From June 13^th to 18^th, the NCPA drama The Count of Monte Cristo will open for a fourth round to kick off the NCPA International Theatre Festival 2023.

For the creative team of the drama, it is by no means easy to adapt this masterpiece, in which there are about 100 characters and millions of words, into a three-hour stage play. The playwright YU Rongjun said that adaptation is not just a process of turning one form into another, but also a way of breaking, refining and rebuilding the original work. On stage, the hero Dantès' image is built in the form of “one body and three faces”. In other words, Dantès is a young, promising sailor, a prisoner who languishes in prison, and a count who is full of momentum in revenging for himself. The director WANG Xiaoying said that the core characters are divided into three groups in this version. A dramatic expression structure thus comes into being, making it possible not only to tell the story in the form of retrospect and fantasy with a strong subjective sense, but also to arrange for them to meet so that they interact with each other emotionally and mentally.

Stills

In this round, the actor YU Yang will join hands with members of the NCPA Drama Ensemble, including ZHAO Ling, SUN Lishi and DONG Wenliang, as well as A-list artists YUAN Yu, WANG Weiguo and LI Ye, to take the audience into the Count of Monte Cristo’s inner world to kick off the NCPA International Theatre Festival 2023.

From June 13^th to September 17^th, the NCPA International Theatre Festival 2023 will be staged as promised. Classical masterworks by Chinese and foreign literary masters, including Alexandre Dumas, Shakespeare, Goethe, Lao She and WANG Meng, will get together on the stage regardless of spatiotemporal barriers. Famous Chinese and foreign directors, including Rimas Tuminas, Eric Lacascade, Tim Supple, TIAN Qinxin, WANG Xiaoying, HU Zongqi, ZHOU Ke, HE Nian, HUANG Ying, and LI Bonan, will personally appear at the festival for a dialogue. More well-known drama and opera artists will take the stage.