Watch The Double Bass, a Chinese production of German writer Patrick Suskind's theater piece, and feel the lonely double bassist playing out your own life.

The director Yang Yi has arranged the stage in the middle of the theater, surrounded by audiences. In the center of the stage, He Ping, the only actor reveals through soliloquy the anxiety, frustration and disillusionment of a lonely and insomniac orchestral musician, accompanied by his double bass.

Much of the trouble that keeps the musician awake at night finds resonance with the audiences: His unrequited love for the soprano, his trouble paying the mortgage, and the giant gap between ideal and reality.

The story is so relevant that "when he drops himself a question, it lands on the audiences as well", Yang says.

Yang was the first actor to stage the play in Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center in 2003. Tong Xin, the producer responsible for many successful projects of Agatha Christie's plays in Shanghai, was very impressed with Yang's performance at that time.

Last year Tong went up to Yang, suggesting they should collaborate and stage The Double Bass again.

Yang and Tong shared the special feelings for the play, but now as a successful TV producer and actor, Yang has long left behind the anxiety and insecurity which helped him to present the role convincingly 10 years ago.

Yang took the job as the director this time and hired a young actor He Ping for the role. The three men teamed up for the project in January, and worked devotedly together.

He Ping is 30, and young as he is, He works "in the old-fashioned style", according to Tong the producer.

He would work hard to memorize the script in a week, and then change his lifestyle to "sink into the role".

He gained 4.5 kg for the role of the sleep-deprived, hallucinating musician, and started physical training to prepare himself for the demanding show schedule.

The writer Patrick Suskind is best known as author of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, a novel that has sold more than 12 million copies all over the world. The Double Bass is his maiden work, a play originally designed for the radio, which premiered in 1981.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/31/2013 page15)