Published on Mar 29, 2016

Rating:

Genre: NCPA

Dates: May 13-22, 2016

Venue: Drama Theatre of NCPA

Prices: 100, 180, 300, 350, 400, 500

Features: The NCPA's production of drama Returning Home on a Snowy Night will stage in drama theatre of NCPA on May 13rd 16th to April 22nd of 2016, the drama was a largely successful adaptation of the classic poem of the Tang Dynasty.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

This drama is named after a line from the poem Staying at a Cottage of Mt. Hibiscus on a Night of Snow of the Tang Dynasty: "When the mountains lurk dim in the pale dark, the cottage of shabby looks stands lone in twilight. By the wattle gate now I hear dogs loudly bark, the master has come home in the snow of night." Wu Zuguang, the playwright, described the joys and sorrows of the famous actor named Wei Liansheng in the historical context where people were swaying in the midst of a raging storm. He has experienced both the prosperity of being popular in early years and hard times of despair; and the love story between him and Yuchun, a concubine of the bureaucrat named Su Songji is just a sad melody that cost their lives.

The prosperity on the stage, the desolation of life, the variability of love and the changes of destiny.... With this sentimental love story, Wu Zuguang sought to explore the eternal essence of life, the awakening of nobodies and their inquiries towards the desolate destiny.

SYNOPSIS
In the late 1920s, on a cold night of snow, a man stumbles into the Su Hongji's garden from a gap of the collapsed wall, holding the withered cherry-apple tree as if searching for lost figures...

Twenty years ago, there appears a poor Peking Opera actor Wei Liansheng who fascinates dignitaries, young men and women, and even the general public. He has large social circles and often relieves poor neighbors, thus popular with the people. Chief justice Su Hongji getting rich by smuggling opium leads a happy-go-lucky life. His fourth concubine Yuchun is a prostitute, and then is redeemed as concubine by Su Hongji. With a free heart, Yuchun is not resigned to the caged material life. She learns the drama and meets with Wei Liansheng, confiding to him her miserable life; before Liansheng goes to Su Mansion for birthday celebration and performance, Yuchun invites Liansheng to her loft. Because of their similar background and fate, they fall in love and agree to elope toward the freedom. At this time, Liansheng picks a Chinese flowering apple and sends it to Yuchun.

Unexpectedly, all this is seen by Wang Xingui, a steward recommended to Sue Mansion by Liansheng, and the sycophantic steward tells the thing to Su Hongji. When Yuchun runs away as agreed, Wang Xingui leads several hatchet men to take Yuchun back, while Liansheng is deported. They are reluctant to part and live far apart from each other so far. Twenty years later, Liansheng stumbles into the homeland, but the things are still there but men are no more the same ones....

Wei Liansheng, a famous Peking Opera actor encounters Yuchun, the favorite concubine of Su Hongji, president of the court, and falls in love with her dearly. When Wei Liansheng realizes that he is just a toy of influential officials upon the instruction of Yuchun, he decides to run away with her. When their runaway fails, Liansheng is expelled from the country and Yuchun is sent to the commissioner of salt revenue as a cleaner in the border area. 20 years later, he and she are coming to the place where they fell in love with each other, but Liansheng dies in the snow and Yuchun disappears in the snow before they meet each other.

Tickets for NCPA Drama - Returning Home on a Snowy Night are Available now!