NATIONAL CONFIDENCE
Ansell and Leeds University students who starred in the adaption had a rehearsal in Fuzhou, in a park dedicated to commemorating the author, on Saturday. Local people, who have seldom seen westerners in drama, stood to watch, some with babies in their arms, others filming with smart phones.
George Clifford, the lead actor, is a fourth year student in Leeds University. Before the play, he and other performers learned Chinese language and drama techniques.
He told Xinhua that he loved Tang's works. But before doing this project, he found the plays "inaccessible" because of the language.
According to his schoolmate Jonathan Dowsett, language was not the only difficulty.
"In a [U.K.] contemporary theater, people are more used to something avant-garde," Dowsett said. "People can use the audience as part of the performance, while in Chinese theater it is very important to retain the traditional cultural experience."
While he suggests finding a balance to popularize traditional Chinese plays, Ansell said that cultural confidence was necessary.
"Is Tang Xianzu 'China's Shakespeare'? The answer is no," Ansell said. "But it's a very useful connection to make if only to show that it wasn't just Shakespeare who was making great art.
"The key point is that Tang is not Shakespeare. He doesn't need to be. He is the Chinese Tang. That's good enough."
"I think the Chinese need to be proud of the fact that they have Tang."
Britain and China have got a good basis of cultural exchanges, said Susan Adams. "China is opening up. Schools (in UK) now teach Mandarin, and we have lots of exchange visits."
More than 5,000 children in Britain are to learn Chinese as part of a scheme, which allows them to intensively study the language for eight hours per week, according to a recent Daily Mail report.
Zou Zizhen, a professor with the Minjiang University, believed that it is equally, if not more, necessary to popularize the plays domestically.
"If we want to have our culture spread across the globe, we must spread it within China first," he said.
Tang Tingshui, who is also a village doctor, said he had donated all the material he had about Tang Xianzu to the government.
"My fellow villagers and I are not so well educated. It's a bit hard to live up to being descendants of such a great person," he lamented.
