Portraits of a revival

As the Beijing People's Art Theater turns 60, it's struggling to overcome the challenges of modernization - and with some success. Chen Jie reports.

Playwright Wan Fang's first memory of stage performance was unpleasant. She recalls standing behind the side curtain at the Beijing People's Art Theater to watch her father Cao Yu's show, Thunderstorm. The 4-year-old was frightened by the "thunderstorm" in the third scene and started crying. Cao (1910-96), the theater's founding member and first president, "violently" tucked her under his arm and dashed out the theater. "I understood later that he didn't want my crying to annoy the actors and audiences," the 60-year-old says. "That was the first lesson he taught me: 'A play is bigger than the sky'." That slogan has been inherited by the 60-year-old theater and is printed on a huge banner that hangs on the rehearsal room wall.

Six decades aren't that old, compared to many theaters in the world. But if you think about it, it's only three years younger than the country. The market has swallowed most performing arts companies founded in the 1950s.