From June 22^nd to 29^th, famous Japanese theatre director Tadashi Suzuki will make his appearance at NCPA with his works The Trojan Women and Dionysus. On the afternoon of June 20^th, Tadashi Suzuki attended a dialogue together with NCPA Artistic Director of the Theatre XU Xiaozhong, Chinese famous director LI Liuyi and young director HUANG Ying, and they discussed topics revolving around theatre exchanges between the East and West.

From left to right: LI Liuyi, Tadashi Suzuki, XU Xiaozhong and HUANG Ying
Photo by GAO Shang

Mr. XU Xiaozhong first gave a brief introduction on the NCPA International Theatre Festival 2017. “The theatre troupes and artists from various countries will explore theatres of different languages and regions in multiple dimensions from a cross-cultural perspective.”

Then, Tadashi Suzuki unveiled the “Suzuki method” that has drawn high attention. He said, “For insiders, they all consider what kind of theatre they should produce. But for me, the priority is how a theatre should be produced, by what kind of people.”

They discussed topics revolving around theatre exchanges between the East and West

Photo by GAO Shang

Chinese director LI Liuyi also took part in the dialogue, He has been to Toga village, where he directed rehearsals in SCOT. During the dialogue, he exchanged ideas with Tadashi Suzuki on how to perform classic Western works from a contemporary perspective.

The Trojan Women to be performed on June 22^nd is a theatrical work produced by Tadashi Suzuki in his early years. This play adapted from ancient Greek work of the same name tells how homeless Trojans wait hopelessly for their tragic future after the Trojan War. Director Tadashi Suzuki briefed, “This play depicts a scene in which female survivors wait to be reduced to slavery and imagine how they will lead a tragic life in the future. The only thing they do is lamenting at their own lot. As a theatre producer, I think nothing could be more dramatic than waiting under compulsion and conjure up into existence a tragic, uncertain and unchangeable destiny. I hope to go beyond time and space to reveal the misfortune suffered by common people during wars."

From June 27^th to 29^th, Dionysus will be put on at NCPA

From June 27^th to 29^th, Dionysus will be put on at NCPA. As the diffusion of belief in Dionysus is prevented and the Pentheuses are brutally murdered, the story elicits thinking about reason, instinct, politics, religion and other issues. The play premiered with the name of The Female Believers of Bacchus in Japan in 1978, and was renamed Dionysus in 1990. Later, it was put on in Tanfanskaye Theatre in Moscow of the former Soviet Union in 1991, Lincoln Center in New York after the outbreak of the two gulf wars, and Europe’s first chamber theatre—Teatro olimpico di Vicenza, Italy in 1994. It was performed at the opening ceremony of the first Theatre Olympics in Odeon of Herodes Atticus on a hill in Acropolis of Athens in 1995. As one of Tadashi Suzuki’s representative works, the play will be put on at NCPA till June 29^th.