Lao She International Theater Festival puts Beijing center stage

From Sept 9 to Oct 27, the festival staged 11 plays from China, France, Russia and Poland. The opening play was Lao She's Short Stories, a Chinese play based on six short stories written by Lao She. The stories, written between 1934 and 1935, are about the lives and struggles of ordinary people, such as a young couple who live from paycheck to paycheck and the relationship between neighbors. The play is directed and adapted by Fang Xu, a Beijing native, who has been adapting Lao She's works into stage productions since 2012.

"When I arrived in Beijing as a student of Peking University in 1956, I was impressed by the city, which I read in the books by Lao She at my hometown in Suzhou," said Zhu Xiangyuan, a scholar and former member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. "Now, the city has changed a lot. With the plays by Lao She, we can still recall the old Beijing."