Play of scenarios in love seeks to bemuse Beijing

The Chinese version of British play Constellations will be staged in Beijing this weekend.[Photo provided to China Daily]

A man and a woman act in front of a dozen cameras as audiences watch on a large projection screen on a stage in Beijing.

The "stage movie" is by avant-garde Chinese director Wang Chong and his Theater du Reve Experimental. It is the authorized Chinese version of Constellations by Nick Payne, an award-winning British playwright, and demonstrates the many possibilities surrounding a relationship between a male beekeeper and a female cosmologist.

In 2012, Constellations was judged the best play at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards in Britian. This year, it premiered on Broadway in the United States.

Wang is adept at using live videos of performers to make a combination of stage drama and movie.

"Performers concentrate on their voices, breaths and body movements during a play. But this production largely focuses on facial expressions because it is like a movie," Wang says.

He also had 13 microphones placed near the performers to capture their voices clearly.

The play hints at nine situations revolving around different stages of the relationship between its lead characters: the first encounter, dating, falling in love, cheating and marriage.

For example, when they first meet, it is possible that the man has a girlfriend or wife, or is out of a relationship recently, or that they are both single. Next, when they bump into each other again after their own breakups, one of them is probably married. It is also possible that they are both single again and marry each other later.

The 80-minute performance has 50 scenes in total, and it means that the actor and actress have to adjust themselves quickly and perform the different scenarios within short time spans.

The cameras kept on tripod stands in a circle represent the hours on a clock. Audiences see the image of a hamster moving inside a cage between intervals of scenes, symbolizing the passage of time. The two performers act in front of different cameras, meaning that they are changing their worlds.