Written by He Jiping and first performed by Beijing People's Art Theatre in 1988, The Top Restaurant has become a classic in the hearts of many theatre enthusiasts due to its solid, well-crafted script. With nearly 600 performances over more than 30 years, it has proven to be an enduring work. Recently, the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre brought the Cantonese version of The Top Restaurant to the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center. This Beijing-flavored story, set in a traditional Beijing Peking duck restaurant, has successfully crossed the language barrier and was reenergized with a fresh perspective, as the Hong Kong theatre group performed "Southern accents" to present "Northern tunes" on the stage of Beijing.
For Beijing audiences, the plot of The Top Restaurant is familiar. The play is based on the rise of the famous Peking duck restaurant Quanjude (called Fujude in the play). Using traditional food culture as a backdrop, it tells the story of the rise and fall of a restaurant. Lu Mengshi, who inherits the dying wishes of the old owner, not only strives to revive the duck restaurant but also deals with the two irresponsible sons of the owner, reflecting the fluctuations of the times and the fate of small individuals in a turbulent era.
In 2022, the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre staged The Top Restaurant for the first time, and now, the "Hong Kong-flavored" version is performing in Beijing. The first impression for the audience is that the dialogue remains mostly unchanged from the original, a tradition that has continued in the play's performances at Beijing People's Art Theatre for over thirty years. However, there are some adjustments, including the renaming of the female character "Yuchu'er" to "Luoying" because the original name sounded less pleasant in Cantonese. Additionally, He Jiping added a new scene in this version where, after Lu Mengshi slaps Luoying in the third act, the two characters engage in a moment of mutual understanding.
The most notable change is in the final scene. In the original play, when Lu Mengshi leaves Fujude, Yuchu'er brings the un-hung couplet that Lu Mengshi had prepared. The two sons of the old owner read the couplet, and the play ends. However, in the Hong Kong version, the couplet is slowly brought to the foreground from the back of the stage. In the final scene, Lu Mengshi and the deceased old owner sit at a table with two chairs on stage, and Lu Mengshi somberly recites: "What a dangerous building this is, who is the master and who is the guest? Only three old rooms, the right time for the bright moon, the right wind for the breeze." Meanwhile, the couplet, made of water-soluble cloth, gradually dissolves and deteriorates until it disappears, symbolizing the passage of time and political upheaval, turning to ashes.
The success of the Hong Kong version of The Top Restaurant once again demonstrates that a truly great play must have a script that has withstood the test of time. Only with a solid foundation can a work withstand time, dialects, and even changes in language. The Top Restaurant contains a vast amount of content. The characters in the play belong to different social strata and relationships, representing the various flavors of life. It reflects the harsh realities of society and the joys and sorrows of human nature. When the waiter Chang Gui Zhong collapses from a stroke in the play, the silence in the theatre is so complete that you can hear every breath. The final scene of "hanging the flag" feels like a return to the beginning, as the times break and shatter, showing that the suffering of the common people continues: "When prosperous, the people suffer; when the empire falls, the people suffer," yet individuals like Lu Mengshi still strive to rise above it, hoping to live with vitality and not be looked down upon.
He Jiping immersed herself in the life of the Quanjude kitchen when writing The Top Restaurant in the 1980s, even becoming friends with the chefs and earning a second-level chef certification herself. This grounded creative spirit created a strong foundation for the script. The performances by the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre's actors were equally commendable. The theatre's former principal actor, Tse Koon Ho, is well known to Beijing and mainland audiences, and this marks his return to Beijing after performing in The Mad Phoenix in 2016. In The Top Restaurant, his body language speaks volumes with each appearance, from the powerful presence of Lu Mengshi in the earlier acts to the hero's final tragic fall in the third act.
The Cantonese dialect fits the atmosphere of The Top Restaurant very well. The Cantonese pronunciation, with its nine tones and six tones, retains many features of classical Chinese, delivering the dialogue with strength and an ancient feel. This ancient quality matches the character of Lu Mengshi, who carries the weight of Fujude's fate on his shoulders, and the ending, where he reads the couplet, feels particularly fitting.
The Top Restaurant is the closing play of the 2024 Tianqiao Theatre Drama Festival and also the first major production of 2025 at the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center. This new version of the play, which was born in Beijing, returns home with a fresh perspective, offering a new and unique meaning for the Beijing stage. Created in Beijing, this play draws energy from its origins, blooming into new life and offering an invaluable attempt to revitalize a classic work.
Translator: FENG Haoxuan
Reviewer: BAI Jing
