Drama offers new perspective of life and love

Pavel Korchagin and Tonia Tumanova in the drama. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn]

Pavel and Tonia, a drama about a love story adapted from the classic Soviet novel "How the Steel was Tempered" has been staged in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Written by Nikolai Alexeevich Ostrovsky (1904-1936), a writer in the former Soviet Union, the novel which was finished in 1933 was a household name in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

It tells the story of how Pavel Korchagin, a 12-year-old boy from a poor railway worker's family, grew into a soldier and builder of his country.

Because of his wound as a soldier and illness as a builder, Pavel was paralyzed and blind. But with help from his mother and wife, he managed to write a novel on the basis of his own life.

In the novel, Pavel said: "The thing one prizes most is life. Life comes to us but once. One should live his life in such a way -- when he recalls the past, he will feel no regret for wasting his life, no shame for accomplishing nothing. So when he is dying, he would say all my life and all my strength have been dedicated to the struggle for the liberation of mankind which is the world's most magnificent career."

The above-mentioned words inspired countless young Chinese.

As a teenager, Pavel met and fell into love with Tonia Tumanova, a beautiful girl from a rich family.

Tonia helped Pavel escape to safety after he had rescued a Bolshevik, had been jailed and managed to flee the prison. But Tonia liked donning fine clothes and Pavel's revolutionary comrades in rags frowned on it, criticizing Pavel for mingling with a bourgeois.

Unable to change Tonia, Pavel thought she belonged to the despicable bourgeois class and parted with her, according to the novel.

But in the drama created by the Chengdu Associated Theater of Performing Art Co. Ltd, Pavel realized in his remaining years that a proletariat revolutionary did not necessarily rule out a better lifestyle or love for a bourgeois who was not against revolution.

"Ours is different from the time of Pavel and Tonia. It is hoped contemporaries can approve the change in adapting the novel," said Yang Shen, the director.