Best bets

The Deutsches Theater in Berlin Waiting for Godot

Date: July 8-9-7:30 pm

Venue: National Center for the Performing Arts

Price: 100-580 yuan

A spotlight flits across a light-colored width of material on Mark Lammert's set, which contracts as if to form the hub of the world, disappearing into the gorge of a funnel in which two men stand. Vladimir and Estragon stare out of the crater's hole as if they had just landed on a strange planet. In this restricted area and free zone of pure acting, limited by black curtains, only the imagination is real. Two have-nots who possess neither shoe nor hat, neither radish nor turnip. No props to hold on to. Pozzo and Lucky also climb out of this primal hole, equally bereft of all utensils: no rope, no whip, no suitcase, nothing at all.

Opera Commission The Long March

Date: July 1-6-7:30 pm

Venue: National Center for the Performing Arts

Price: 100-880 yuan

Eighty years ago, the Chinese Worker's and Peasants' Red Army completed the Long March attracting the worldwide attention under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. In order to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March, National Center for the Performing Arts spared no effort to invite domestic first-class artists including Yin Qing, Zou Jingzhi and Tian Qinxin to constitute the creative group to grandly launch the Chinese opera commission The Long March.