Reviews

Wang Xiaohuan, the leading actress, was selected as the Annual Sharp Dramatist of 2015 by The Beijing News.

 ― The Beijing News

“Get emotional satisfaction.” Such words aren’t usually used to describe experimental plays, which is why Nick Payne’s play always attract so much attention.

― David Benedict

About Constellations

Cosmologist Liu Mei and professional beekeeper Du Lei meet. They chat with each other, trying to know each other, falling in love and breaking up in the end. However, this is the story in a certain time and space. According to the law of “parallel universe,” in other countless space-times, there are countless Liu Mei as well as countless Du Lei. Some of them spend lifetime together, while some have parallel lives and go on being strangers.

Constellations was produced by British grotesque maverick genius Nick Payne. It premiered in London in 2012 and won the Best Play of the Year sponsored by London Standard Evening News. Wang Chong believes that this is a perfect play once in a decade and is determined to put the play on the stage in China. He combines the lens of language with the theatre space and constructs the dual-view dramatic space with dispassionate real-time images as well as exquisite “quick cuts”.

About Wang Chong  

Wang Chong is the founder and artistic director of Beijing-based performance group Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental. He has become the most internationally commissioned Chinese theater director. Wang’s works have been invited to festivals in 16 countries.

His productions include: The Warfare of Landmine 2.0, which won the Festival/Tokyo Award; Teahouse 2.0, which won the One Drama 2017 Best Small Theater Performance Award; Lu Xun, noted by The Beijing News as The Best Chinese Performance of 2016; Thunderstorm 2.0, noted as one of The Best 10 Little Theater Works in China, from 1982 to 2012.

With his unique touch, Wang has also translated and directed Chinese premieres of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine, Nick Payne’s Constellations and Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues.

Credits  

Playwright: Nick Payne

Translator: Wang Chong

Director: Wang Chong

Assistant director: Wang Chong

Producer: Wang Qingyang, Gao He

Cast: Wang Xiaohuan, Li Jialong

About Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental  

Founded in 2008, Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental has become a leading force in Chinese experimental theatre, dedicated to refreshing the stagnant theatre scene in Beijing. While the overall Chinese stage art market is shallow and conservative, this group of artists intends to develop an experimental theatre through the use of recording skills, extreme expressions of language and body language, and a cross-cultural combination of stage art and images.