China and the West

Aufführung von Hamlet von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Li Jianming durch das Beijing ren min yi shu ju yuan (Beijing People's Art Theatre) unter der Regie von Lin Zhaohua und Ren Ming.
Lin Zhaohua schreibt 1994 in seinen Program notes : "Hamlet is one of us. In the street, we may pass him without knowing who he is. The thoughts that torture him also torture us everyday. The choice he needs to make is also the one we face every day. 'To be or not to be' is a question of philosophy, but is also a concrete matter, big or small, in our everyday life. 'To be or not to be' : you can choose only one of these alternatives."
Er sagt in einem Interview 1997 : "I was always hoping to put Hamlet on the stage ; I liked the loneliness of Hamlet. Moreover, during that period, people lost their vitality completely. Everybody now wanted to make money or to win prizes or lotteries. Only those who can think feel lonely. The lonely Chinese Hamlet was neither a prince who seeks revenge for the sake of justice nor a hero of humanism. What we are facing is ourselves. To face oneself is the most active and braves attitude modern people can possibly assume."

Li Ruru : Deeply depressed by the consequences of the June 1989 student demonstration in Tiananmen Square, Lin Zhaohua channeled his reflections on those tragic events and the realities they exposed about contemporary China into an experimental production of Hamlet which he presented in Beijing later that year. Lin's Hamlet was not a Renaissance giant with the sublime mission of rescuing his country and his people from a feudal tyrant. There were no longer heroes or villains in the play, just ordinary Beijing people in the late-twentieth century.