The play is about a man named He Shi (He Jiong), who returns to China from Britain to teach lessons on happiness and meets a girl, Shui'er (Yici), at the seaside, who lives a simple life but is happy naturally. [Photo provided to China Daily]

An early start

TV host and actor He Jiong has been working with Lai since 2006 when he starred in Lai's classic play, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, a piece which made its debut 20 years earlier. For the 46-year-old, a popular host of the TV show, Happy Camp, produced by Hunan Satellite TV Station, theater was the start of his career. He gained attention in 1994 when, as a student of Arabic at Beijing Foreign Studies University, he wrote, directed and performed sketches for the stage.

He launched a career as a TV host the following year, landing a spot on a children's TV show at China Central Television. Until 2015, he was also an Arabic teacher at his alma mater.

"Sine 2006, we have given over 600 performances of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land. However, compared to movies screened in cinemas, the number of audience members in theaters is limited," says He Jiong, from Changsha, Hunan province. "With this new take on Writing in Water, more people will be able to enjoy the play and some people may be interested in watching the play in theaters someday."

Huang Yici, 14, plays the role of Shui'er in Writing in Water. When the play was first remade and staged in Shanghai in 2016, she was about 10.

As the eldest daughter of veteran Chinese actor-director Huang Lei and actress Sun Li, Yici grew up watching her parents working in theaters.

"My parents have taken me on tour with them since I was only a year old. When they take their bow during a final curtain call, I often bow with them while standing in the wings. I feel excited and dream about acting onstage myself one day," says Yici.

Since her parents play leading roles in Lai's Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, Yici wanted to make her stage debut by one day playing the same role as her mother. "But I would have to wait for a very long time to play the role like my mother, so I played in Writing in Water," she says.

Broadcasting theatrical productions in cinemas isn't breaking new ground for Chinese audiences. In 2012, Britain's National Theatre Live, or NT Live, first came to China, when it broadcast Frankenstein starring Benedict Cumberbatch at Beijing's MOMA Broadway Cinema. Tickets sold out within hours. Beijing-based ATW Culture Media Ltd, co-organizer of filming and distributing Lai's Writing in Water, was also NT Live's sole distributor in the country and has been bringing live theater programs to China since 2015.