This month and last should have been showtime in Beijing, but severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has changed the lives of both theatre-goers and performers.
The municipal government has taken every precaution to stop the spread of the epidemic by temporarily closing down entertainment venues. Performances and even rehearsals have been postponed.
However, performers are making use of the time to prepare for shows that will be staged next season after SARS is under control.
Drama stage
After The Zhao Family Orphan and the experimental show I Love Peach Flowers were suspended late last month, the Beijing People's Art Theatre organized some famous performers to create a seven-minute-long performance poem Solidarity Like a Fortress (Women zhongzhi chengcheng) to highlight people's courage and aspirations to overcome SARS.
The performers, including the popular actor Pu Cunxin, who is also the prestigious theatre's newly-appointed vice-president, recited the poem on a TV special on the fight against SARS.
The theatre has also begun soliciting drama scripts about touching stories in the national campaign against SARS.
"In China's long history, many social disasters and the scourge of war have given birth to great artistic works," Pu told China Daily. "Now, in the face of the SARS threat, medical personnel and many other people have displayed bravery and devotion.
"We stage performers have the duty to gather together stories to refine and recreate in the theatre to express our appreciation and support," said Pu.
When most Chinese still turned pale at the mere mention of AIDS, Pu became China's first promoter for AIDS prevention and treatment in 2000. He visits AIDS hospitals and makes friends with the patients.
Last year, he also played the leading role of an AIDS victim in the TV serial Lost Paradise.
Pu has done everything he can to improve people's awareness of HIV/AIDS and to decrease their fear of and discrimination against AIDS victims. He said: "Knowing the scientific way to prevent and treat a disease is important to control it. AIDS is such a case, and the same is true of SARS. It is the lack of knowledge of SARS that makes people panic.
"Scientists across the world have joined together and they come up with new developments every day. So we should remain optimistic and believe we will eventually win the battle."
Pu said that, as soon as the epidemic is under control, the Beijing People's Art Theatre will stage shows specially for those working at the SARS battle front.
The National Drama Theatre of China also had to stop this season's two plays -- Copenhagen and its version of The Zhao Family Orphan.
Wang Xiaoying -- the theatre's vice-president and the director of Copenhagen -- announced last week that the theatre's 2003-04 season has been postponed until August.
The first play -- My Face Bathed in Tears If You Call Me Brother -- is scheduled to be staged from August 5. Then Copenhagen will be presented in September.
The Beijing-based theatre will also bring a week of drama to Shanghai at the end of September and beginning of October. The first show will be the premiere of The Zhao Family Orphan directed by Tian Qinxin.
It is very rare for a Beijing theatre's play to debut in Shanghai.
Wang said: "SARS is part of the reason but not all of it.
"As a national drama company, we planned to premiere our productions outside the capital.
"The capital's theatre market is limited and we are under great pressure from the box office. So we decided to go on tour and hope that widespread reviews from outside Beijing can help improve our reputation as well as how the box office does in the capital."
Wang also explained that the National Drama Theatre does not have its own theatre building at the moment. Its home will be the National Grand Theatre being built beside the Great Hall of the People.
The director also said he expected the Shanghai performances of Copenhagen and The Zhao Family Orphan to be better than the versions currently being rehearsed in Beijing.
"It is better to put off a new production for a while before it is premiered," he said. "The director and the performers should have some time to cool off and be free from the play to think about for a second and even third time.
"Although they cannot gather in the rehearsal halls, they are doing homework, thinking of the roles, memorizing the scripts or pondering the action," Wang said.
The Shanghai drama week will also feature Wang's 2002 production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Rhinoceros in Love directed by Meng Jinghui (who directed the film Chicken Poets) and the Eugene O'Neill play Long Day's Journey into Night directed by Zha Mingzhe.
Zha plans to rehearse the O'Neill play in July, by which time he hopes that the SARS epidemic will be under control.
