Love in Beijing is underground

Love in Beijing, a play featuring five different love stories among commuters on Beijing's subway, is ongoing at Beijing's Nine Theater.

The play explores the stories of lovers, family members and of the love-hate relations between outsiders and locals in the capital.

Various characters, from rebellious and sorrowful Beijing teens to young people who venture to Beijing to pursue their dreams, seem to live other lives in the subway.

Five writers, including music producer Zhang Yadong, rock singer-songwriter Qiu Ye and TV series director Yang Yazhou, tell the stories from their own perspectives, portraying how commuters feel and behave in the enclosed space of the subway. It also reflects the diversity of urban life.

8 pm, until March 3. Nine Theater, 17 Xiaozhuang Jintai Xili, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 400-610-3721.

Stan Lai doesn't disappoint

Some directors' plays never fail you, and Taiwan theater impresario Stan Lai (pictured above) is one of these few.

Some plays are just for fun - sitting in the theater laughing and losing the plot the next morning. Some are heart-wrenching and some force you to think for a while.

But Lai's dramas are all of these. He makes you laugh until you cry, and makes you feel it is your own story being played out on the stage, while providing touching details that will make you want to see it a second and third time, or whenever it returns to town.

Menage a 13 is another signature work of Lai that brings the laughs in one scene while unconsciously making you feel sad for the characters.

Premiering in Taiwan in 1999 to wide acclaim, Lai revives the play for this mainland tour, starring TV host Xie Na in the leading role of Hua Xianglan, a TV anchor in the play. Hua has a promising career, a governor husband and a lovely daughter. Life is happy until she finds her husband is having an affair with another woman.

The plot is pretty relevant in today's urban setting, and I bet everyone can learn something from it.

March 8 to 11. Poly Theater, Beijing. 010-6506-5343.

April 20 and 21. Oriental Art Center, Shanghai. 021-6213-2377.

- Chen Jie

A bold statement from ink painters

There seems to be a consensus that Chinese ink paintings should have a subdued beauty and cannot compete with oil paintings in terms of instant visual impact.

But an artist couple, Cai Xiaoli and Wang Jia'nan, disproves this idea with their brightly colored ink paintings that appeal to both Chinese and international collectors.

Inspired by remnants of ancient Chinese frescos, such as the masterpieces in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, the duo have created paintings that rival oil art in terms of visual impact.

Not long after they graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1980s, the couple moved to London where they exposed themselves to myriad Western art trends and styles.

Instead of giving up what they learned back home, they chose to revitalize and enrich the genre of ink art, borrowing ideas, techniques and concepts from Western art.

Their 70 works of zhongcaihua, or heavy-color ink paintings, are on show at the National Art Museum of China.

9 am-5 pm, March 13-20. National Art Museum of China, 1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6401-7076.