Lao She International Theater Festival to kick off in Beijing

Theater enthusiasts in Beijing are looking forward to a bright autumn, as the second Lao She International Theater Festival will kick off next month, bringing quite a number of domestic and international performances to the stage.

Expected to open on Sept 7, the festival will last for 50 days until Oct 27, showcasing 11 plays from China, France, Russia and Poland.

The festival, named after celebrated Chinese novelist and playwright Lao She, was launched last year. It is jointly organized by Beijing Artists Management Corporation and Beijing Tianqiao Performance Arts Center.

As one of the most prominent figures of 20th-century Chinese literature, many of Lao She's works have been repeatedly adapted into various kinds of artistic forms, including plays, TV dramas and movies.

His play Teahouse remains one of the most welcomed plays of the Beijing People's Art Theater. Whenever the play is staged, people line up outside the ticket office, just to watch it once more.

Lao She is good at depicting the daily lives of the grassroots-level people, especially those living in old downtown Beijing, featuring the dialect known as the "Beijing dialect", with some special slang and accents that reflect the personalities of the characters. His novels, Rickshaw Boy and Four Generations under One Roof are still very popular among Chinese people in this day and age.