After Shanghai drama week, the National Drama Theatre of China will return to the capital to give Beijing audiences a theatrical feast in November.
Symphony orchestras
The China Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra is implementing crisis management, according to Yu Long, its artistic director.
The orchestra has cancelled group rehearsals and concerts and distributed medicine and gauze masks among orchestra members. Yu is working on long-term plans, including next season's programs.
Yu shows great confidence and optimism in what he calls his "pyramid crisis management".
For example, the first violin reports to the violin group leader; the violin group leader reports to the string section leader; the string section leader reports to the orchestra director; and then the orchestra director reports to Yu.
As for next season, Yu plans to adjust some of originally planned programs. "We should restore some concerts we have cancelled for this season," he said. For example, the orchestra was originally scheduled to play all of Mahler's symphonies within the three years since the orchestra was established in 2000, but the concert of Symphony No 10 was cancelled. "I will bring back that work next season," Yu said.
Yu, who is also artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival, is busy with preparations for this year's festival.
"If SARS can be controlled by August, this year's festival will go ahead as usual. If not, we have other plans. But, so far, we are still preparing for the event," he said.
Now Yu and his staff are mainly concentrating on analyzing past events. "It is necessary to review some old cases to improve the festival's management and artistic quality in the future," Yu said. "We now have plenty of time to make more detailed and clear-cut regulations and contracts."
Li Xiao-Lu, the newly appointed musical director of the National Symphony Orchestra of China, had to leave Beijing for the United States last week, with regret that his first season with the orchestra's had been postponed.
The busy conductor and violinist originally planned to spend 12 weeks in Beijing this spring and summer as part of his commitment with the orchestra. But he had to revise his schedule and fly back to the United States to continue his work with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in New London and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in Miami, Florida.
But he said SARS will not prevent him from taking the Chinese orchestra into a new professional season starting in September.
"I worked with the orchestra for several weeks, starting in January," Li said. "I have made friends with the orchestra's musicians and other executive staff, achieving better relations between every section of the orchestra.
"That is an important step in professionally managing an orchestra," Li said.
He said he has written new regulations for the orchestra following discussions with orchestra president Yu Songlin and vice-president Guo Shan and the orchestra members.
"I will follow standard international practice in running the orchestra," Li added.
He said the orchestra also held auditions and hired several newcomers from conservatories and other orchestras in China. Everyone signs a detailed and clear-cut contract with Li's orchestra.
He also promised to get some well-known foreign soloists and conductors to co-operate with the orchestra.
"I will contribute my learning and efforts to the making of a professional Chinese orchestra on a par with its international peers," he said.
Opera theatre
The China Central Opera Theatre is concentrating on creating a new opera. According to Liu Xijin, who the Ministry of Culture appointed the theatre's president in January, the theatre has decided to produce an opera based on the story of Du Shiniang, a legendary courtesan of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
As for the performers, Liu said: "It's not safe to have the performers gather in the rehearsal room at present, so we are having them work at home now."
The artists are required to prepare for Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, the two operas originally scheduled to run this month.
After the SARS panic is over, the company also plans to tour the country.
Ballet
The National Ballet of China has cancelled its scheduled May tour of Shaanxi Province and its July tour of Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.
According to Zhao Ruheng, the ballet company's president, the dancers have kept up their training and rehearsing in turn, with fewer than 15 people scattered in several rooms every day.
Choreographers Wang Xinpeng in Germany and Wang Yuanyuan in Beijing are both working on a revised edition of the Raise the Red Lantern ballet, directed by Zhang Yimou.
The company originally planned to restage the ballet in July but has postponed the show until later in the year.
Dancers with the Beijing Modern Dance Company, however, have returned to their normal work.
The company's Lian Guodong said it was a pity that this year's Beijing Modern Dance Festival had been cancelled, but the dancers still train every day to prepare for their Los Angeles tour, which is scheduled for August.
(China Daily May 15, 2003)
