Beijing venue to stage English plays on marriage

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Between November and January, marriage will be the theme of plays at Inside-Out Theater, an indie venue showcasing international contemporary productions in Beijing.

Five plays from China and the United Kingdom will be staged at the venue during this period.

Shanghai-based Vertebra Theater will stage two productions, The Open Couple and Poison.

The Open Couple, directed by Eric Lee, a theater literature lecturer at Shanghai Theater Academy, is based on Italian Nobel prize-winning playwright and actor Dario Fo's work of the same title. Written in 1983 with his wife, Franca Rame, the play deals with an open sexual relationship in a marriage.

Poison, by Belgian director Jeroen Versteele and scriptwriter Lot Vekemans from the Netherlands, is about a man and a woman who encounter each other six years after their divorce at the place where their only child is buried. Though both of them have new lives, it becomes increasingly apparent how their dead child has poisoned their lives.

National Theatre Live, an initiative of the Royal National Theatre in London, will present three productions — Skylight, directed by Academy Award-nominated director Stephen Daldry; Les Liaisons Dangeruses (Hampton play) by Christopher Hampton; and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.

If you go

Inside-Out Theater, 65 Xingshikou Road, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6285-8257.

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