Posted 2018/5/31
"I had an assistant who used English, though I found the most effective way was to [demonstrate] myself," Gu said in an interview last week.
The eight actors and actresses hail from seven different countries including the US, Canada, Russia and France. All had acting experience, but few had experience performing in stage plays.
"It is different acting in TV and movies than on stage," said George Anton, who plays Speed in Gu's adaptation of The Odd Couple.
When acting in a TV series or movie, the storyline is not as strict. But a staged production is more demanding, and mistakes must be discreet, said Anton.
"You have to remember all the lines in a play; TV series or movies do not have this demand," Gu added.
Trial run
Cultural clashes between China and the West made the production process difficult at times.
"Getting used to different acting styles was one of the difficulties," said French actor Pierre Bourdaud, who plays the character Vinnie in Gu's production.
However, recruiting a group of foreigners was a spontaneous idea.
"I thought, why not invite foreign performers? There are many expats living in Beijing, and many can speak Chinese," Li said. "It's a Western play, and I think Westerners can perform the characters with ease."
But the audition process was not easy. "In the beginning we thought about recruiting foreign students at colleges," said director Gu.
"But often, experienced performers are at the beginning stages of learning Chinese, and those who speak good Chinese might not perform well."
It took the group about two months to narrow it down to the final eight.
"We learned a lesson in the process. We overemphasized speaking skills the first time," Gu told the Global Times.
"Sometimes an expat speaks great Putonghua but does not read well. But in this type of performance, you need to read the script."
Having worked on stage productions for more than 40 years, Gu said that as far as he knows, there isn't another play where the foreign performers speak Putonghua.
"Audiences may come at first mainly to see foreigners perform in Chinese, but later I think there will be followers of the performance itself."
In the future, Gu said foreigners performing in Putonghua will be as common as Chinese performing in English.
With more foreigners learning Chinese, they would like to have a stage to showcase their skills, Gu said.
"At first, I had doubts about having foreigners performing in Putonghua ... then I thought about how dubbed movies are successful, regardless. Having a [foreign] cast perform the American story of The Odd Couple in Chinese might actually be the most genuine experience for the Beijing audience," Anton said.
