Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts - Theatre

Dates: August 16-20, 2017

About

This drama is written by Russian writer Lyudmila Razumovskaya, translated by TONG Ning and directed by ZHA Mingzhe. Dorogaya Yelena Sergeevna, which premiered in 2003, is in the classic repertoire of National Theatre of China, starring LIU Xiaocui, ZHA Zha, ZHANG Yicong, GU Kejia and ZHANG Ruochen in the 2017 edition.

Synopsis

After 14 years since premiere, the drama Dorogaya Yelena Sergeevna still has its significance in contemporary Chinese society and reality according to its director ZHA Mingzhe. In the revival, director ZHA constantly has formed new ideas in characterization while communicating with young performers. He thinks that performers should not only act as bad teenagers in the drama, but play the part of the real social beings struggling to make a choice, to speak for social ideals and morals.

The lonely, melancholy math teacher Yelena Sergeevna has never thought that on such a cold snowy night, four of her students would have come to celebrate her birthday that she has almost forgotten. More unexpectedly, there is a “game” of youth hidden behind the beautiful flowers.

The “game” starts from a key. The teenagers want to use it to unlock the safe which keeps the examination papers, and exchange them with the right answers they have brought. Since they are tenth graders who about to graduate, unsatisfactory graduation examination results will ruin their future. Yelena is the one who keeps the key, and she refuses to give it to her students.

As the “game” goes on, dream and reality, truth and lie, passion and indifference, persistence and confusion, rule and free, defense and destruction, past and future, all are fighting against each other.