Bailiwick Repertory.
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In his 1970 book, William Hinton revealed the village of Long Bow, 400 miles southwest of Beijing, as a microcosm of a rapidly changing China. David Hare’s stage adaptation transformed that historical record into a Brechtian parable, its subject the community who fanshen (“turn over”) centuries of tradition in three pivotal years, 1946 to 1949. A small-scale epic, Hare’s play offers object lessons in peasants inheriting privileges denied them for centuries. Sometimes they abuse them: settling private scores, denouncing enemies as capitalist running dogs, and indulging in endless meetings and perpetual self-criticism. But mostly Hare’s saga, a kind of antidote to Animal Farm, depicts decent folks coping with climactic change. (Women discover a status and independence that foot binding never allowed.)
