Classic tale of revenge still fascinates

The play opens with Tu'an Gu, a favorite general of the emperor, framing and killing Zhao Dun, a political rival. Tu'an also slaughters most members of the Zhao family. Because Zhao's daughter-in-law, Princess Zhuangji, is pregnant, she is the only one spared. After she gives birth to a son, the general tries to kill the baby, but Cheng Ying, a family friend and physician, smuggles the newborn away. The princess commits suicide to ensure the secrecy of the orphan's whereabouts. To save the orphan, Cheng sacrifices his own newborn son.

Tu'an later takes Cheng and his wife as his proteges, and adopts their son — the orphan of Zhao — as his own. Sixteen years later, the orphan, now an adult, learns the truth about his identity and his family from Cheng and he has to make a choice.

"The play talks about the universal significance of justice and honesty and most importantly, love. We spent a long time working together to discuss the script. As an orphan, he is raised as a seed for revenge by Cheng Ying. But he is also an individual, who has his own ideas. It has been 16 years and could the hatred be gone already?" says He, who didn't reveal the ending of the new play.

According to Feng Yuanzheng, president of the theater, who is also a veteran actor, the idea of adapting the classic Chinese story into a new play started from the annual evaluation of the theater's young actors and actresses, who were assigned to submit their adaptations of classic scenes from the theater's plays.

Two young actors, Jin Han and Zhou Shuai, worked on performing one scene from The Orphan of Zhao.

"They were loyal to the original script of the play, but they displayed their own interpretation. As a result, we decided to make a new play based on the classic tale," says Feng, adding that the play will be staged at the theater's new building, Beijing International Theatre Center.