One of the acclaimed plays of the Beijing Youth Theater Festival, which ends on Sunday, On the Road will continue to be performed at the Experimental Theater of Beijing People's Art Theater.
The physical play tells three stories of different people "on the road": a couple from the village struggle to survive in the city and get hurt physically and emotionally; office girl Nana finds her boring life repeated day after day as if in a nightmare; an old couple want to go back to their hometown but their three children refuse to accompany them.
Each of the five versatile actors from the Theater Santuoqi take on five or six roles in a span of two hours. They do not exchange any words but their impressive gestures can have you chuckling one second and in tears, the next.
"Life is a journey full of complex emotions and experiences. In summer, you should prepare for the winter. You can be happy, sad, angry or excited. Everything is an experience," says director Zhao Miao who founded the Theater Santuoqi in 1996.
Fascinated by French actor and mime Jacques Lecoq's methods of physical theatre, the graduate student of the Central Academy of Drama has explored physical theatre in his 1998 production, The War and Human, 6:3 (2003), A Love Rhapsody (2008), and 2008 Romeo and Juliet (2008).
* 7:30 pm, Sept 30 -Oct 7
* 22 Wangfujing Street
* 6525-0996, 6524-9847, 8511-6622 (for students)
(China Daily September 26, 2008)
