Reviews

In a time dominated by commercial theatres, a team that devoted itself to such a play is an “outsider”. After I watched the show yesterday afternoon, I was more impressed by the purity and uniqueness of this team. Watching the performance in a space, which can only accommodate 80 audiences, is a unique experience.

– Shao Zehui

One can’t read the novel The Outsider from a worldly point of view, or merely by words. The protagonist is apparently an anti-hero. But he is unique in that he expects nothing, and deliberately isolates himself from anyone else in the world. The avant-garde production created with great concentration allows you to enter its world, and understand the aesthetics of its absurd plots.                              

– Jing

I finally watched the long awaited The Outsider, directed by Yang Ting my goddess and featured handsome Zhao Yang. I especially like the lighting design, and I also like some small designs in the play, such as the film projector, and the "passion play" in the sofa. In particular, at the end of the play the supporting actors left Mr. Meursault alone on a high iron frame, as if he were an outsider to the play. I've read Camus's novel twice, but never thought about what it would look like on stage. Camus' existentialism is based on the absurdity of the world and Sisyphus's struggle, which is actually a kind of absurdity itself...          

– Wang Zhuowei

About L'Étranger

"In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.” I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game. In this respect, he is foreign to the society in which he lives; he wanders, on the fringe, in the suburbs of private, solitary, sensual life. And this is why some readers have been tempted to look upon him as a piece of social wreckage.

- Albert Camus

This work tells an absurd story through the perspective of the protagonist, Meursault: after his mother’s funeral, Meursault wanted to help his friend but, instead, became a murderer. He was sentenced to death after an “objective” trial.

Yang Ting, the director, believes that the work coincides with what she has most wanted to express recently: "The opposite of the outsider should be the insider, right? The kind of people who conform to the norms and rules of the time. But the so-called norms and rules of a time may be senseless, hypocritical and even rude, being full of deceit and lies. What should be our choices when we are faced with the situation?"

Credits

Literary Advisor: Shen Lin

Text Adaptation: Guo Qi

Director: Yang Ting

Actors:

     Zhao Yang, Zhao Hongwei, Jin Zhigang, Wang Yao, 

     Yang Xue, Zhang Xuewen, Wang Linshan

Lighting and Visual Designer: Wang Qi

Sound Engineer: Wang Zhixu

Music: Zhang Qian

Choreographers: Wang Linshan and Wang Yao

Makeup and Costume Designer: Ying Shu

Stage Manager: Wang Yuxiang

Producer: Guangwenjiayi （Beijing) Art &media Co., LTD. / Inside-Out Theater

Supervisors: Guo Qi and Yang Yun

Special thanks to Ms. Gu Minwen for her great help to the show.

About Yang Ting

Yang Ting is one of the most talented young directors in Asia today. She has impressed her audience both by her directing and by her acting, which has always been infused with originality coming out of her skillful mastering of acting techniques and thorough understanding of stage aesthetics.

Among many other stage works, she acted in Rhinoceros in Love(directed by Meng Jinghui), Total Woman(directed by Stan Lai), Don Quixote (directed by Meng Jinghui), He Doesn't Have Two Wives (directed by Ding Nai-zheng), The Latest Ideas about Where Love Leads (directed by Meng Jinghui), The First Intimate Contact (directed by Ren Ming), The Bedbug (directed by Meng Jinghui), and Bootleg Faust(directed by Meng Jinghui).

Her major directing works include: The Bride; Oh, Mama!; Anna, My Sister; Jack the Ripper; Loot; and The Outsider.

Yang Ting Drama Studio, was founded in 2012. The Studio has produced several well received stage works since its foundation, including Jack the Ripper (premiered in March 2013, and staged at the 2014 Wuzhen Theatre Festival); Anna, My Sister  (2014); Loot (2015); The Outsider (2016, 2017 Beijing Youth Festival and Hangzhou International Festival, the 2018 Avignon Festival in France); Oh, Mama! (sponsored by Beijing Culture and Art Foundations, premiered in Beijing in June 2018).

Yang Ting Drama Studio aims to produce high-quality theatrical works by gathering the most talented minds in today’s Chinese theatre. With Yang Ting as its artistic director, it also has prominent scholars such as Professor Shen Lin and Professor Huang Jisu as its literary advisors, Guo Qi as its house playwright, Gu Minwen as its stage designer, and Wang Qi as its lighting designer. A group of young but promising performers, Zhao Hongwei, Fang Zibin, Zhao Yang, Dai Yunyi, and Jin Zhigang, has formed a rather stable team on the basis of long-term cooperation. Their earnestly-treated and professionally-produced works have been presented on the most prestige stages such as that of the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing People's Art Theatre, the Poly Theater Chain, Inside-Out Theatre, Beijing Comedy Theater, and Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center over years.