From screen to stage, a river continues forward

Nearly 80 years after The Spring River Flows East became a landmark in Chinese cinema. The story returns — this time on the stage, through the intimate, immediate language of theater.

The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing will present its new stage adaptation, premiering from Sept 26 to Oct 4. The production is the third in the NCPA's series of classic black-and-white film adaptations.

Written, directed, and led by Wang Ban, the cast features Zeng Li, Yu Mingjia, Cheng Lisha, and Ding Yongdai, alongside resident NCPA actors.

Released in 1947 and directed by Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, the movie is set against the backdrop of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

The story follows a Shanghai family separated by the war, focusing particularly on Sufen and her husband Zhang Zhongliang.

The title of the movie comes from a line by Tang Dynasty (618-907) poet Li Yu: "A river flows eastward in spring", which evokes the film's themes of separation, suffering, betrayal, and the turbulent fate of ordinary people.

The new stage production shifts the epic from the screen into its own theatrical language. Rather than re-create the film, Wang and his creative team blend realism and poetic imagery to explore how war, survival and desire shape human choices.

At an open rehearsal on Aug 24, five scenes offered a glimpse of the production's contrasting worlds of privilege, hardship and wartime upheaval.

In one scene, actress Zeng Li performed Sufen's monologue from the refugee shelter. Quiet and restrained, she spoke of the years of hardship and her longing for the husband she hopes will return.

"Sufen represents the goodness of countless Chinese women," Wang says. "Her endurance and resilience are especially evident in this scene. Against the vast backdrop of the 14-year war, countless ordinary families experienced separation and loss. Sufen supports an entire family with her frail body, yet she remains hopeful, waiting for the man to whom she once pledged her love under the moon."

Wang believes that is why the story still resonates today.

"This classic film does not belong only to the past," he says. "It can also reflect our present."

The rehearsal moved between sharply different worlds: an extravagant costume ball, a rural schoolmaster rallying villagers to take up arms, and scenes of ordinary people confronting the upheaval of war. Together, they show that the production is less interested in recreating a famous film than in asking how history reshapes individual lives.

The stage uses light and shadow, and the moon and water, to connect private lives with the larger currents of history. The flowing river becomes a metaphor for time and fate — always moving forward, leaving choices behind that cannot be undone.

The production also caught the attention of a leading figure of China's fourth generation of directors, acclaimed filmmaker Xie Fei, who attended the rehearsal.

"The scenes deeply moved me," Xie says. "The performances have life. Wang Ban said that theater is the art of 'living people performing living people for living people.' What matters is that genuine emotion resonates between the stage and the audience."