“Cao Yu was one of the most important figures of Chinese spoken drama. If we consider Henrik Ibsen as the father of modern Western drama, then Cao Yu is the father of Chinese spoken drama (as opposed to Chinese opera). I’m saying that not just because history portrays him that way but I realize through his work that it is so. For example, his characters – be they from Thunderstorm, Wilderness or Sunrise – are all considered modern drama’s classical characters. Like Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Nora from A Doll’s House, and so on.” The words are those of Fredric Mao, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre’s artistic director, during an interview after a rehearsal for the Hong Kong Rep’s 2006-2007 season opener.

This year is both the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chinese spoken drama and the 30th birthday of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre – a fine excuse, Mao thought, to reintroduce the works of one of his favourite playwrights, Cao Yu (1910-1996), to Hong Kong audiences.
Mao says that one of the things that has struck him about Cao Yu is how extraordinarily diverse and wide-ranging his plays and their characters are; it would be a real pity, he thinks, if people watched just one Cao Yu work and consider it could represent the legendary Chinese playwright’s entire oeuvre. So rather than stage a single play, he decided to try something different. “Because I’m greedy,” he says with a charming smile, he put together a production which picks at not one but three famous Cao
Yu plays.

Thus, the first act of the production he has called From Sunset to Sunrise – The Quintessential Cao Yu comprises excerpts from Wilderness (1937), a work that looks into struggles in the hearts of three powerful and colourful characters, and Peking Man (1940), which questions whether members of a once affluent family are clowns as well as victims. The second act will be entirely taken up by a lengthier excerpt from the much acclaimed Sunrise (1936) whose central character, Chen Bailu, will be played by Mao’s wife, singer-actress Amy Wu.
In his bid to make Cao Yu’s work resonate with contemporary Hong Kongers, the director transposed the old Shanghai metropolitan setting of Sunrise to Hong Kong in the 1970s and recast Cao Yu’s Mandarin into languages more accessible to the people of our city.
The dialogue in Wilderness and Sunrise will be in Cantonese while, in a move that might surprise many (especially in view of it being close to 10 years since Hong Kong’s handover), Peking Man will be staged in English – though the entire production will have surtitles in Chinese and English.

Mao has two reasons for feeling that Peking Man – which will star Lynn Yau – will work adapted into a European language. “First of all,” he explains, “Peking Man to me is the Cao Yu play closest to the plays of Anton Chekhov, especially in the dialogue but also the pacing.” So it already has a western flair and feel. Then there’s the fact that Mao was involved in a landmark English language presentation of Peking Man in New York back in the early 1980s. Not only did he have a leading role in the professional Columbia University production of the play, but the performance was a personal welcome to Cao Yu who at the time had been invited to visit the USA.

Still, that is not to say the decision to stage Peking Man for the first time in English in Hong Kong is not without its challenges, and especially for the audience. But rather than shy away from experimentation, Mao is positively embracing it “because I’ve got such faith in Cao Yu”. And also because “for me, as [this excerpt] contains the essence of the play as a whole in English, … a more stylised presentation can come about, one with a fresh touch so that the audience will really look at it from a different angle.

“I’ve never directed a Cao Yu play before. But recently, I’ve looked back and realized that Cao Yu is not only a legend of Chinese drama but his plays are relevant and wonderful material, worthy of reintroduction to a new audience. Just like in the West, we reintroduce Ibsen from time to time, we reintroduce Chekhov from time
to time…”

The way Mao sees it, there are numerous reasons why the works of the father of Chinese spoken drama are relevant to a contemporary Hong Kong audience. For one thing, Cao Yu was forward looking and wrote much about the future. And for another, he wrote optimistically about hope and human liberation, enjoining people – especially women – to break the chains that traditional society had cast upon them. And after all, “We are still fighting corruption, we are still fighting against a corrupted life…” he says.

Mao takes great pains to point out that Cao Yu’s works tend to showcase human strength, courage, the capacity for hope and the willingness – to throw in a bit of American parlance – to ‘go for it’. “All of Cao Yu’s plays are full of humanity, full of love for the human character. He has a lot of sympathy, a lot of empathy, for his characters.” And, no doubt because of this, “every one of his plays possess characters that come across as very much alive.”

So it’s not coincidental that the English title of this Hong Kong Repertory Theatre production has an optimistic edge: from Sunset to Sunrise – from darkness to light. Though Mao is more literal: he is “giving the excerpt of Wilderness that begins the production a sunset/early evening temporal setting, Peking Man (the middle piece) takes place in the middle of the night while the third and final part of the performance, Sunrise, of course has a dawn setting. So there is some sense of time in the production’s presentation!”

The Chinese title of this play is entirely different: Man Kah Chi Boh (as the characters are pronounced in Cantonese) actually means ‘Precious for Everybody’. It is an explicit reference to the value and cultural heritage of Cao Yu’s work, but what makes it all the more special – and fun – is that it turns out to be a play on Man Kah Boh, the real name of the great playwright we know as Cao Yu.

From Sunset to Sunrise: The Quintessential Cao Yu will be performed at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Studio Theatre from May 15 to June 4. Evening performances on May 19, 20, 22 to 27, 29-31, June 1, 2 and 3 are scheduled to commence at 7:45 pm. Matinee performances on May 27 and June 3 will start at 2:45 pm. Tickets are variously priced from HK$120 to $250, and are available from URBTIX, 2734 9009.