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When a stage production of \u201cThe Shawshank Redemption\u201d opened recently in China, it was cast entirely with Western actors speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese. But that may have been the least surprising part of the show.<\/p>\n
That the show \u2014 an adaptation of the Stephen King novella that became one of the most beloved movies of all time \u2014 was staged at all seemingly flew in the face of several trends in China\u2019s cultural sphere.<\/p>\n
Chinese audiences\u2019 interest in Hollywood films is fading<\/a>, with moviegoers turning to homegrown productions. China\u2019s authoritarian government has stoked nationalism and cast Western influence as a political pollutant. Censorship of the arts has tightened.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Yet the production reflects how some artists are trying to navigate the changing landscape of both what is permissible and what is marketable in China. And its success shows the appetite that many Chinese still have for cultural exchange.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe Shawshank Redemption\u201d \u2014 the story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder who defies prison officials\u2019 tyranny and eventually pulls off a daring escape \u2014 has been a target for Chinese censors before. Mentions of it were briefly censored online<\/a> in 2012, after a prominent Chinese dissident escaped house arrest<\/a> and fled to the American Embassy. In general, the Chinese authorities have shown little tolerance for calls, artistic or otherwise, for freedom and resistance to injustice.<\/p>\n There were also logistical challenges. The production team wanted to use foreign actors to make the adaptation feel more authentic. But the number of expatriates in China has plummeted in recent years, making wrangling enough foreigners who could speak stage-worthy Mandarin \u2014 a small pool to begin with \u2014 even more difficult. China\u2019s economic slowdown has also made audiences reluctant to spend on the theater.<\/p>\n All of which made the show\u2019s arrival in China maybe not as tricky as a prison escape, but certainly not a sure bet.<\/p>\n \u201cI did accept the project thinking, \u2018This sounds like a great idea, if they can pull it off,\u2019\u201d said Mark Rowswell, a Canadian comedian and television personality who played Red, the jailhouse smuggler immortalized in the film by Morgan Freeman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBut you have to be prepared, you just never know,\u201d continued Mr. Rowswell, who is widely known in China by his stage name, Dashan. He has been performing in the country since the 1980s, when he was one of the few foreigners fluent enough. \u201cYou might do two months of rehearsal and the whole thing gets canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After initially slow ticket sales in Shenzhen, the show\u2019s four-night run in Beijing last month, in a 1,600-seat theater, nearly sold out. The production had a rating of 7.8 on Douban, a crowdsourced review site, and a nationwide tour is planned for the spring.<\/p>\n Casts from overseas productions have long toured in China, and Chinese actors have played Mandarin-language adaptations of roles that originated abroad. But this was billed as the first Mandarin production to feature an all-foreign cast.<\/p>\n The genesis of the idea, in the production team\u2019s telling, was simple: The \u201cShawshank\u201d film was hugely popular in China, so surely theatergoers would want to see it, too. And since it was a foreign story, why not find foreign actors?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n That seemingly straightforward calculus, though, created a host of questions about translation, both linguistic and cultural.<\/p>\n The director, Zhang Guoli, is a prominent Chinese actor and director who was trained in xiangsheng, a form of classical Chinese comedy. The 11 actors came from eight countries, including the United States, Finland and Russia. Fluency in Mandarin was more important than professional stage experience; the hero Andy Dufresne was played by James Clarke, a national director with the Australia China Business Council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During rehearsals, actors had to reconcile a more vernacular style of theater often found in the West with Mr. Zhang\u2019s classical training.<\/p>\n There were also thornier questions of adaptation, particularly, what would get by China\u2019s censors.<\/p>\n The script the Chinese production used was a translation of a 2009 stage adaptation by two writers from the United Kingdom, Owen O\u2019Neill and Dave Johns. Both the 2009 script and the Hollywood film are filled with profanities and include explicit references to the sexual violence that Andy endures in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Chinese version used only mild profanity. One character used the word rape, but briefly. Unlike in the movie and original play, there was no mention of homosexuality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During publicity interviews, the cast and crew leaned into the story\u2019s theme of hope, without emphasizing freedom, said Yao Yi, the show\u2019s producer, knowing the latter could be considered sensitive.<\/p>\n Still, other parts that may have been difficult to include in a contemporary Chinese play remained intact. Characters recited Bible verses. The overall plot \u2014 and its sympathetic portrayal of the prisoners \u2014 remained unchanged.<\/p>\n Stage productions are often less tightly regulated than movies, given their smaller audiences. Copyright laws also limited how much the production team could alter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The use of foreign actors may also have reassured the authorities that it was \u201ca purely Western story,\u201d and \u201cnot an allegory after all,\u201d Mr. Rowswell said.<\/p>\n Ms. Yao said she was confident audiences would be receptive to the story, too.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Shawshank Redemption\u201d is still the highest-rated movie \u2014 of all films, not just Chinese ones \u2014 on Douban, showing that Chinese audiences had not entirely turned away from Hollywood, she said. And Chinese theatergoers especially were a self-selecting group, hungry for more international perspectives, she said. \u201cPeople who go watch plays,\u201d she said, \u201care looking for a kind of spiritual fulfillment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But cast members also acknowledged the need to adapt to Chinese audiences\u2019 changing tastes.<\/p>\n Ben Hubley, an American who played the young inmate Tommy, said he hoped the production would be a \u201csubtle but important\u201d bridge between the United States and China amid deteriorating relations. Yet he doubted the show would have been as popular if it had merely been performed in English.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like the intention behind it is much clearer than just, like, a big American production coming in,\u201d Mr. Hubley said. \u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten to a point where if you want to come here, your intention behind the project is super important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After one of the shows in Beijing, the question of how to categorize the production seemed far from many audience members\u2019 minds. As the crowd \u2014 which included children, young adults and grandparents \u2014 spilled into the lobby of Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, taking photos with cardboard cutouts of the actors and posing with prop beer bottles, several theatergoers said they went simply because they loved the movie.<\/p>\n Li Zuyi, a recent college graduate, said he at first hadn\u2019t known the cast was foreign. He has seen \u201cShawshank\u201d more than 10 times \u2014 a still of Andy after his escape was his phone background \u2014 and he would have gone to see the play regardless.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But another audience member, Annie Dong, 28, said the novelty of seeing foreign actors speaking Mandarin had attracted her. She did want to see overseas stories \u201clocalized,\u201d she said, adding that the script\u2019s incorporation of Chinese slang made it feel more relatable.<\/p>\n She hoped eventually to see foreigners acting not only in adaptations of foreign plays, but in Chinese ones too. \u201cThis kind of cultural blending and collision is something I look forward to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But the factors that made this production hard-won may continue to be an obstacle.<\/p>\n The number of Americans learning Mandarin has fallen in recent years, and the population of foreigners in cities like Beijing and Shanghai has not recovered from its drop<\/a> during the pandemic. Many Westerners also remain wary of traveling to China amid its inward turn.<\/p>\n Mr. Rowswell was in Canada when he was approached for this play, and until then, he had not known when he would return.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps it\u2019s something that will become more difficult in the future, not easier,\u201d he said of similar productions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n