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By adapting American playwright Nagle Jackson's Taking Leave, director Wang Xiao-ying from the National Theater of China hopes to draw attention to the country's Alzheimer's community.
Written in 1996, Taking Leave is a well-known contemporary play in the United States that tackles a serious modern problem - Alzheimer's disease.
After being afflicted with the irreversible disease, the protagonist Eliot Pryne, a devoted Shakespearean scholar, has to part with what was once a clear and sophisticated mind and constantly confuses his own identity with a character he spent years studying - King Lear.
The story of the conceited Lear mirrors Pryne's own fate: Two of his three daughters see him as a burden, but he narrowly avoids dying alone when his seemingly detached youngest daughter offers to take care of him.
The father-daughter relationship is put to a cruel test, but the play ends well, with the characters finding their moral compass. Still, it's hardly a happy ending.
Alzheimer's is such a devastating disease that even Wang shudders to imagine the painful struggle of seeing one's own self-awareness drain away.
Wang saw the play when it was first staged in Denver in the United States in 1998. It immediately reminded him of a widely respected actor, the late Yu Shizhi, who struggled to maintain his life as an artist in his later years suffering hemiplegic paralysis. Wang has wanted to introduce the play to China ever since.
In the play's Chinese version, the protagonist's identity moves from a scholar to a Shakespearean actor, the only change that Wang made in tribute to Yu.
In this way, the pain of the disease is effectively interpreted in parallel with the emotional dilemma of being an actor - to wander between a true and invented self.
In the play, the writer has also invented a role called the "shadow", who represents the protagonist's self-awareness and visualizes his inner struggle.
When the shadow gets clearer and stronger, the old man becomes weaker. Eventually, the shadow bids farewell and leaves Pryne in darkness.
Having directed dozens of literary and theatrical classics, such as The Crucible and Copenhagen, Wang is known for his interest in the human condition and tackling tough realities.
"Taking Leave is not only an exploration of the lives of Alzheimer's victims, but more importantly, I wants the audience to feel the subtleties and complications of family relationships," he says.
"The meaning of leaving has many levels. If this story inspires people to think and encourages them to cherish those who are, or will be, leaving, then I'll call the play a success."
IF YOU GO
7:30 pm, July 2-6. National Theater of China, 277 Guang'anmen Wai Dajie (Street), Beijing. 4006-101-101.
hanbingbin@chinadaily.com.cn
