, theaters have been forced to shut down.

On Aug 10, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said theaters could limit attendance at each performance to 50 percent of capacity, with audience members not allowed to sit next to one another. It enabled theaters to gradually get back to normal.

In July, Li, who is the deputy director of Beijing Young Dramatists Association, started to prepare for the annual Beijing Fringe Festival, one of the biggest theater events in the capital and founded by renowned director Meng Jinghui in 2008. The idea of restaging the play, One Fine Day, came to his mind.

Beijing Fringe Festival, which will be held from Sept 25 to Nov 15, will see 13 Chinese plays being staged in Beijing, Xiamen of Fujian province and Xi'an of Shaanxi province.

According to Meng, the founder and artistic director of the festival, this year, there are 157 candidate plays, the highest number of applicants to the festival to date.

"The creativity of young Chinese theater workers is vibrant and we feel proud of introducing some of their best works to festival audiences this year," says Meng, adding that the plays will also be streamed online.

Li, born and raised in Lanzhou, Gansu province, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater set design. He worked for a national theater company for two years before returning to the university to pursue a master's degree in the same major.

The 48-year-old directed his first play in 2007 and had his works staged during the Beijing Fringe Festival. He is known for working with amateur actors and actresses. In 2011, he founded the New Youth Group and directed plays, such as Popular Mechanics (2018) and A Brief History of Human Evolution (2019).

Like other people confined at home during the pandemic, Li stayed in with all his plans for new plays postponed, but luckily, he had lots of time to review his past works and talk with his friends online or on the phone.

"We always get busy for the next project and suddenly, we are offered the chance to slow down and look back. It was like a watershed moment. I couldn't help thinking about my past works, such as One Fine Day," says Li.

A common cause

For the latest version of One Fine Day, over 300 people applied to participate, and 19 people were chosen.

The director spent about 10 hours interviewing each applicant, a couple hours each time for four or five times, helping them to find the proper stories to tell onstage.

"It was a long process, which was exhausting but exciting," says Li.

"We are total strangers but because of the play, we talk like friends. Those applicants told me their most personal stories and feelings, which they might never share with their families and friends."

One of the participants, Xu Yimian, a 33-year-old woman, lost her theater job due to the coronavirus pandemic.

After graduating from the Central Academy of Drama, one of the most established drama schools in China, in 2013, Xu worked in theaters, including the Drum Tower West Theatre and the Beijing Penghao Theatre, as a planner or doing other related work.

"Theaters were some of the first venues to be shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. They've gone without income all this time, and no one knows when they will be able to reopen," says Xu, who is working as a librarian in Aranya, a popular coastal resort in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, nearly 300 kilometers away from downtown Beijing.

"I applied to be in the play because I am interested in theater, even though I am no longer working in the industry," says Xu. "I am looking forward to sharing my stories related to the theater."

Another participant in the play is 19-year-old Li Jirui, who returned home to Beijing from the United States recently. She is studying Chinese study and economics at Stony Brook University in New York.

She watched the play's premiere in Beijing back in 2013. However, she was merely 12 years old then and couldn't really understand the stories shared by the people on stage.

"During the pandemic, my father, a childhood friend of the director, talked a lot with him, especially of his worries about me when I was in New York, and I was invited to share stories about my life there," says Li Jirui, adding that she has no experience of performing onstage.

Li Jirui says she'd love to tell her stories as "it is an important experience for all of us, which we will never forget".

"I guess many overseas Chinese students share similar experiences as me, such as making the decision to come back to China or not, and anxiety about flight cancellations," she says, adding that she hopes when the pandemic wanes, she can return to her university to complete her studies.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn