The stage is a world

Hebei Provincial Theater's production of The Odd Couple features a cast of foreign actors. Provided to China Daily

A Chinese-language production of the classic New York play The Odd Couple at the National Center for the Performing Arts was a brave experiment. Han Bingbin reports in Beijing.

In what was a world's first, a full cast of Western actors from six countries performed an all-Mandarin version of Neil Simon's Broadway comedy classic The Odd Couple at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) on Wednesday and Thursday.

With its vivid portrait of the hilarious happenings between two mismatched flatmates, both suffering from frustrating marriages, the Tony Award-winning play has enjoyed success since its debut in 1965, with more than 1,200 performances staged on Broadway so far.

While it's generally believed that American sarcasm doesn't really work for Chinese audiences, this didn't seem to be a problem. Meanwhile, the actors spoke with such a range of accents that it was like a dubbed foreign movie.

The natural style of acting made the New York story more credible, director Gu Wei says - though he admits the choice of foreign actors was a business strategy to begin with.

Rather than choosing an obviously popular play, Li Tihua, from the Hebei Provincial Theater decided on The Odd Couple as part of the theater's transformation from being a government-sponsored art troupe to a market-oriented theater company.

The two nights of performances were on the same NCPA stage where Hebei Provincial Theater created a box office record in the capital with a revolution-themed drama in 2011.

Gu says the process was "very daring" because the stage was booked even before rehearsals were scheduled. After two painstaking months searching for foreigners who can both act and speak fluent Mandarin, there was only time for one month's rehearsal - shorter than for a typical Chinese play.

And though the foreign actors could speak good Chinese, they needed help reading the script. Also, though many of them had experience working on TV series and movies, they had limited stage experience.

Gu says, fortunately for him, they were all quick learners and worked so hard they "outshone their Chinese counterparts".

For Georg Anton from Austria, who plays the protagonist's sarcastic poker buddy, it was an "honor" and "rare chance" to perform in front of 1,000 people.

Like the other actors, Anton is part of an active foreign language (mostly English) acting community in China. He was formerly a member of the Beijing Actors' Workshop, which along with Beijing Playhouse, is the capital's oldest English-language drama troupe.

In this circle, about 100 amateurs and semi-professional actors rehearse mainly at the experimental Penghao Theater, which provides a small stage to bring their non-profit projects to fruition.

Two years ago, Anton quit his consulting job to do more acting work and since then has appeared in six TV series, three made-for-TV films and four movies.

If you counted every foreigner who has said a line in a Chinese TV series or film over the past 10 years, he says, then you'd get around 1,000 different people.

"That's 1,000 people who got a free haircut, a nice close-up and a memorable experience, and who were seen for a few moments by probably hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers at some point," he says.

However, he says there are others who over the years have had decent roles, learned to make money from acting in China, and reached a certain level of professionalism.

"We're at the forefront of this experiment. We have this responsibility to make it a success to convince people to continue this thing," he says.

Though Gu predicted a good reaction from audiences for The Odd Couple and suggests there will be similar productions in the future, he doesn't see foreign-cast productions as a trend as "it's a small circle (niche)".

This doesn't bother Karl Eiselen, who takes the lead role in the drama and started acting in China at the beginning of the 1990s. He has taken part in dozens of productions, including Jackie Chan's 2011 movie Shaolin.

After having abandoned theater for more than 20 years since his early drama experiences in New York, The Odd Couple involvement has once again inspired him.

"I'll probably never have another chance to stand on the NCPA stage. But I can go back to Broadway to start again with some small roles. The point is I have to keep improving the quality of my work and never be satisfied with myself," he says.

Contact the writer at hanbingbin@chinadaily.com.cn.