In 2005, when actor Fang Xu and actress Siqin Gaowa worked together on a TV drama, Fang played the role of Di Renjie, a heroic figure and one of the great judges and administrators of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), known for his compassion, talent and incorruptibility, and Siqin Gaowa played the role of Tang empress Wu Zetian.

In the drama, Di won Wu's trust and favor. In real life, the pair became good friends. When Siqin Gaowa raised the idea of staging a play based on Lao She's novel, Rickshaw Boy, Fang quickly agreed to work with her again.

Rickshaw Boy is a masterpiece of 1930s Chinese literature. Its dramatic treatment of everyday details, vivid portrayal of characters and vibrant capturing of Beijing life lends itself to adaptation in a variety of forms, including films, plays and operas.

The actress became a household name after playing the novel's female lead, Huniu, in the 1982 film adaptation. She hoped to reprise the role in the play and invited Fang to play the male lead, Xiangzi, a poor young man from the countryside who comes to Beijing to become a rickshaw puller. Huniu is a tough and hot-tempered woman, who marries Xiangzi and dies in labor.

Eighteen years after those first discussions, the play is finally about to premiere. Fang, who later became a director, will lead an all-male adaptation, with Siqin Gaowa as consultant.

The play will feature in the 7th Lao She Theatre Festival, which will be staged at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing on Dec 30 and Jan 1, 2024.

"Fang is very talented. We've discussed the idea of turning Rickshaw Boy into a play for many years and now, it's happening," says 73-year-old Siqin Gaowa. "Although I cannot play the role of Huniu, I am very excited about Fang's all-male cast, which will give the story a fresh interpretation."

The actress has been out of the limelight for many years for health reasons, and she describes the role as one of the highlights of her acting career.

Born Shu Qingchun to a Manchu family in Beijing in 1899, Lao She is one of the key figures of Chinese literature, whose novels, including Rickshaw Boy and Sishi Tongtang (Four Generations Under One Roof), and plays, such as Dragon Beard Ditch and Teahouse, have earned him a stellar reputation as a linguistic and literary master around the world.

Fang, a Beijing native in his 50s, who graduated from the directing department at the Central Academy of Drama, began adapting the author's works in 2011. His first was a one-man show based on the novel Wo Zhe Yibiezi (This Life of Mine), which tells the sad story of a low-ranking police officer in Beijing in the early 20th century. It was a big success when it premiered in Beijing.

"Rickshaw Boy will be my seventh Lao She adaptation. It's so classic and well-known that I was very nervous. Thanks to Siqin Gaowa, I have gained a deeper insight into the novel and the characters," says Fang.

In the play, which Fang directed, wrote and acted in, Xiangzi is the central role, with two other actors playing the role of the younger and the older Xiangzi. They will tell the story of his early life as a young man of simple needs, whose greatest ambition is to have his own rickshaw one day, his life after he is forced to marry Huniu, the daughter of his boss, and the day he is forced to sell his newly bought rickshaw to pay for his wife's funeral.

"I feel close to Lao She's work and I read Rickshaw Boy over and over again for inspiration when I decided to adapt it into a play. It's about a man's journey from hope to hopeless. It's tragic but full of Lao She's unique sense of humor," says Fang, adding that elements, like contemporary paintings and live music, will be part of the play.

According to Yang Cheng, president of the Beijing Artists Management Corp and organizer of the festival, over 20 theatrical productions from around the world will be staged during the 7th Lao She Theatre Festival. These include The Wilderness by the Beijing People's Art Theater, which is based on a classic by Cao Yu (1910-96); an immersive play, Border Town, produced by the Drum Tower West Theatre and adapted from the 1934 novella of the same title by noted writer Shen Congwen (1902-88); and The Peony Pavilion by the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre, which will be staged at the 300-year-old Zhengyici Theater in Beijing.

Since 2017, the festival has presented productions from 12 countries and regions, featuring nearly 200 performances and attracting over 100,000 theatergoers, Yang adds.

"When we launched the festival, we wanted to pay tribute to Lao She, whose works have inspired generations, and which have been adapted into plays, movies and TV dramas. In the past few years, it has developed into an international event," says Yang, adding that this year, the festival will feature a forum of theater experts and scholars from around the world.

The international productions being staged include Moliere's Tartuffe by French theater Nono, directed by Serge Noyelle, and a production of Hamlet by Beit Lessin, the second-largest theater in Israel.

Besides his literature, one of Lao She's great achievements was that when he wrote The Willow Well in 1952, a new art form was invented based on Beijing's Quyi art, which was called Quju Opera. The writer himself proposed the name.

During the festival, the Beijing Quju Opera Troupe will stage one of its most popular productions, Snuff Bottles, by composer Dai Yisheng and scriptwriter Zhang Yonghe, which recounts the miserable life of a skilled craftsman who would rather cut off one of his arms than make a snuff bottle bearing the image of a foreign invader.

Since the Beijing Quju Opera Troupe was founded in 1959, nearly 10 of Lao She's works have been adapted into Quju Opera, including Rickshaw Boy, Teahouse and Sishi Tongtang, according to Cui Di, the director of the Beijing Quju Opera Troupe.