Directing Dramas is Returning Hometown: Reading Lin Zhaohua’s The Cherry Orchard from the Perspective of the Taoist Freedom, Xiaoyao

Year 2024, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 73 - 95, 16.03.2024

Chengyun Zhao

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10829736

Abstract

Born in 1936 and starting to produce little theatre praxes in 1982, Lin Zhaohua is the first Chinese theatre director who could be considered the predecessor of most other Chinese directors after the proclamation of the 1978 Reform and Opening-Up policy. His adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard premiered at the Northern Theatre of The Central Academy of China in 2004, rehearsed again in 2009, and was subsequently invited to the 2009 Singapore International Festival of Arts. The paper aims to add a footnote to Lin Zhaohua’s contemporary adaptation of The Cherry Orchard from the Chinese philosophical arguments of the Taoist freedom, xiaoyao. The raised auditorium and the lowered stage ceiling of this production which provide the audiences with a vast scope tally with the precondition of being xiaoyao. The overlapped spaces and simultaneously uttered texts in Lin’s adaptation resonate with a feature of xiaoyao that every individual is equal in the state of freedom. The dynamic stage, designed by Lin and Yi Liming to visualize the psychological state of Lyuba, parallels the way of pursuing xiaoyao, “depending on nothing”. The essay argues that Lin’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard is not only an experimental production but also resonates with the ideas of Taoism.

Keywords

Lin Zhaohua, Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Taoism, interculturalism

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