A three-season theater adaption of Chinese writer Jin Yucheng's work Fan Hua is touring the country. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Explaining the use of multimedia in the drama to create the visual texture of Shanghai besides the use of props and scenery to replicate the city, Ma says: "Most people on our team come from other places and we are too young to understand the reality of life in the 1960s, or even in the 1990s. Our understanding of Shanghai during those times comes from newspapers, TV series or news.

"So, we tried to use current visual images and symbols to interpret Shanghai in those days."

The overall image of the stage art is abstract to try and give a sense of contemporary aesthetics to show the 1960s from a contemporary perspective, says Ma.

Another prominent feature of the performance is the Shanghai dialect, which is also one reason why the drama has been so successful.

With the dialect, the modern stage art, electronic music and multimedia, the stories of the three brothers unfold like an old dog-eared city map of Shanghai.

"People get a new picture of Shanghai after watching the drama," says Ma.