In general, language is one of the central elements of a theatrical drama. However, the subtleties of a script can be lost in translation, and when the audience and players don’t share a common tongue the language barrier becomes seemingly insurmountable.

As China’s cultural influence follows the path of its ever-expanding economic influence, Chinese theater groups taking their productions to the world stage are exploring ways to bypass this barrier.

Last September audiences at the 2012 Beijing International Youth Theater Festival were treated to one of the results of these explorations. Zhao Miao and his theater company Santuoqi presented their new drama Shuisheng, which had spent a stint at the Festival d’Avignon earlier that summer.

Language Barrier

Language barrier is a problem that must be addressed before Chinese theatrical productions can be enjoyed by a global audience. In Shuisheng the actors present the story using body language without any dialogue, which allows foreign audiences to understand the plot without difficulty. In Avignon the play received praise from the French media for its impressive use of body language to present a Chinese dreamscape with both intensity and subtletly.

Shuisheng is the adaptation of the story Wang Liulang, literally meaning the sixth son of the Wang family, from the Chinese classic Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi). The story is about a troubled ghost of a youth who had drowned in a river. The spirit had to take the life of another before he could be reincarnated. When the opportunity of killing a fisherman with whom he had made friends finally came, the spirit hesitated. He knew that if he killed the man, the dead man’s family would suffer great sorrow and the dead man himself would become spirit who would in turn have to kill another innocent. In the end, he gave up and resolved not to take anybody’s life.

Santuoqi managed to convey this tale to the audience without the use of words. Chen Lidan, a professor of mass communications at Renmin University of China and researcher at the Institute of Journalism and Communication of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explained to China Today that language is the most important tool in human communication and a useful vehicle for people to exchange their thoughts.

But the world’s immense variety of languages, Chen continued, which number anywhere between 6,000 and 7,000, have become barriers for communication between different cultures. Literature such as novels and poems all rely on words to pass on meaning, making learning about other peoples difficult. Many plays fall into the same trap – William Shakespeare was not accessible to the vast majority of Chinese people until a Mandarin translation of Hamlet was published 300 years after the great Bard’s death.

However, as a form of performance art, plays by their very nature have the potential to transcend such restraints. During the 2012 Festival d’Avignon, China sent three dramas featuring little or no dialogue. Where dialogue was necessary, subtitles were shown on a screen near the stage to help the audience follow the plot. Shuisheng, one of the three entries, relies entirely on body language.

Several dozen dramas from over 20 countries and regions shown during the 2012 Beijing International Youth Theater Festival were also performed primarily using dance and body language rather than dialogue to facilitate communication to the audience.