Reimagining a classic

Kaiser says he kept asking Meng and the Chinese actors about the play's characters and lines.

The dramaturg also asked himself questions－like, "Who is my favorite character?"－and realized the answers constantly change.

"We tried to understand Lao She, to understand Teahouse and to discover the meanings that were not shown to the audience," Kaiser says.

Teahouse was staged at the Wuzhen Grand Theater from Oct 18 to Monday at the ongoing Sixth Wuzhen Theater Festival, which Meng co-founded. The festival, which runs through Sunday, features 109 performances of 29 plays from 17 countries.

Other classic plays adapted by international theater companies are running in Wuzhen, including Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, staged by Tianjin People's Art Theater, and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, performed by Radu Stanca National Theatre from Romania.

Teahouse will be staged at the Hangzhou Grand Theater from Wednesday to Nov 3, before it tours other Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing.