Sixty Years on and the Cycle Continues

LAST September saw the opening of Jiazi Garden, a hotly anticipated new play that features some of China’s oldest living drama heavyweights. Written by award-winning playwright He Jiping, the play’s maiden production was presented by the Beijing People’s Art Theater in celebration of its 60th anniversary.

The story takes place in a century-old house named Jiazi Garden whose inhabitants are all elders. This title holds heavy symbolism, as “jiazi” means a cycle of 60 years. This symbolism is all the more meaningful as the play progresses and the late owner’s daughter returns home after spending years overseas and decides to sell the property. Conflicts between the young heiress and the elderly tenants arise and lay bare the intricate relationship between the aged and the young in China, who often have disparate values and interests. Eventually an understanding is forged, and both sides gain deeper insights on life.

Jiazi Garden premiered at the 60th birthday of the Beijing People’s Art Theater.

Senior Stars Stand Tall

Eighty-five-year-old Lan Tianye has devoted most of his life to the stage, beginning his career in 1944 and later becoming one of the first actors of the Beijing People’s Art Theater. But he still feels like he has something more to give. “For my whole life what I’ve been most afraid of is to owe someone emotionally,” he said at the establishment of the Jiazi Garden production team. “To pay back my emotional debt to the art theater, I have to go back on the stage.” With Jiazi Garden he now has that opportunity. He has not only taken on the main role of the play, but is also its art director, two tasks that are a challenge for somebody of his advanced years.

But Lan isn’t the oldest cast member in the play. Ninety-year-old Zhu Lin has five years on him. “Most of my life was spent on the stage and in the rehearsal halls of the art theater,” she said. Her life’s passion is acting and bringing characters to life on stage. One of her most notable early roles was Lu Shiping in the Beijing People’s Art Theater’s first stage version of Cao Yu’s seminal 1933 work, Thunderstorm, which tells the tale of the physical and psychological deterioration of a family at the hands of its hypocritical and despotic patriarch. Since then she has shaped more than 50 characters on the theater’s stage.

Today Zhu Lin has to attend most social events in her wheelchair and her opportunities to act are few. When she heard about the play last year she had to make sure she was on the cast and went straight to the theater’s management to let them know she was interested. The playwright eventually added a character tailor-made for her, and she was soon attending rehearsals. “I’m so happy to have the chance to present the play with so many of my old friends,” she said at a press conference, where she insisted on standing to give her speech.