The Beijing People's Art Theatre is refreshing its adaptation of a classic Australian play, Chen Nan reports.

Set in one locale — the boardroom of a top professional soccer club — and featuring six male characters, the two-act Chinese play, The Club, adapted from Australian dramatist David Williamson's play with the same title, was a huge success when Beijing People's Art Theatre premiered it in 2002.

Now, about two decades later, Beijing People's Art Theatre announced on Monday that it would restage the play, featuring actors from the 2002 version, as well as new talent.

From Sept 20 to Oct 10, the new version of The Club will be staged at Cao Yu Theater, which is located inside the new Beijing International Theatre Center.

In the play, there are three board members: Gerry, a professional administrator, who is hired because the soccer club is undergoing changes and brings new ideas about corporate management to the club; Ted, the club's president, who has the most obvious power, at least at the beginning of the play; and Jock, the former coach and the current vice-president who holds the record for the most games ever played for the club and remains an influential member.

The other characters are Laurie, the club's current coach, who sticks to the traditional values of the club; Geoff, the new star recruit, who plays badly and defies coach Laurie, and, finally, there is Danny, the team captain, who is aware of the fact that he is no longer the star player he once was.

"The Club was my first experience of being an assistant director after I joined Beijing People's Art Theatre in 2001. I was there with the director Ren Ming (1960-2022) and other actors in the play for months, watching how they worked and how they acted, which was a memorable experience," recalls Xu Ang, director of this new production, who also played the role of Geoff in the 2002 version of the play.

In 2001, Xu, at the time a young actor who had just graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, rose to fame by playing the leading role in a Chinese play, First Time Close Contact, directed by Ren.

"The Chinese script was translated from English and the director (Ren) tried to make the lines sound natural and colloquial. Now, over 20 years later, when we adapted this new version of The Club, we spent lots of time working on the scripts and the language," says Xu. "The actors contributed to the adaptation because many changes were made during the rehearsals. We not only localized the script, but also added elements which reflect contemporary life."

Actor Yu Zhen joined the theater as a young actor at around the same time as Xu. In the 2002 production, Yu played the role of Ted, the club's president. In this new version, Yu will play the same character, alongside actor Yang Mingxin as part of a double casting.

"Yu shaved his head and wore a fake beard to play the role of Ted. He was only 27 years old but Ted is much older than him. Now, Yu is in his late 40s, which is a great age for the role," says Xu.

Feng Yuanzheng, veteran actor and also the president of Beijing People's Art Theatre, played the role of Gerry back in 2002. In the new version, in another double casting, he will reprise the role alongside actor Lei Jia.

In The Club, power struggles between the characters and attitudes toward commercialism are explored. One of the lines pertaining to that subject, which Feng came up with during the rehearsal — "soccer is your whole life, but it's only a business to me" — will also be featured in the new version.

"Back in 2002, in China, the concept of soccer club management was alien to many, and we invited Zhang Lu, Chinese soccer commentator and former vice-president of the Chinese Super League team Beijing Guoan, to the theater to teach us about how soccer clubs work and what being part of one is about," recalls Feng. "Now, the profile of the game is much higher, and the concept of a soccer club is much clearer to Chinese people, with domestic soccer evolving into an industry, more than just a sport.

"However, the play is more than just a story about a soccer club. Many of the discussions and attitudes talked about in the play are still relevant and fairly accurate, such as competitiveness, a desire for success, loyalty and ruthless business interests, although some of the situations have changed over the time, since the play was written during the 1970s," says Feng. "Williamson has made a study of human issues, such as jealousy, envy, greed and sentimentality, with a play featuring six characters competing for power."

Young actors Zhao Zhengtian and Gong Jiahao will play the role of Danny and Geoff, respectively. Both of them are soccer fans and have been playing the sport for fun since they were children.

"I enjoy the tension in the play and the fierce verbal battle among the characters," says Zhao, who joined the theater about four years ago. "I love playing soccer and dreamed about becoming a soccer player. Now, I am about to realize my dream, albeit in a different way, on the stage, which is cool."

According to Feng, The Club hasn't been staged by the theater for many years because of a lack of young actors. Last year, when the theater worked on its plan for the new year, the play was on the schedule.

"We have a lot of young talent joining the company over the past three years and we try to offer them as many opportunities to perform as possible. These young people receive training from the veteran actors and actresses of the theater during the daytime and play minor roles onstage at night. Our goal is to have them adapt to being actors and actresses of Beijing People's Art Theatre, which has won the hearts of its audiences with its own acting style," says Feng.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn