WOTOU COMPOUND at Shanghai Grand Theatre - Lyric Theatre

Playwright: Liu Heng
Director: Lin Zhaohua
Principle Cast: Pu Cunxin, Song Dandan, Yang Lixin, Xu Fan, He Bing

Introduction:

The story happens in 1948, one year before the Liberation. In Wotou Compound, a poor residential yard in Beijing, there lives four families. The landlord Yuan Guozhong makes a meager living on rent and has a sick child to look after. His yard was bought from Gu Yuezong, a first-class scholar of the Qing Dynasty, who has been yet reluctant to move out for some twenty years. Xiao Qishan, a security officer, schemes for the properties of his neighbors all day long. Another two tenants, Tian Cuilan, once a prostitute, and Jin Murong, formerly a Qing princess, have words with each other day in and day out. Typical of an old Beijing, the story depicts the hard lives of ordinary people between their joys and sorrows.

Beijing People’s Art Theatre

It was in 1907 that Chinese people put on the first western play, China then has its modern theatre called as huaju (spoken drama). In the history of nearly 100 years, the prominent Chinese theatre professionals have devoted themselves to the career. Their dedication led to the emergence of a number of masterpieces, welcomed both at home and abroad. Beijing People’s Art Theatre, a first-rate national theatre company of China, its development in the last 60 years has been a miniature of the development of Chinese modern theatre.