Today's visit to "Only Henan: A City of Theatrical Fantasy" deeply moved me.
In the grand narrative of *The Railway Station Theater*, I witnessed a poignant and intense brotherly bond—Li Shiyi, the elder brother of Li Shiba, harboring an almost tragic tolerance and boundless love for his brother. The horrors of the 1942 Henan famine were reenacted on stage, the desperate scene of starving people scrambling for food was suffocating. When Li Shiyi, desperately seeking some life-saving seeds from his brother, the stationmaster, learned that the price would be his brother's life, his world crumbled instantly. Ultimately, Li Shiba opened the granary to distribute the grain, sacrificing himself in the process. Li Shiyi's madness and breakdown upon learning all this vividly portrayed the struggle of humanity under extreme circumstances.
The smaller theater production *Wheat, Oh Wheat* depicts the resilient landscape of the people of Henan, who have depended on the land for thousands of years. Those simple and hardworking farmers, dedicating their lives to the wheat fields, saw wheat not only as food but also as their roots and soul. With the southward advance of the Jin army at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Henan was forever cut off from the dynastic capital, a historical turning point tinged with desolation and regret.
Another short play, "Su Shi's Henan," succinctly portrays the tumultuous life of the literary giant Su Shi in just thirty minutes. From his initial fame through the imperial examinations, to his repeated demotions and fluctuating fortunes, until his eventual pardon but failure to return to the capital Bianjing, where he died and was buried in Henan, his poetry is filled with a magnanimous outlook on life and an optimistic view of hardship. Yet, isn't this also a kind of spiritual transcendence under the pressure of reality? Behind that "forced magnanimity" lies a profound undercurrent of unfulfilled ambition throughout his life.
This trip was not merely a theatrical experience, but a profound dialogue with the land, history, and the depths of human nature.