Half a century ago, Russians exerted great influence on New China's performing arts, introducing not only classical Western ballet but also Stanislavsky's drama to the country.
Back then, Russian masters were invited to help establish the ballet school in Beijing and teach Chinese students the "Swan Lake."
Meanwhile, Chinese pioneer dramatists introduced the Stanislavsky's theory of drama and produced quite a few plays in the realistic Russian style.
Fifty years on, dozens of Russian ballet companies come to China every year and have conquered the Chinese audience.
In comparison, only students at Chinese drama academies and drama devotees know of Stanislavsky, with a few Chinese drama companies staging a smattering of Russian plays over the years.
Extremely few Russian drama companies have toured Beijing in the past decade.
The State Academy Maly Drama Theatre from Moscow is going to change this by staging Alexander Ostrovsky's play, "Even A Wise Man Stumbles," at the Poly Theater on March 24 and 25.
The theatre's China debut is made possible under the auspices of the 2006 Year of Russia in China, with sponsorship from governments of both China and Russia.
Ostrovsky's classic, performed in Russian with Chinese subtitles, is about a cynical and unprincipled man who tries to get what he wants through any means possible.
The playwright
Ostrovsky (1823-86) was born and brought up in the commercial district of Moscow, away from the city's major thoroughfares. Destined by his father for a career in commerce, the young Ostrovsky's first employment was with the Moscow civil court.
His observations from those days of different types of merchants and the setting in which they lived, were to provide him with material for most of his 50 plays.
He was considered the creator of the Russian "comedy of manners" in an age when the realistic school was supreme in Russian literature and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy were creating their classic fiction.
His plays have had enormous and lasting success in the Russian theatre from his own time down to the present day and their popularity is unrivalled.
In Russia, the greatest directors of the 20th century have been attracted to his work.
Stanislavsky staged "The Snow Maiden" and "A Yearning Heart." Dramatist Danchenko who founded the Moscow Art Theatre with Stanislavsky staged "Even a Wise Man Stumbles" in 1944.
"In a comedy of charm and audacity, Ostrovsky's view of human nature is uncompromising," comments Su Min, veteran director and former vice-president of Beijing People's Art Theater. "Everyone is a practitioner of guile, deceit and treachery."
Su played Gloumov when the theater first staged the Chinese version of the play in 1962 and directed the play when the theatre revived the production in the late 1980s.
However, in Su's view, Gloumov and his mother admit to their shortcomings. Therefore, they are not hypocrites.
"The play is crammed full of weird and wonderful characters, and is a perennially fresh satire on society and the way it craves its scoundrels and scandals," said Su.
"It is an example of Russian comic satire, ridiculing ... follies in bold theatrical strokes," said Tong Daoming, a drama critic from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who was once a visiting scholar in Moscow.
The play and the company
However, the State Academy Maly Drama Theater is going to stage a version which is "a
little different from all the previous productions," Vladimir Beilis, director of this production, said.
He attempts to make it a parable of modern political life.
"It is not that satirical," Beilis said. "I don't want to satirize anybody. There is always young man like Gloumov in any society. We cannot say if he is right or wrong, good or bad."
Beilis reveals that in a scene, Gloumov will step down from the stage to communicate with the audience, because "many audiences are like Gloumov in their ways."
Today, many theatres in Russia are running this play, Beilis said.
"In my point of view, the story of Gloumov and his relatives and friends continues to happen today in Russia and other countries. Society keeps changing, but Ostrovsky wrote something far beyond the times in which he lived and it continues to matter now," said the director.
Though much less well-known today than the Bolshoi or the Moscow Art Theatre, the State Academic Maly Drama Theater won its renown during the 19th-century as a venue for social and political satires. The name Maly comes from Russian for "small," since the auditorium is a lot smaller than that of the Bolshoi.
Opened in 1824, the Maly Drama Theater is Moscow's first drama theater and is known as Moscow's second university because of the hugely influential role it has played in Russia's enlightenment.
A number of plays of Alexander Griboyedov (1795-1829), Nikolai Gogol (1809-52), and Ostrovsky premiered here, making it an early centre for a culture of intellectual opposition in Russia.
The "small" theater was especially special for the satirist Ostrovsky most of whose works debuted here. The theatre is also dubbed the House of Ostrovsky, in much the same way that the Comedie-Francais in Paris is the House of Moliere.
The Maly Drama Theater honours Ostrovsky's contribution with a seated sculpture of him outside.
Today, the Maly Drama Theatre remains a unique theatrical company, nurturing Russian theatrical traditions without becoming dull and old-fashioned.
Highly talented ensemble casts and a deep respect for the playwright form the troupe's signature style.
"Similar claims about authentic Russian theater can often be misleading, especially for the uninitiated audience," said Tong who watched quite a few of dramas performed by the Maly Theatre in Moscow.
"A theatre newcomer can easily end up seeing a boring and stiff traditional show, where the brand 'traditional' only serves as a feeble shield to cover the director's embarrassing lack of ideas."
"But this is not the case with Maly," Tong added.
Other renowned Russian theaters will follow in the steps of the Maly Theatre to present their shows in Beijing and enrich the Year of Russia in China.
(China Daily March 2, 2006)
