Suffice it to say, one goes to a Lin production not for the solace of the familiar but for the challenge of the new. In that sense, he is among the youngest of China's theater directors, as he is constantly reinventing himself.
Stan Lai may have solved the puzzle of experimentation versus popular acceptance. His works are mostly created by his cast, in a creative process rarely seen in mainland theater.
The United States-trained, Taiwan master of theater hit a home run with The Village, which is holding its second mainland tour this year. Spanning 60 years and three families, this panorama of history is the best Chinese-language play I have seen in many decades. It is at once tragic and comic, sweeping and intimate, bold and populist.
The story of Kuomintang soldiers and their families retreating to Taiwan after their 1949 defeat is relatively unfamiliar to mainlanders, but there is never a dry eye in the theater wherever it is presented. The humanity in this play is so life affirming one could be forgiven for missing all the wonderful craft that has gone into it.
Like Lai's more famous Peach Blossom Land, The Village is an archetypal theatrical piece that turns the limitations of the stage into an expressive platform. You won't see a film adaptation any time soon, and even if there is one, it's going to lose much of its magic.
I once asked Lai why Chinese cities do not have a theater tradition a la Broadway. His immensely popular plays could have permanent runs in metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei, and the same goes for Chinese classics such as Thunderstorm and Teahouse. He said that day would come.
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