The ongoing "Week of Contemporary German Drama'' not only offers the Chinese audiences a glimpse of the contemporary German drama scene, but also provokes further discussion about the development of theatre in China.

Eight contemporary German plays have been translated into Chinese with the arrangement of the Goethe Institute Beijing, the initiator of the event.

The co-sponsor of the programme, the Beijing People's Art Theatre, selected five plays. Two of them, "Fireface (Feuergesicht)'' by Marius von Mayenburg and "Leather Phiz (Lederfresse)'' by Helmut Krausser, are for full performances, while another three are for scenic reading, in which the actors do not act but read out the lines of each role with simple movements.

The "Week of Contemporary German Drama'' actually spans a period of time much longer than the originally planned one week.

Directed by Cao Kefei, "Fireface'' had its first run of performances from October 20 to 26, and the second run started on November 8 and finishes today. "Leather Phiz,'' directed by Lin Zhaohua, will be premiered as late as January 9, 2004.

All performances are at the Experimental Theatre of Beijing People's Art Theatre.

Written by the young German dramatist Mayenburg in 1998, when he was 26, "Fireface'' probes the twisted psychological world of 18-year-old high school student Kurt.

The overall atmosphere of the play is dramatically depressive, tragic and crazy, yet the drama seems to be rather conceptual to some Chinese audiences, at least to theatre critic Lao Xiang.

"I always feel at a distance from the play,'' said Lao Xiang at a seminar regarding the "Week of Contemporary German Drama.''

"It's not very meaningful to put on a foreign play just for the purpose of introducing the work. A play should be made more relevant to its particular audience.''

However, Yang Qianwu, secretary-general of the Beijing Dramatists' Association, argued that it is unnecessary to exaggerate the distance between the audience and a foreign play.

"The world is becoming smaller and smaller, and it's not very hard for the Chinese audience to understand other cultures now,'' said Yang. "We've come to see a contemporary German drama and we've come to see its own character, not a German play adapted to cater to Chinese tastes.''

Actually director Cao's interpretation of "Fireface'' can be seen as something between the two opposite views. What Cao sees in the script is the uncompromisable conflict between one's mind and the corrupting world. To her, such tragedy exists not only in the West, but in China as well.

That's the reason why Cao does not stress the German background of the play, and she even adds Chinese newspapers and a TV programme about the suicide of a Chinese college student into the film section, projected behind the stage.

Cao cuts the performance of Kurt's parents from the original script and leaves it for the film part to finish. With a focus on the isolated inner world of Kurt, Cao substitutes the original realistic style with a more stream-of-consciousness drama language.

However, the rather realistic film part, with which Cao may wish to portray the trivialness and coldness of the world, seems to distraction from the stage performance. The set of the play is five refrigerators, filled with coat hangers, bottles, newspaper, shoe boxes, quilts and other everyday items, which are thrown out onto the stage as the play goes on. As they build up the stage becomes a dump, until it vanishes with Kurt in the fire. Such a tragedy may happen anywhere in the world.

However, what the play presents on stage is a hysterical person, but not so much the reason why he becomes such a person. The lack of typicality of the hero means that "Fireface'' is not destined to be a classic.

Maybe everyone has a Hamlet inside, but certainly not everyone has a Kurt inside them. Also discussed at the seminar was the scenic reading of von Matthias Zschokke's "The Alphabet (Die Alphabeten)'' by a group of students from the Central Academy of Drama on November 9. Scenic reading, which often takes place in the West as the audition of works by young dramatists, was adopted in the programme probably for practical reasons.

Some of the audience were not very used to the form of scenic reading, while some others contended that the form would be more suitable for works by young or amateur Chinese dramatists.

Lin Zhaohua, a famous director at the Beijing People's Art Theatre, said that scenic reading will help professional drama groups in China to select good original scripts, which are badly needed.

"For a big country like China, the development of theatre should be multi-dimensional,'' said Lin. "Classics of the world repertory and Chinese repertory should be balanced with original plays from young dramatists.''

With Lin's personal involvement, the Beijing People's Art Theatre launched a "Showcase of Young People's First Drama Works'' in October, in which a number of plays by amateur dramatists were put on.

"We will try to organize scenic reading of original Chinese plays and provide a wider stage for both the artists and the audience,'' said Fu Weibo, vice-director of the Performance Centre of Beijing People's Art Theatre.

But before that, we can see another two scenic readings of German plays in January free of charge: Thea Dorn's "Klara's Conditions (Klaras Verhaeltnisse)'' and Urs Widmer's "Top dogs.''

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