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'Hamlet' actors stage a triumph
2021-05-20 
Students from the Shanghai Theater Academy present Hamlet in both Mandarin and Tibetan in May. Their performances won wide acclaim in Shanghai. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

Tibetan students draw praise for their production of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays, Zhang Kun reports in Shanghai. 

For the first time in Shanghai's Shangxi Theater, the most famous soliloquy from Hamlet was uttered in the Tibetan language. "To be or not to be, that's the question."

Featuring 22 students from a Tibetan class at the Shanghai Theater Academy, this new production of Hamlet was directed by Pu Cunxin, chairman of the Chinese Dramatists Association. It was performed in both Mandarin and Tibetan from May 7 to 14.

This was the first time Pu directed a play. Pu, who is also a veteran actor, used to serve as the director of Beijing People's Art Theater. He began teaching the students from the second semester since their enrollment into the STA in 2017.

"I've never seen the way they smiled," says Pu, recalling his "love at first sight" experience with the Tibetan students. "They were completely frank. And when they learned the basic principles of acting, they created such natural and direct performing episodes, like everything coming right from the roots of their lives."

Thirty years ago, director Lin Zhaohua cast Pu to play the title character in a Hamlet adaptation. Pu says the experience helped him to become a good actor, and today he is directing this group of Tibetan youngsters, who are about to graduate, in another Hamlet production.

"After studying for four years at the STA, they are now capable of performing the dramatic classic in Mandarin and Tibetan. … Please remember them," Pu says.

Students from the Shanghai Theater Academy present Hamlet in both Mandarin and Tibetan in May. Their performances won wide acclaim in Shanghai. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

"In the future, they will become even more brilliant and come back to perform in Shanghai as members of the Tibetan Drama Company."

Pan Yu, a Shanghai-based theater critic, was so impressed with the production that she went back to see the play in Tibetan after attending the Mandarin premiere on May 7.

"This is my favorite Hamlet production of the past few years," Pan says.

"Young as the students are, they have made a very natural, powerful and sincere performance. Everyone was dedicated and relaxed, playful and solemn at the same time. I haven't seen such a quality performance for a long time."

The Tibetan class is a contractual program which started in 2017. The Tibetan Drama Company selected 22 students from the Tibet autonomous region for the STA's four-year college program. Half of the students are from pastoral areas, and the other half come from Lhasa, capital of the region.

"This is the most special class in my experience at the STA over the past 12 years," says Yang Jia, the head teacher for these students.

She says the 22 students were like sheets of white paper when they enrolled in the school. They had no idea what acting meant, nor what life was like being an actor.

"They were shy at the beginning, always trying to hide their faces," she recalls.

In the past four years, they learned reading, experiencing and rehearsing classic plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Hamlet.

Pu says the Shakespearean plays fit them so well, as if "Shakespeare created these plays especially for them". Since he offered to be a teacher for the Tibetan class, Pu not only spent weeks every semester teaching them, but also went all out to obtain donations and aid for the students.

Students from the Shanghai Theater Academy present Hamlet in both Mandarin and Tibetan in May. Their performances won wide acclaim in Shanghai. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

At graduation, Pu got one of his friends to donate luggage to all of the students. "So that they could take a piece of Shanghai with them back to the plateau," he says.

Yang says everybody is happy to help these students. They received down coats for the winter, and those from poverty-stricken areas got financial aid. The students also got special subsidies when they had an opportunity to visit theaters in Europe and the United States.

"I've seen them evolve and develop, and I have evolved and grown alongside with them," Yang says.

Tashi Penba Norbu, 23, plays the title role of the Danish prince in the Mandarin version of Hamlet. The young man from Ngari prefecture says he thought it was just "a school in Shanghai recruiting" when he went to participate in the audition about four years ago.

"I had no ambition of building a career in show business and had no idea about any talent hunt or TV show. Most of my classmates would go to a regular college and come back to our hometown, get a job and start a family," he says.

"Our folks tend to live naturally. But in Shanghai, it is completely different. Everybody seems to have their own target and work hard for it."

Playing a Hamlet character created by a British author 400 years ago, he did not find the story distant or strange. He marveled at how awesome it was and how young people like himself can be depressed and ponder on the question of life and death.

The young man says he still does not have any long-term plans, but he loves the theater for now and enjoys communicating with the audience through his acting.

"It is difficult for me to quit theater performance," he says.

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