NOW PLAYING
Theatre UNB Presents
Fanshen
by David Hare
Mar. 30-Apr. 2
Theatre UNB is set to present one of the most ambitious and
fascinating plays the company has staged in recent years. Fanshen, by
renowned British playwright David Hare, is a documentary drama about the
tumultuous period in Chinese history that followed the Communist Party's victory
in the country's Civil War of the late 1940s.
Adapted from a book of
the same title by William Hinton, an American who witnessed the revolution in
China firsthand, Fanshen examines these events by looking at how they
affected the people of a single village named Long Bow. Beginning with the
reprisals the desperately poor peasants of the village took against the military
rulers and landlords who persecuted them for so long, the play subsequently
depicts their attempts to replace the feudal system they lived under with a
populist, participatory form of government, and to adapt to a social order that
has been utterly transformed. With the Communist Party's policies constantly
changing, the play documents a seemingly endless cycle of new measures and
countermeasures that fail to create the hope for egalitarian society and instead
lead to abuse of power, recriminations, and turmoil.
Fanshen
depicts the aftermath of the revolution in unflinching detail, with the
violence, chaos, disillusionment and failures that marked the time shown
alongside its utopianism and triumphs. With much of the Middle East and North
Africa in the midst of uprisings against authoritarian rule, Fanshen is a
timely play that asks important questions: after the revolution, what next? And
is it possible to create a system of government in which power does not corrupt
and ideals are not betrayed? With China's recent emergence as a global
superpower, Fanshen also provides a compelling look at the moment when
the wheels of its rise were set in motion.
Fascinating in its
historical and political subject matter and intensely moving in the stories of
the real people depicted in the play, Fanshen is a truly powerful piece
of theatre.
Theatre UNB's
production features a cast of nineteen student actors directed by Len
Falkenstein. Fanshen runs Wednesday, March 30 through Saturday, April 2,
with performances at 8 PM nightly at Memorial Hall on the UNB campus. Tickets
are $10 regular ($6 for students) and are available at the door. For more
information phone 447-3078 or email lfalken@unb.ca
