The Premier of Ding by Lao She – Beijing International Literary Festival 2013

Regular readers of this blog will know that we just had the premier of an adaptation of Lao She’s 1936 short story Ding. Here’s how it happened….

Back last summer when I published Anne Witchard’s Lao She in London as the first book in the Royal Asiatic Society Shanghai-Hong Kong University Press China Monographs series, Anne introduced me to Lao She’s Ding and we thought it might make a good one-man monologue. And so it was adapted and then, with Anne due to speak on her book at the Beijing International Literary Festival, we thought it might work well as a support to her presentation. At this point Kadi Hughes, the programmer for BILF, got involved and decided it was indeed a good idea. Kadi found Fabrizio Massini an Italian in Beijing developing theatre projects (through his company Elephant in the Room) and he kindly agreed to find an actor and direct it. He did, and found the excellent Wang Xuankun, a Beijing-based theatre, film and TV actor. Fabrizio also found George Holloway, an English composer currently studying in Beijing, who provided a soundtrack.

And so from Lao She’s wonderful short story (the importance of which is stressed in the short essay below) through Anne’s studies, to me, and then to Kadi, and on to Fabrizio, Xuankun and George. And eventually to the premier on Saturday 9th March at the BILF. Hopefully the (sell out!) audience enjoyed the event (I missed it, being in Australia at Adelaide Writers’ Week) and most were warmed up for it by attending Anne’s talk earlier on Lao She and London with Alan Babbington-Smith, a good friend who’s now establishing a Beijing branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.

So here’s some photos of Wang Xuankun in action as Ding

And Fabrizio, in the wings, gets to take a bow…