Presenter: Liaoning People’s Art Theatre
Director: Zha Mingzhe
Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts-Theatre
Dates: April 30 – May 02, 2009 19:30
Price: VIP 380 280 180 120 80 RMB (April 30&May 2)
Programme Introduction
Men and Women in the Mine is one of the “Series of Excellent Dramas by Outstanding Directors in the New Century – Zha Mingzhe”.
“We do not opt for suffering, but when confronted with it, we decide to take it on; we aspire to happiness, success, glory, but life has taught us tenacity, commonness and self-improvement are even more valuable; we can afford to lose whatever we have, but we shall never give up true feelings and hope; we are men or women, but whoever we are, we pursue value and dignity!” This paragraph was written by Director Zha Mingzhe in his director notes of Men and Women in the Mine. And the play itself is just about perplexity, anxiety, uneasiness and pertinacity demonstrated by the most ordinary people living under the double pressure of the “plight of survival” and the “predicament of spirit”.
Playwright Li Baoqun spent as long as two years in the mine collecting the woe and joy of common women mine workers and their constantly striving spirit of living for dignity when faced with dramatic social changes, which have contributed to the completion of a monumental play crying out for the times and eulogizing people at the bottom of society. The script moved maestro Li Moran and artists at the People’s Art Theatre of Liaoning Province so deeply that Liaoning Provincial Cultural Office and the Theatre decided to rehearse it and present it as a gift for China’s 100-year-long drama history.
In order to experience life, Director Zha Mingzhe went to the mine named “Ganzishan Mountain” of Fushun, Liaoning Province twice to do field research. He did not miss any one place, any detail or any of the various original states of living there. Filled with strong local lifestyle and radiating dense modern flavor, this excellent stage play reflects serious social life and destiny of ordinary people and is defined by directors as a play featuring “poetic style of realism”.
Synopsis
At modern times, in Northeast China, a major state-owned coal mine with a long history is about to be shut down due to its chronic exploitation and exhausted resources. All the miners are in the face of changing jobs, especially a group of women workers from the women coal-picking team who have spent years picking coal on the Ganzishan Mountain. The women workers are more in trouble, for their life and fate have undergone violent unrest and unprecedented impact. What should they do in the future? How can they make a living henceforward?
The personalities and family backgrounds of these women workers vary greatly, ranging from a model worker dragging a mute girl for years, a widow whose husband died in a mine accident, a financially-burdened family with severely sick patients and both the old and the young, and young and beautiful girls full of dreams. All of them have dedicated their youth, shed blood, sweat and tears for the People’s Republic of China, but still live at shabby low-rise squatter settlements.
Qin Tiezhu, branch secretary of the women coal-picking team, is the only man of the team. Formerly a very good underground miner, Qin is assigned to the women coal-picking team after injuries. He is an optimistic, humorous and amicable man with bold personality and integrity. As he loves telling lies and cracking jokes, others give him a nickname: “Happy Qin”. In the face of the plight of his sisters, he tries various ways to help them out, giving them money for living with his own savings, appealing to leaders for attention and solution, encouraging them to hold on, assisting them in search of all kinds of ways to start a new life, and also suffering various misunderstandings and complaints of the women he was attempting to help…… He only has one wish: to take good care of them even at the expense of his own life, encourage them to cheer up again, overcome the obstacle and cross the threshold together with them.
In that special period of time, people help and support each other in the bitter cold of winter. “Happy Qin”has finally won the hearts of women, developed profound friendship with these amicable and lovely women and got the respect and support of them. More importantly, he has reaped the most precious love.
The men and women living at the squatter settlements also get the concern of the government. The government decides to tear down the large area of the old squatter settlements that have been lived at for decades and build new buildings. Everyone is burning, bit by bit, their hope and aspiration of life.
At the night of the traditional Chinese New Year, the women living at the squatter settlements spend the toughest time of life together. They gather together, looking forward to a brand-new future life full of dreams. Their dreamed-of new buildings are to be finished, so they will bid farewell to the squatter settlements and to their heavy burden of the past…… However, at that time, “Happy Qin” loses his own life to save a brother miner in a private small coal mine incident. His soul shows up at the deep part of the Ganzishan Mountain, looking at the women in the squatter settlements and emotionally pouring out his dreams at heart.
— With the Suona horn and Jinghu played, men and women are dancing to the music;
—Between heaven and earth, it is snowing thick and fast, the high-rise Ganzishan Mountain stands upright in the strong wind and drifting snow across the sky.
Director: Zha Mingzhe
Zha Mingzhe, state first-grade director, PhD in Directing and Vice President of National Theatre Company of China, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama and Russian Academy of Science of Drama Arts. He and his works have won many national awards. He was praised as Excellent Director in the New Century and one of the Chinese Outstanding Young and Adult Artists by Chinese Theatre Association and Chinese Theatre magazine.
(Source: ebeijing.gov.cn)