A love story for the ages

Through his adaptation, Yip expresses a similar concept－the story can resonate with today's audience, including its reflections on the dynamics between material prosperity and spiritual vacuity, and tradition and modernity.

Playwright Zhang Chang, who wrote the script for the new production, says: "When I first worked on it, I wrote a lot of scenes without any lines, in which the characters are by themselves, putting on makeup and perfume, for example. These scenes are challenging for both the director and the actors.

"I also wanted to leave some space to present the ambience of Eileen Chang's writing, which requires our actors to fully embody the characters."

The combination of film and stage is a distinct feature of the play, with a lot of prerecorded video screened, sometimes in sync with the performances.

The roles of Bai and Fan are respectively played by actress Wan Qian and actor Song Yang.

"Before I started rehearsing, I was not sure how Yip's idea of integrating video with stage would work, and I was a bit worried about the two elements not fitting together," Wan says. "But when we started working, I found that our performance was in harmony with the video, and the ambience and emotions were amplified."