Silicon Valley gets a dose of Qing Dynasty

Actress Liu Xiaoqing (right) stars in the stage drama Stunning Beauty. Photos provided to China Daily

Liu Xiaoqing takes her Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) drama to stages across the US, Chen Jia reports in San Francisco.

Stage drama fans in Silicon Valley will get a blast from the past - to China's Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to be precise - with this weekend's performance of Stunning Beauty at the Cupertino Flint Center.

Born in the 1950s but looking as if she were still in her 20s, Chinese actress Liu Xiaoqing stars in the show expected to fire up the box office. "Every audience member, every person is inherently fond of the new, and tired of the old, and performers must meet those needs," Liu says.

"That's what I am striving to do. It is part of my nature. I like innovation and I like to do something which hasn't been done before."

She is on a US tour with her play, which has stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and New York through April 20. Seven performances of Stunning Beauty are being staged.

Stunning Beauty, also called The Legend of Sai Jinhua, tells the story of a famous courtesan whose marital life influenced China's diplomatic relations with foreign countries in the late Qing Dynasty.

As a legendary but very controversial figure, her interactions with domestic and foreign acquaintances have been rendered in many different versions in novels, plays and movies.

On and off the screen, Liu Xiaoqing is something of a controversial figure herself. One of the leading actresses in China in the 1980s, she later became a successful businesswoman in the 1990s.