National Theatre of China actor Liu Duanduan has taken on directing for the first time with a romance-themed stage production, Where to Wake From Tonight's Wine (今宵酒·醒何处). A media visit to rehearsals was held in Beijing on October 28, where Liu and the cast presented excerpts from the work, according to 中国新闻网.
The play is one of the projects selected for the fourth season of the National Theatre of China's young directors' creation support program. In the rehearsal room, Liu works alongside the performers as a fellow traveller rather than a distant authority, taking apart the script and refining lines with them, 中国新闻网 reports.
Why it matters
The production places Liu, best known as a performer, on the other side of the creative process, and it does so under the umbrella of an institutional program that the theatre's leadership describes as a pipeline for emerging stage talent. Tian Qinxin, head of the National Theatre of China, said the initiative has reached its fourth season and has become a reservoir for cultivating outstanding young theatre artists.
Tian said she hopes Liu, an accomplished actor, will carry the experience he has gathered in performance into his directing work, completing his first outing as a director through what she described as inheritance, expression and creation, and making it a sincere piece of stage practice.
A story about contemporary relationships
The play turns its attention to the emotional lives of people today. Memories of the past, regrets that are not easily dissolved, and differing expectations for the future all feed into the work, which uses shifts in the relationships between its characters to look for emotional expression that resonates with contemporary audiences within familiar lived experience.
Liu described his dual perspective as both actor and director in comments to 中国新闻网. He said that when he first joined the National Theatre of China, senior directors gave him a great deal of help, and that now, as a director himself, he hopes to offer similar support to more young actors.
A stage split between home and consultation room
The production's set design carries its own ideas. It builds two spaces that sit side by side: a central area recreates the home familiar to the male and female leads, while an outer frame of white slanted panels stands for the scrutiny and self-revelation associated with a psychological clinic.
Strong black-and-white visual contrast and continuously moving numbers accompany the design. Together they blur the boundary between the real and the psychological, suggesting that emotion repeats itself endlessly in memory — an effect that echoes the wistful, disoriented feeling at the heart of the play's title.
The title itself borrows from a well-known line of classical Chinese verse, and the production's framing suggests it is interested in what remains after a moment of intoxication or illusion has passed.
What to watch
The rehearsal showing offered audiences a first look at excerpts; the full production now moves toward its public staging under the National Theatre of China's young directors' program, with Liu's transition from performer to director as the element to follow.
