Actors, leading actress and director Sten Lai (on the right) of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land.

Twenty years after its premiere in Taiwan, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (Anlian Taohua Yuan), the classic drama by esteemed Taiwanese director Sten Lai, will be staged for the first time in Beijing.

The production of the Beijing show has attracted many mainland stars. Well-known Chinese actor Huang Lei and actress Yuan Quan will play in the "Secret Love" part, while the "In Peach Blossom Land" episode will feature comedians Yu Entai, Xie Na and He Jiong.

Although it has never been formally shown on the mainland, "Peach Blossom Land" has enjoyed great popularity in recent years. Its film version, starring Brigitte Lin and Jin Shijie, won numerous international awards, including the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. More than 50 versions of the play have been performed by university students' drama troupes.

As a symbol of modern experimental drama, the play has a unique format. The show is composed of two plays "Secret Love" (Anlian) and "Peach Blossom Land" (Taohuayuan) performed on the same stage.

Anlian is a modern stage melodrama set in a hospital in Taipei of the 1970s. In this show, the elderly and ill Jiang Binliu has hallucinations about meetings with his young lover Yun Zhifan, whom he was separated from during the civil chaos of China in the 1930s. The audience quickly learns that Jiang has been missing Yun ever since, even after he settled in Taiwan in 1949 and married a Taiwanese wife.

Taohuayuan, a farce in classical theatrical style, presents a parodic version of the classical text "Taohuayuan" a Chinese synonym for utopia by Tao Yuanming of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD317-420). In this play, the audience finds that the reason the fisherman Old Tao leaves home is because his wife Chunhua has an affair with Boss Yuan.

The interpolating structure of these two plays, which was born from a mix up of rehearsal schedules, makes each play a frame for the other. One interprets the other and at the same time, they de-frame each other. The lines the actors and actresses speak in each play further develop an unsettling dialogue between the two plays.

Love in Peach Blossom Land (Anlian Taohua Yuan)
Date/Time: 7:30pm, Nov 18-26
Location: Capital Theatre, 22 Wangfujing Dajie
Tel: 010-65249847