Taught in the act

Drama students at Peking University ended the term with a flourish, demonstrating their skills with a theatrical contest, Xing Wen reports.

When the graduation season gets underway in June, it's time for Wu Bi to bid farewell to his alma mater, Peking University, and also the seedbed of his passion for acting and playwriting.

Last month, the 24-year-old wowed the audience at the Peking University Hall with the play he wrote and the performances his team staged throughout the campus' theatrical contest, Ju Xing (roughly translated as theatrical star).

That, in his words, was "a graduation gift" he gave to himself and his fellow students.

Then, the postgraduate student from the department of Chinese language and literature won the best supporting actor award in the contest finals-his fourth during his six years at the university.

Regularly posting his fiction writing, essays and poems on a public WeChat account, Wu says to create a stage drama could be a new way for him to present his literary works to others, especially considering he has already adapted one of his novels into a theater script.

"The immediate feedback you get from the audience also drives me to improve the quality of my writing," Wu says.

The drama he prepared for the final, entitled The Death of a Monk, was inspired by an idea that hit him while he pondered a social phenomenon-people are drawn to things that are forbidden.

With a touch of fantasy realism, the play ironically reflects his observation of human nature, social order and political power.

Wu says the cultural environment in universities embraces open-mindedness and critical thinking, and most of the audiences in the campuses are well-educated, hence there are less limits set on the subjects of plays written and staged by students.

However, Wu says that, although university students can feel free to create plays, their work might seem a little shallow, given their lack of a deep understanding of how the world really works.