The Night at the Fragrant Hills: A New Dramatic Exploration of Revolutionary History

Among the many plays performed for the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), The Night at the Fragrant Hills, an original production from the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, is one of the most unique.

The Fragrant Hills were the first stop of the CPC when they arrived in Beijing. Set on the night of Nanjing’s liberation on April 23, 1949, the play features a “conversation” between Mao Zedong, who was at Beijing’s Fragrant Hills, and Chiang Kai-shek, who was in Xikou, Zhejiang, unveiling an important proposition: people’s support is a key factor determining the success or failure of a political party’s cause. What caused the Kuomintang government’s rule to fail and gradually die out? What drove the CPC to triumph after the three-year War of Liberation and led China on a new path?

Director Ren Ming acknowledged that the play deploys theatrical devices to place two important political figures at a crucial historical time on the same stage. It is a bold attempt in artistic creation. The audience must suspend their disbelief to follow Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, in different places at the same time, engaging in a fierce exchange of language, ideas, ideals, and beliefs. They discuss the historical timeline extensively, providing a comprehensive retrospection of China’s New Democratic Revolution history as a magnificent stage image. This brand-new production has broken through the constraints of conventional storytelling narratives of revolutionary history to capture a unique artistic perspective.

The unique ingenuity of the drama is that the two actors tasked with portraying historical figures constantly experience the characters during rehearsals while narrating history. Instead of leading the audience into a specific scene, the play’s bold and free expression of jumping in and out inspires the audience to speculate, reflect on history and life, and experience the rise and fall first hand.

In the play, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek constantly clash and fire up emotions in each other, which creatively shapes the two historical figures by pulling their inner worlds out. Wang Ban, who played Mao Zedong in this production after portraying young Mao Zedong in several film and television productions, is a member of the Beijing People’s Art Theatre. This time he plays Mao Zedong in his prime. “It’s hard to portray Mao because it’s not about looking like him, but capturing what is going on in his mind through his way of speaking,” Wang said.

Wang opined that the play seeks to showcase an accurate and vivid image of Chairman Mao. In addition to Mao’s behavioral characteristics and living habits, Wang also endeavored to highlight Mao’s majestic talent, iron-blooded tenderness, confidence, and sense of humor.

Famous actor Fang Xu, who plays Chiang Kai-shek in the drama, stressed that such a play demands the actors look both inside and outside the characters to ensure they are recognized and accepted by the audience. Fang grappled with Chiang’s complicated political motives, dilemmas of political strategy, entanglement of family interests, and surly personality in hopes of delivering a complex and deep portrayal of the figure.

In addition to approaching the characters through costumes and dialects, the two actors also read and viewed biographies, historical documents, and other literary and video materials. They went to the Fragrant Hills and Xikou on field visits to dive deeper into the characters’ hearts and thoughts. In the performance, they work to dig and express the inner soul of real people in a specific historical time to create “true emotions in a fictitious situation.”

The Night at the Fragrant Hills brings a brand-new artistic presentation and aesthetic expression to dramas of similar themes. It has unique artistic characteristics and aesthetic value. “The Night at the Fragrant Hills is a significant experimental theater effort,” said Song Baozhen, director of the Drama Research Institute of the Chinese National Academy of Arts. “Its success provides a model that can be used to create other dramas featuring real characters and red themes.”