Village savors its leading role

"The journey was very tough. Then I thought, if I could bring my productions here, so the residents had the chance to see performances of the same high quality as those in Beijing, Shanghai, and abroad, what kind of impact would it have? It became my own personal social experiment," Lai says.

In 2015, he was able to begin realizing his vision and staged Menage a 13 there.

"Menage a 13 is a comedy that addresses topics like marriage, family, and parent-child relationships. It has a somewhat absurd sense of humor. So 10 years ago, I was a little concerned about staging it in this small county," says Ding Nai-chu, theater producer and Lai's wife.

"But after the performances, I was relieved to see an overall positive reaction. The audience seemed to accept it quite well."

A decade later, the same production returns, now featuring a new cast, including actress Xie Na and actor Chu Chung-Heng.

Over the following years, Lai continued to stage more of his work in Huichang. Receiving positive feedback, he thought it was possible for him to give back more to the county, and started envisioning this theater village.

With support from local government, Lai and his team redesigned the area around his family's ancestral home to establish a comprehensive performing arts complex.

While preserving the area's historical architecture, four indoor theaters were built or repurposed from old buildings, such as a former printing factory and an ancestral hall, along with several plazas for open-air performances, including the Lai Family Mansion Plaza, a square in front of Lai's ancestral home.

This year, Lai's new production Beckett in the Lai Family Mansion will be staged inside the house.

Influenced by Irish writer Samuel Beckett's work, Lai created Footfalls: Beckett in the Ancient Chinese Garden in 1989, and directed Waiting for Godot in 1999 and 2001. After 24 years, Lai pays tribute to Beckett once again with the site-specific play at his ancestral mansion.

"This year, we've also established a theater troupe, Actors Company, especially for the village, hoping that the village will have performances all year round, rather than only during the theater seasons," Lai says.

Theater practitioners from around the country have joined the troupe and begun studying under Lai and rehearsing his classic work. On Sunday, the troupe gave their debut performance, a new version of Lai's play Circle Story.

"The theater village project began as a dream, a simple, naive idea. After 10 years, the biggest change is that the theater village has opened. I feel a sense of accomplishment, but it's still very early on," Lai says.

"We are working on building a creative cultural ecosystem. Our poster is of a banyan tree with a light bulb as its roots. The light bulb goes deep into the soil and illuminates it. Changes are only beginning to take place on the ground."

The village officially opened with its first theater season which ran from Jan 5 to 14 last year. Official statistics show that, by presenting 354 performances, the event attracted 1.24 million visits, with a peak of over 200,000 in a single day.

Over the course of the year, the village hosted 698 performances given by 65 theater troupes from China and abroad, leading to 6.6 million visits, which boosted the county's tourism revenues.

According to Yu Kai, deputy head of Huichang county, the county government continues to strengthen the cultural brand of the theater village this year, enhancing support facilities, organizing high-quality theater events, developing the Hesheng Institute of Theatre Technology, and working toward obtaining a national 4A scenic area recognition for the theater village.

"This project aligns with our goal of strengthening the cultural foundation of our county — to make culture a driving force for its development and for the residents' well-being. We hope it will be a place where creators, performers and other theater practitioners realize their dreams, and where visitors can see a broader world," Yu says.

Contact the writer at chengyuezhu@chinadaily.com.cn