Playwright Cao Yu's debut play, Thunderstorm, was published in 1934 when he was 24. Cao, arguably China's greatest 20th century playwright, wrote the play during his final year at Tshinghua University.

It revolves around two families whose complex relationships lead to inevitable tragic consequences unfolding against the backdrop of turmoil in the 1930s.

It was critically praised both at home and abroad.

His real name was Wan Jiabao (1910-1996) but he adopted the pen name Cao Yu. He was born in Tianjin and fell in love with acting during middle school. His works, including Sunrise, Wilderness and Peking Man, have become classics.

Thunderstorm has been described as one of China's most enduring dramas of the 20th century and Cao is called "the father of the country's modern drama". He was appointed the director of the Beijing People's Art Theatre in the early 1950s and was elected the chairman of the Chinese Dramatists' Association in the early 1980s.

He died in Beijing in 1996 after being hospitalized for eight years.

As this year marks the 110th birth anniversary, his classic works will be staged again in December, the Beijing-based drama company Magnificent Culture Co announced on July 31.

Excerpts from his plays, including Thunderstorm, Sunrise and Peking Man, were staged at Poly Theater on July 31, featuring veteran actors, such as Shi Ke and Lin Lin, as well as young actors. The performances marked the reopening of the theater after it closed for about six months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"The past six months have been devastating to theaters. The charm of watching a play inside a theater is irresistible, but we've been forced to stay at home due to the viral outbreak," says producer Wang Keran, who directed the performances on July 31.

"When we could go back to watch plays at the theater, we want to offer the audiences with classic plays by Cao Yu and contemporary works by his daughter, which is like a conversation between father and daughter and a celebration of theater from different eras."

Wan Fang, 68, a Chinese playwright, who is the daughter of Cao Yu, said: "I watched my father's Thunderstorm many times at the Beijing People's Art Theater, where my father was one of the theater's founding members and its first president. I was so scared that I started to cry when I first heard the noise of the thunderstorm emanating from the stage. My father started to write the play when he was about 19. I am also a writer but writing such a great work like Thunderstorm at merely 24 is beyond my imagination," she adds.

Wan Fang's plays, including Winter Journey and New Wilderness, were also staged at Poly Theater on July 31. During December, her works will also be adapted, including her latest work, Thunderstorm II, a sequel to Thunderstorm. It will focus on the characters' choices at the end of Thunderstorm, how they recall the night and the people they would later become.

She says the characters in Thunderstorm are memorable and had distinctive personalities. She wondered what future the characters would have after that fateful night, where some of them uncover bitter truths and others lose their minds.

"Many people ask me about the definition of 'classic' since many of my father's works are considered as classic. My answer is that when a play is adapted and staged again and again and audiences from different generations share the emotions in it, it becomes a classic naturally," she says. "The key of creating a classic work is the writer's sincerity."

Cao was a sincere man and he was a keen observer. As Wan Fang recalls, her father liked to walk around after dinner. One day, when Wan Fang walked with him, Cao Yu suddenly stopped and said: "Being young is beautiful," while pointing at a young couple on the street.

"He told me that writing originated from subtle and careful observation of real life. I felt lucky to be his daughter as I learned a lot from him both through his writing and personality," she adds.

Last year, Wan Fang published a book, titled You And Me, which followed the romance between her father and mother. Wan Fang's mother, Fang Rui, was born into an intellectual family and was the second wife of Cao. She died in 1974.When Cao died in 1996, Wan Fang's stepmother, Li Yuru, gave her all the letters between Cao and Fang during the 1940s, which inspired Wan Fang to write the book.

"It took me over 10 years to finish the book. In the beginning, I wanted to dedicate it to my mother, because I had never written anything about her. But as I read the letters, I got to know both of my parents better and the book has become a gift to both of them," says Wan Fang.

The romance between Cao and Fang also led to Cao's classic work, Peking Man, which was written in 1941 and premiered at the Beijing People's Art Theater in 1957.

The four-act play set in Beijing dramatizes the conflict in a declining feudal family during the 1930s.

The patriarch Zeng Hao spends his days recalling the glorious years of the past. His eldest son, Wenqing, does nothing all day and lives off his father. Wenqing's wife, Siyi, is the boss of the house, while Zeng's son-in-law is a playboy. Sufang, Zeng's niece, is the only member of the family who appears reliable but she falls in love with Wenqing. She remains single for Wenqing and finally leaves the family for and a new life.

"Sufang shares a lot of similarities with my mother, who took good care of the family, loved to paint and write," Wan Fang says. "When my father wrote Peking Man, he shared the story with my mother one act after one act. My mother made suggestions and wrote on the papers.'When I watched the play Peking Man in the theater, I think of you. The suggestions you made were well-placed' my father wrote to my mother."

Starting her career as a playwright in 1980s, Wan Fang has written scripts for movies, TV dramas and plays. One of her most well-known scripts is Winter Journey, which she wrote in 2012 and premiered in 2015.

Winter Journey was first directed by Stan Lai featuring Lan Tianye, a veteran from Beijing People's Art Theater, and Lichun Lee, a longtime collaborator of Lai'. It portrays two writers whose friendship harks back to the 1940s. Political upheaval in 1966 turned the cordial relationship topsy-turvy-with Lao Chen, Lee's character who is a poet and translator of T.S. Eliot, betraying Lao Jin, Lan's character, who is an ardent lover of Franz Schubert. They went through inner struggles of longing for confession and forgiveness from each other.

"What drove writers to write? I would say that when I feel confused, I want to write. I want to figure things out and find answers through the characters I created and the stories I write," says Wan Fang.