Language subdued amid showy body moves

Can you imagine Richard Wagner's sprawling Ring Cycle without music? Or Lady Macbeth played by a man?

At the third Wuzhen Theatre Festival, which ran from Oct 15-24, many familiar works of art and literature were given a new twist by productions that can only be called unconventional. Taking "Transmittal" as the unifying theme, the 20 offerings from home and abroad often led to a cauldron of polarizing opinions in the audience. Heated debates lasted into the wee hours when bars along the river in this watery town were no longer boisterous.

The opening show, The Physicists presented by Schauspielhaus Zurich, is very physical in treatment - to the point that Friedrich Durrenmatt's lines came across as superfluous. The director Herbert Fritsch said it is partly to offset the seeming irrelevancy of the topic, which is fear of the nuclear weapon. The acrobatic movements not only circumvented that pitfall, but added a new dimension to the work.