By Yang Guang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-20 09:11

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-08/20/content_8591698.htm

Li Haifeng has recently been dreaming of standing on a stage, caught up in the action but unable to think of his lines.

The reason is that the ongoing 2009 College Theater Festival reminds him of his days with the Black and White Drama Society, in Zhejiang University, in the mid-1990s.

After graduating from college 12 years ago, Li worked in Shanghai, the United States, and finally in Beijing. But he never lost touch with the Black and White alumni and his drama teacher Gui Ying.

Gui Ying, associate professor with the Art Department, Zhejiang University, has been with Black and White since it was founded in 1990.

"The purpose of nurturing college drama culture is not to create stars but to inspire students to delve into their inner selves, reflect upon the outer reality, and thus confront society and the world at large with equanimity," he says.

While the College Theater Festival began in 2001, this is the first year that it has offered a "Golden Hedgehog Award", which goes to the person or group with the most sharply observed and innovative production.

Festival producer Xu Wei believes drama should be sharp, like a hedgehog.

Among the 19 works entered for the competition, many reveal college students' contemplation of ideas such as time, reality, idealism and action.

Waiting Father and When Godot Comes extend the themes in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, for example.

When Godot Comes scriptwriter and director, Li Ran, has one central question to ask: "Godot comes. So what?"

"When something we aspire to finally happens it might not be what we expect. Behind the play's boisterous facade is agitation about waiting, bewilderment about reality, and contemplation of the future," Li says.

Peking University student Zhang Xinxin, scriptwriter and director of Waiting Father, takes a look at the states of mind of his fellow students as they face graduation and look for jobs.

"Father represents hope and, at the same time, responsibilities. The problem with the four people in Waiting Father is they are passive instead of initiating action."

If Waiting Father is abstract and When Godot Comes is gloomy, Future for Ever is clearer and more optimistic in what it tries to convey.

Cui Yan, scriptwriter and director of the drama, and founder of Future Theater at Beihang University, says he looks at several ideas in the piece.

"Future for Ever means the future did not, does not and will not come. For better or worse, the absence of future makes it full of probabilities, the uncertainty of which generates both hope and despair," Cui says.

"We try to discuss in this play the dialectics of hope and despair. There is no clear-cut dichotomy between the two - if we rid ourselves of despair, we rid ourselves of hope as well."

Asked about his own attitude toward the future, Cui says: "I believe in action and practice."

"Previous college theater festivals saw more expression_r_r_rs of personal sentiment," says Yang Qianwu, secretary-general of Beijing Drama Society and executive supervisor of the 2009 College Theater Festival.

"This year we see more dramas featuring the interactions of individuals and their immediate social surroundings."

Despite a flourishing college drama society scene and the lively college theater festival, the prospects for college dramas are not uniformly bright.

"Our problem is that we have no fixed rehearsal room space and not sufficient funds. For instance, the money provided by the school is only sufficient for the return fare from Beijing. Hotel costs are scraped together by our Beijing alumni," says professor Gui Ying.

"We have an unwritten tradition that Black and White members donate money into the foundation after graduation. What's more, we have Black and White alumni associations around the country."

Cai Mingqi, a sophomore at Beihang University and in charge of Future Theater group, says it had just four members and no teacher when he took over last year.

"We rehearsed for two months after a recruitment drive, but produced nothing. Some members were absent-minded, others were simply at their wit's ends," Cai says.

"Things turned around after I got in touch with Cui Yan (founder of Future Theater). However, I still have to argue with the school authorities for rehearsal rooms and funds.

"Perhaps we have grounds to ask for more only after achieving something, like winning an award."

Almost without exception, college drama societies are confronted with problems of funding, rehearsal room space and securing teachers, who for the most part do it for free.

"So, why do we persist?" Gui Ying asks rhetorically, before answering with a smile: "Because drama is a group of people doing things that make them happy."