The young Chinese director Ding Yiteng makes his debut at the Alexandrinsky Theatre with a performance based on his outstanding contemporary, Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan's novel «Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out», in which the writer continues his grandiose chronicle of China's 20th century history, combining crude naturalism and high tragedy, political satire and magical fiction of rare artistic beauty.

The novel «Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out” (2006, translated into Russian by Igor Egorov) was written by Mo Yan (born 1955) in forty-three days - and that's four hundred and ninety thousand Hieroglyphs. The action of the novel takes place in China against the background of agrarian reform in 1950. A prosperous landowner, Simen Nao, is shot by the village poor and after his death is taken to the Lord of Hell, from whom he asks for six rebirths and returns to his village for 50 years as a donkey, an ox, a pig, a dog, a monkey, and finally a man.

In staging Mo Yan's multi-populated and complex novel, Ding Yiteng and his co-author Wang Anni (staged translation by Alexei Rodionov) focus on the protagonist Simen Nao and the Lan family, representatives of three generations of this family, tracing the changing fortunes and circumstances of these characters, preserving the signs of the epochs in which the characters lived, as well as some minor but very distinctive characters who are not important to the plot, but crucial to understanding the time.

There are nine actresses who will play both female and male characters. Here Ding Yiteng follows the traditions of Chinese theatre, where in different epochs either only women or only men were involved in theatre. And now in modern Chinese theatre there are famous, popular actresses who have made a name for themselves just by playing male characters.

Part of the production process for the premiere production is the obligatory and rather complicated training with exercises from the Beijing opera, which is led by Jiang Shuyuan, a student of the famous master Yang Chi.

Ding Yiteng, director: "Mo Yan is one of my favorite writers and I hold him in great reverence. Working on the stage I focused on the relationships of the characters, the love vicissitudes of the novel, which are so skillfully written by the author.

It is important for us to preserve and reflect Mo Yan's magical realism on the one hand, and on the other hand his consonance with Kafka, which is important to me. Therefore, the artistic solution will be quite fantasy-like, and at the same time based on traditional Chinese culture."

Ding Yiteng (born 1991) is an actor and director, PhD candidate of Peking University and Central Academy of Drama (Beijing). He is the winner of the National New Outstanding Chinese New Director Award (2018) and was recognised as the best actor at the Fangyu ART Festival (2017). The premiere at the Alexandrinsky Theatre is his third work in Russia, having previously directed «I Didn't Kill My Husband» at the Theatre of Nations (2024) and «One Day Three Autumn» at Novosibirsk's Old House Theatre (2026). The production team includes: Beijing opera teacher Jiang Shuyuan; production designer Liu Kedong; costume designer Elena Zhukova; composer He Guofeng; video artist Maria Varakhalina; lighting designer Denis Solntsev.

The production is being rehearsed by: Olga Belinskaya, Yanina Lakoba, Vasilisa Alekseeva, Maria Nefyodova, Anastasia Grebenchuk, Anna Seledets, Daria Klimenko, Daria Vaneyeva, Elizaveta Furmanova.

Premiere - 5 May 2026