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Archives of Peking University News - PKU English - 北京大学

Archives of Peking University News - PKU English - 北京大学

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<strong>北京大学</strong>英语新闻网/<strong>Peking</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>News</strong><br />

Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land<br />

Performed at <strong>PKU</strong> Again<br />

<strong>PKU</strong> NEWS 2009--05—28<br />

http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=243666219<br />

<strong>Peking</strong> <strong>University</strong>, Beijing, May 28, 2009: On the evening <strong>of</strong> May 25, "Secret Love in<br />

Peach Blossom Land" by the famous Taiwan playwright and director Stan Lai (Lai<br />

Shengchuan) was performed at Centennial Commemorative Hall <strong>of</strong> <strong>Peking</strong><br />

<strong>University</strong> (<strong>PKU</strong>) again which blew a blast <strong>of</strong> artistic wind in the summer campus.<br />

This play has two different story lines, with one featuring comedy and the other<br />

tragedy. It has been staged hundreds <strong>of</strong> times in just two years on the mainland and<br />

won strong responses. The New York Times named it as "the most popular stage<br />

drama in contemporary China." Given its two-decade performance history, the play<br />

still feels fresh. This time, the play team composed <strong>of</strong> Huang Lei, Sun Li, He Jiong,<br />

Yang Lele, and Tian Yu has brought new feelings and thoughts about love and life to<br />

the audiences through the interaction <strong>of</strong> comedy and tragedy.<br />

"Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" is actually two plays, "Secret Love" and<br />

"Peach Blossom Load", that at first have seemingly little in common other than the<br />

artful, <strong>of</strong>ten hilarious conceit binding them together — a mistake that has led a theater<br />

to schedule simultaneous dress rehearsals for both shows. One is modern tragedy,<br />

the other is ancient comedy. Their performances on the same stage have brought<br />

everyone a stage wonder.<br />

"Secret Love" is a serious drama that opens in 1948 Shanghai as two young lovers,<br />

Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan (played by Huang Lei and Sun Li), bidding each other a<br />

temporary farewell in a misty moonlit park. Four decades pass and Jiang Binliu<br />

becomes an old man lying terribly sick in a Taipei hospital room as his devoted, but<br />

unloved, Taiwanese wife looks on. He is still brooding over the past before the end <strong>of</strong><br />

his life, desperate to see Yun Zhifan, from whom he was separated after fleeing the<br />

Communist takeover <strong>of</strong> China in 1949. The pure love between Yun Zhifan and Jiang<br />

Binliu has called back the audience‘s memories about that period, and their<br />

sympathy for the incomplete ending <strong>of</strong> it. The play has vividly shown the<br />

helplessness <strong>of</strong> true love under the social reality.<br />

"Peach Blossom Land" is a farcical interpretation <strong>of</strong> a well-known fourth-century<br />

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