When the stage production of “The Shawshank Redemption” recently opened in China, the cast consisted entirely of Western actors who spoke fluent Chinese. But that might not have been the most surprising thing about the show.
The production of the show, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novella that has become one of the most beloved films of all time, appears to have run counter to some trends in Chinese culture.
Chinese audiences are becoming less interested in Hollywood movies, and moviegoers are turning to their home country. China’s authoritarian government fuels nationalism and casts Western influence as a political pollutant. Censorship of art became stricter.
But the work reflects how some artists are trying to navigate the changing landscape of what is acceptable and marketable in China. And its success shows that many Chinese people are still interested in cultural exchange.
“The Shawshank Redemption,” the story of a man wrongly convicted of murder who resists the brutality of prison officials and ultimately makes a daring escape, has been subject to Chinese censorship. It became. After a prominent Chinese dissident escaped house arrest and fled to the U.S. embassy in 2012, mention of the case was temporarily censored online. In general, Chinese authorities have shown little tolerance for calls for freedom and resistance to injustice, artistic or otherwise.
There were also logistical challenges. The production team wanted to use foreign actors to make the film look more authentic. However, the number of expatriates in China has fallen sharply in recent years, making it even more difficult to find enough foreigners (a small group to begin with) who can speak Chinese to perform on stage. The slowdown in China’s economy has also made audiences reluctant to spend money on theaters.
All of this means that the show’s arrival in China may not be as tricky as a prison escape, but it’s certainly not a sure bet.
Canadian comedian and television personality Mark Rowswell, who played the immortal prison smuggler Red in Morgan Freeman’s film, said: “I approached this project thinking, “This is a great idea if they can make it happen.” “I accepted the offer,” he said.
“But you have to be prepared. You never know,” continued Rowswell, who is widely known in China by his stage name Dashan. He has been performing in this country since his 1980s and was one of the few foreigners who could speak it sufficiently fluently at the time. “We rehearsed for two months and everything might be cancelled.”
Ticket sales were initially slow in Shenzhen, but last month in Beijing, the show ran for four consecutive nights at a 1,600-seat theater and was nearly sold out. The work has received a 7.8 rating on the crowdsourcing review site Douban, and a national tour is scheduled for spring.
Casts of foreign productions have long toured in China, and Chinese actors play Mandarin adaptations of roles that originated overseas. However, it was touted as the first Mandarin production with an all-foreign cast.
According to the production team, the idea was simple. The movie “Shawshank” was hugely popular in China, so moviegoers were sure to want to see it. And since it’s a foreign story, why not find foreign actors?
However, this seemingly simple calculation has raised many questions regarding translation, both linguistic and cultural.
Director Zhang Guoli is a prominent Chinese actor and director trained in Xiangsheng, a type of classical Chinese comedy. The 11 actors came from eight countries, including the United States, Finland, and Russia. Fluency in Chinese was more important than professional stage experience. The main character, Andy Dufresne, was played by James Clark, national director of the Australia-China Business Council.
During rehearsals, the actors had to reconcile Zhang’s classical training with a more local theatrical style often seen in the West.
When it came to adaptations, there were also more thorny questions, particularly about what went into Chinese censorship.
The script used in the Chinese production was a translation of a 2009 stage adaptation by two British authors, Owen O’Neill and Dave Johns. Both the 2009 script and the Hollywood film are filled with profanity and include explicit references to the sexual assault Andy suffered in prison.
The Chinese version only used mild profanity. One character briefly uses the word rape. Unlike the film and the original play, there was no mention of homosexuality.
Show producer Yao Yi said that during promotional interviews, the cast and crew leant toward the story’s theme of hope, without emphasizing freedom, but noted that the latter could be considered sensitive. He said he was aware of it.
Still, other parts that might have been difficult to include in modern Chinese drama were left intact. The characters read Bible verses aloud. The overall plot and sympathetic depiction of the prisoners remain unchanged.
Stage productions have smaller audiences and are often less regulated than films. Copyright laws also limited the extent to which production teams could make changes.
Rowswell said the use of foreign actors may have reassured authorities that this was a “purely Western story” and “not an allegory after all.”
Yao said he was confident that audiences would embrace the story.
She said “The Shawshank Redemption” remains Douban’s highest-rated film of all movies, not just Chinese ones, showing that Chinese audiences haven’t completely turned away from Hollywood. Ta. And Chinese theatergoers in particular are a self-selecting group seeking a more international perspective, she said. “People who go to the theater are looking for some kind of spiritual fulfillment,” she says.
However, the performers also acknowledged the need to adapt to the changing tastes of Chinese audiences.
Ben Hubley, the American who played the young prisoner Tommy, said he hoped the film would build a “small but important” bridge between the United States and China amid deteriorating relations. However, he doubted that the show would have been as popular if it had simply been performed in English.
“I feel like the intent behind it is much clearer than just an American blockbuster coming out,” Hubley said. “I think we’ve reached a point where the intent behind the project is really important if you want to be here.”
After the show in Beijing, the question of how to classify this work seemed to be the farthest thing from many audience members’ minds. As crowds including children, young adults and grandparents streamed into the lobby of the Beijing Tianqiao Arts Center, taking photos with cardboard cutouts of actors and posing with prop beer bottles, some theatergoers simply loved the movie. That’s why I went to see it, he said. .
Li Ziyi, who just graduated from university, said she didn’t know at first that the cast were foreigners. He has seen “Shawshank” at least 10 times and would have gone to see it regardless, even though the still image of Andy after his escape was the background on his phone.
But another audience member, Annie Dong, 28, said she was attracted to the novelty of seeing foreign actors speaking Mandarin. She said she wanted to “localize” the foreign story, adding that the script incorporated Chinese slang to make it feel more relatable.
She hoped to eventually see foreigners acting in Chinese plays as well as adaptations of foreign plays. “This kind of blending and colliding of cultures is what I’m looking forward to,” she said.
However, the same factors that made this production difficult may continue to be obstacles.
The number of Americans learning Mandarin has declined in recent years, and the foreign populations in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have not recovered from declines during the pandemic. Many Westerners also remain wary of traveling to an increasingly inward-looking China.
Mr. Rowswell was in Canada when he was approached about the play, but until then he had no idea when he would return.
“Perhaps it will not be easier in the future, but more difficult,” he said of similar works.