Newcastle University

Message from Valerie Pellatt: A very big thank you to all the students who took part in the Cao Yu play reading and helped the whole event to go with a swing!

This two-day event which was sponsored by the Research Centre for Film and Digital Media and the School of Modern Languages celebrated the life and work of Cao Yu, born in 1910, pioneer playwright of modern China. His plays, in vernacular Chinese, shocked and inspired Chinese audiences in the early decades of the twentieth century. His work opened the lid on Chinese family and society, and opened the way for a new approach to drama in China. Admission was free for students thanks to sponsorship by the Research Centre for Film and Digital Media and SML.

Ruru Li, of Leeds University, step daughter of Cao Yu and herself an expert in Chinese drama, put together an exhibition charting the life and work of this important dramatist. This was open for free viewing on 13th and 14th October at Northern Stage, Stage3.

Two films will be shown, exemplifying Cao Yu’s depictions of emotional and social entanglements in the typical Chinese family of the early twentieth century, and students of Newcastle University will perform a reading of excerpts from one of Cao Yu’s plays.

Thursday 13th Oct: 

7.00 pm Talk by Dr Ruru Li in Stage 2.

8.00 pm Film Thunderstorm (雷雨)in Stage 2.

Tickets for talk and film £6 from Northern Stage, students free (sponsored by the Research Centre for Film and Digital Media and the School of Modern Languages).

Friday 14th Oct:

2 pm Play reading 北京人 ‘Peking Man’ in English and Chinese in Stage 3.

3 pm Film Savage Land (原野) in Stage 3.

Tickets for reading and film £6 from Northern Stage, students free (sponsored by the Research Centre for Film and Digital Media and the School of Modern Languages). 

Film: Thunderstorm （雷雨） one hour and fifty minutes, released in 1984, directed by Sun Daolin孙道临, starring  Sun Daolin (Zhou Puyuan周朴园), Gu Yongfei顾永菲 (Fanyi繁漪), Qin Yi 秦怡(Lu Ma鲁妈) and Zhang Yu张瑜 (Sifeng四凤).

Play：北京人 ‘Peking Man’ – a family history set in the 1940s

Film: Savage Land (原野)shot in 1981 but was not released in mainland China until 1987, (approx. 2 hours). Starring Liu Xiaoqing and Yang Zaibao.