'Hamlet' actors stage a triumph

"In the future, they will become even more brilliant and come back to perform in Shanghai as members of the Tibetan Drama Company."

Pan Yu, a Shanghai-based theater critic, was so impressed with the production that she went back to see the play in Tibetan after attending the Mandarin premiere on May 7.

"This is my favorite Hamlet production of the past few years," Pan says.

"Young as the students are, they have made a very natural, powerful and sincere performance. Everyone was dedicated and relaxed, playful and solemn at the same time. I haven't seen such a quality performance for a long time."

The Tibetan class is a contractual program which started in 2017. The Tibetan Drama Company selected 22 students from the Xizang autonomous region for the STA's four-year college program. Half of the students are from pastoral areas, and the other half come from Lhasa, capital of the region.

"This is the most special class in my experience at the STA over the past 12 years," says Yang Jia, the head teacher for these students.

She says the 22 students were like sheets of white paper when they enrolled in the school. They had no idea what acting meant, nor what life was like being an actor.

"They were shy at the beginning, always trying to hide their faces," she recalls.

In the past four years, they learned reading, experiencing and rehearsing classic plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Hamlet.

Pu says the Shakespearean plays fit them so well, as if "Shakespeare created these plays especially for them". Since he offered to be a teacher for the Tibetan class, Pu not only spent weeks every semester teaching them, but also went all out to obtain donations and aid for the students.