SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Famous contemporary Chinese theatrical director Meng Jinghui will start a month-long tour to the U.S. in November, which will allow American drama-lovers to engage directly with most appealing theatrical masterpieces reflecting contemporary trends of lifestyle in China.
The America tour, which begins in Seattle, Washington State, in mid-November, will feature Meng's four most welcome productions including Rhinoceros in Love, I LOVE XXX, Head Without Tail, and Nine and Half Love, all of which are the classics of Meng's critical style theater work, organizers said Sunday.
Among them, the popular piece, Nine and Half Love, is a play based on a revenge story in southern China, which combines diversified elements such as Homer's Epic, the Greek tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blind Chance.
The way the play is narrated showcases the technique of montage to put these poetries, myths, allegories and lots of classical literatures together. The story travels among different literary forms, spaces and time to try the best to explore the most substantial part of the play.
Meng, who was born in 1964, is also the most influential theatrical director in Asia, and he will bring with him the "Black Cat Theater" cast group, the youngest cast member group from his studio.
Well-known Chinese young actress Huang Xiangli, who was hailed as the "Queen of Monodrama" in China and starred in Nine and Half Love at the 24th Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theater held last year, will take the leading role in the play this year as the main cast.
Organizers said Meng's tour in November will be a major cultural exchange between the United States and China's theater industry and also the largest overseas performance that Meng's studio has ever conducted.
The four plays to be shown during the tour will present many intriguing theatrical elements such as contemporary classics, anti-fantasy narrative, neo-futurism, and monodrama, said the organizers.
Meng will bring his plays to the American audience in the west U.S. coastal cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles on his nationwide tour that ends in the east coast in New York and Boston, Massachusetts.
The event is organized by Seattle-based independent lifestyle magazine, WEGET Magazine, and Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation.
