A hard act to follow

Twelfth Night is about a shipwreck tearing a family apart, while twins Sebastian and Viola seek refuge in a new land.

Both of the plays have been adapted by Chinese theater companies and are well-known to Chinese audiences.

Eight actors-all under the age of 35-from Shakespeare's Globe take on multiple roles in the two plays and they sing, dance and play instruments. The director uses lots of symbols from Elizabethan times, such as domestic helpers dressed in blue. Three doors are set up onstage, with one large door placed center stage and two smaller doors placed either side.

"It's important to keep some of the traditional format. My role is to empower the actors," the director says. "Simplicity releases complexity. A simple stage set allows the audience to imagine and each member of the audience will develop their own individual relationship with the play."

According to Lu Jiande, director of the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the relationship between Shakespeare and China dates back to 1890, when the Bard's The Merchant of Venice was staged at a university in Shanghai. During the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), a Chinese scholar, Lin Shu, translated Tales from Shakespeare, a children's book written in English by brother and sister Charles and Mary Lamb in 1807.