Theater of the future

A Chinese play directed by Meng Jinghui, inspired by the two-part drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, will premiere on Saturday and be staged through April 23 in Beijing, as the opening play of the festival. Faust starts with the devil, Mephistopheles, making a bet with God. He says he can deflect God's favorite human being, Faust, who is striving to learn everything that can be known, away from righteous pursuits. Faust makes a deal with the devil that it will do everything Faust wants while he is on Earth. If during that time, Faust is so pleased with anything the devil gives him that he wants to stay in that moment forever, he will do the devil's bidding in hell.

During the first half of the play, Meng introduces the story in a traditional theatrical way by having real audiences sit in his Fengchao Theater in Beijing. The second half of the play will expand the audience base into the internet by having people witness and participate in Faust's deal with the devil online. Audiences can use their cellphones, computers and virtual reality headsets to be part of the play, with real actors and actresses changing into virtual performers.

"There will be about 400 audience members in the theater and more people online, being with us. For Meng, it will be a great challenge and experiment. He is excited, and we have no idea where this play will go when it is premiered," says Liu.

Liu's theatrical work, inspired by Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, will also combine real and virtual scenes. It will be staged from April 30 to May 2 in Aranya, a coastal resort in Qinhuangdao, North China's Hebei province. The play will have the audience explore a "paradise", as the painting depicts, along the beach and small town, supported by AI.

"I try to use the latest technology, such as ChatGPT, to write the script, and I am still working on it since the logic of the large language model is very hard to understand, which is also the interesting part of the working process," says Liu, adding that the stage design is done by AI, which is like a "digital assistant realizing the ideas of Liu and his team".

"I am very intrigued by the relationship between people and the latest technology, especially when combined in theater — a place to dream," Liu says.