China and the West

Miller, Arthur. Death of a salesman in China
1983 Aufführung von Death of a salesman von Arthur Miller im Beijing People's Art Theatre unter der Übersetzung von Ying Ruocheng, unter der Regie von Arthur Miller ; mit Ying Ruocheng als Willy Loman, Zhu Xu als Charley und Zhu Lin als Linda.

1978
On the trip to China 1978, Arthur Miller met many luminaries in Chinese theater, including Cao Yu, Ying Ruocheng, actor-director Jin Shan, and director Huang Zuolin.
1980
The idea for this unique collaborative venture grew out of a conversation between Arthur Miller, Center director Chou Wen-chung, Chinese playright Cao Yu, and Ying Ruocheng, when Cao and Ying visited New York in 1980 as guests of the Center. Ying, China's leading actor, played Willy Loman in the production. He visited the United States for four months in the fall of 1982 as Edgar Snow, Visiting Professor of Theater at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, began to prepare a new translation of the script. The Center sent to Beijing set designs and photographs of previous productions, tapes of the incidental music, and stage props unavailable in China—such as a football, helmet, and shoulder pads.
Miller eagerly anticipated the experience of directing his prize-winning 1949 play with an all-Chinese cast and crew. "Believe it or not," he told the Center before he flew to Beijing, this is the first time I'll be fully involved in directing 'Salesman' in any language. It is going to be a fascinating anthropological experience…a real challenge."
1983
The production was made possible by the Chinese Theatre Association and the U.S.-China Arts Exchange.
To celebrate the opening of the play, the Center organized a special tour of China for a delegation of artists and art patrons. The Center also arranged for correspondent Bill Moyers and a CBS television news team to film final rehearsals and cover the premiere. Miller kept a journal during his six-week stay in China.
The production, co-sponsored by the Center and the Chinese Theater Association, was hailed in the Chinese press as "the most significant cultural event in China since the Cultural Revolution." Performed in Chinese, it spawned an explosive growth in contemporary vernacular theater. The recognition awarded Arthur Miller in turn stimulated a renewal in his career.
April 6
"Xinhua has published a narrow description of the play as a condemnation of monopoly capitalism, period. But the actors and others around the theatre seem totally undisturbed, dismussing this as inevitable and as something nobody reads but foreigners and newspapermen... Ying Ruocheng is trying to sell it to the reporters and politicos, I think, in order to keep it from becoming a political bone of contention."
May 7. The opening.
"But whatever my owen reaction, the audience's is passionate. At the end they would never stop applauding. Nobody left. When he was taking his bows, I thought I saw a dremendously serious victory in the look of Yang Ruocheng's face. The gamble has paid off, the Chinese audience has understood Salesman and was shwoing its pride in the company."