Anna Christie, Eugene O'Neill's world-renowned four-scene drama, directed by the Chinese director Wang Xiaoying, was put on the stage in Beijing Monday.
The week-long performance was an important part of the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of China's national Meihua award for drama.
Anna Christie, completed in 1920, won O'Neill his second Pulitzer Prize. The story, in which the sea is a metaphor for misfortune, relates the life of the Christies.
Wang said the performance in Beijing was staged in a small theater to draw the Chinese audience closer to O'Neill. The set transformed the stage into part of a boat on the seaside to allow the audience to experience the "uncertainty of life" along with the actors.
Wang, Ph.D. in Drama, has won a number of national awards in the past 20 years. He has also staged a dozen foreign dramas on the Chinese stage.
Three Meihua award-winning artists had leading roles in the play. The young actress Wang Hong, in Anna's role, richly portrayed the tragedy of a good-hearted woman who falls into a life of prostitution.
(Xinhua News Agency April 8, 2003)
